Ohio State University ponders shutdown of the Frank W. Hale Jr. Cultural Center
3 March 2025 |
African-American Seventh-day Adventists are concerned that the Ohio State University (OSU) may shut down the Frank W. Hale Jr. Cultural Center, known to students on campus as the Black Student Union, a landmark in one of the largest universities in the United States. The center was named after well-known Seventh-day Adventist university administrator and civil rights pioneer Frank W. Hale, Jr.
In the wake of changes to DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) policies by the current presidential administration, the OSU campus newspaper, The Lantern, reports that
Ohio State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Center for Belonging and Social Change will be discontinued effective Friday, and related professional staff positions will be removed, university president Ted Carter Jr. announced at Thursday’s University Senate meeting.… The Hale Black Cultural Center, Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity, and other DEI-related units at the university are currently under the president’s review, though they remain open at the time of publication.
Frank W. Hale, Jr.
Though his name is not well-known to non African-American Adventists, Frank W. Hale Jr. is one of the most noteworthy figures the denomination has produced.
After a successful tenure as president of Oakwood, Hale moved to the Ohio State University as associate dean of the Graduate School and professor of communication. After a strong push to enhance the racial and academic climate at OSU, he was installed as vice provost for minority affairs in 1978. Hale worked with Jesse Jackson on Operation PUSH, and it was Hale who introduced Wintley Phipps to Jackson, resulting in Phipps’ performance at two Democratic National Conventions.
Hale’s signature achievement within the church was the organization of the Laymen’s Leadership Conference of Black Adventists, whose guiding principle was that “Every non-white Seventh-day Adventist has all the rights, privileges, freedoms, and responsibilities within our church body of his or her white Seventh-day Adventist counterpart.” At that time not only were black students refused acceptance in some Adventist schools, but some white pastors refused to baptize Black people, or turned them away from white churches when they came to worship services. Hale lobbied hard, against significant backlash from church leaders, to reverse endemic segregation and discrimination.
Hale retired in 1988, and in 1989 the Hale Black Cultural Center was opened on OSU’s campus. Hale passed away in 2011.
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