By Sherry Boschert, The Nation

She almost didn’t notice them anymore, all the white men staring out from portraits on the walls of Yale University’s halls. No darker faces. No female faces. But when Pamela Price entered Yale as a proud Black nationalist with an Angela Davis–style afro in the freshman class of 1974, culture shock hit hard. It wasn’t just the class differences, though those were huge.

Low, moat-like walls surrounded the stone residence colleges and many other Yale buildings, sending a subliminal message to “keep out.” Somehow the school made Black students feel like foreigners, which alienated her. Black students got the message that they were at Yale only because of affirmative action, as though invisible asterisks were affixed to their…

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This article was adapted from Sherry Boschert’s 37 Words: Title IX and Fifty Years of Fighting Sex Discrimination (The New Press).