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• "More proof that mentors matter"
• Dr. Simmons in The Brown Daily Herald
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Pioneering university president compares challenges to success for African American women versus men. (3:14)
 

Full Interview (24:10)
 

Tavis: Pleased and honored to welcome Dr. Ruth Simmons to this program. In 2001 she took over as president of Brown University, making her the first woman, the first African American period, in history to lead an Ivy League institution.

As I mentioned at the top of the program, she was born to a family of Texas sharecroppers, the youngest, in fact, of 12 children. Dr. Simmons, an honor to have you on this program.

Dr. Ruth Simmons: Thank you, thank you, glad to be here.

Tavis: We've been trying to do this for all the years you've been at Brown. (Laughter) And we finally got you in L.A. on a tape day where we could make this happen, so thanks for coming by to see us.

Simmons: My pleasure. My pleasure.

Tavis: You're in town this week for a conference earlier about what happens when women run the world, when women run things, what happens. What is the answer to that question?

Simmons: Well, it's not a short answer, to be sure.

Tavis: We got time, take it away.

Simmons: I think that the emphasis that Maria Shriver is placing on the role of women is really to encourage women to think about the seriousness of being responsible in the positions that they now enjoy. So the first wave of women who came into these professions and who rose to leadership positions were concerned about measuring up, let's say, and doing as good as men before them had - as well as men before them had done.

Now, leadership is all about something else - it's about managing your lives, it's about what your responsibilities are for the people that you oversee, it's about your civic responsibilities, it's much broader than just succeeding as an individual.

So I think trying to shape the world, trying to shape leadership differently, is what this is all about.

Tavis: How have you personally navigated your journey of measuring up? Because every woman, I think, to your point, at some point has felt or feels that pressure, rightly or wrongly. But tell me about your experience measuring up.

Simmons: Well, I think given my generation, when I was born and brought up in Texas in pre-civil rights days, that my own experience has probably been a little bit different.

First of all, I was taught as a child that I would never measure up. Everything around me, of course, said you can never achieve. So for me, this journey has really been largely about discovery - discovering who I am, discovering what I can do, discovering what I can do to help others, and in a sense refuting those stereotypes and stigmas that I grew up with.

So it's still a challenge even for me today, leading a major university, to recognize that gee, this is something that I can do. So I continue to wrestle with that and part of thinking about leadership is really sorting out how you wrestle with it and how you can do it well and how you can be of service to others who have the same dilemmas.

One of the things I love, if I can just add this, is that I see so many young Hispanic students, other minorities, poor White students who come to Brown, for example, who have a very simple thing that they need to feel.

One, they need to feel that they belong; they need to feel that they deserve to be there, and they need to feel that there is respect for them. So in a strange way that's my odyssey, is really about trying to give that to others, because a few people gave that to me and as a consequence I was able to do something with my life.

Tavis: You've said so much now, as you always do, that I want to go back and unpack bit by bit. Let me start with this - when you referenced a moment ago the number of poor students, qualified though they may be, poor nonetheless, but they get a chance to attend Brown and that's been one of your hallmarks, one of your passions, making sure that no student who deserves to go to Brown but couldn't afford to go there would be turned away.

Simmons: Right.

Tavis: Tell me about how that has worked for you, what that program's been like.

Simmons: Well, I think this is one of the great responsibilities that nations have, and particularly in this country, with the tradition that we have. Everybody who's born in this country should believe in their heart of hearts that with the right amount of work and the right amount of help, that they can do anything and that it's solely based on their character and on their promise and on their talent and their ambition.

So we wanted very much at Brown to make sure that this idea of rich schools not being for poor kids was eliminated, so we instituted need-blind admission, which means that no matter what your personal circumstances, if you're admitted then you will get enough money to come to Brown.

That means no loans if you're very poor. You get no loans, you get full scholarships. That's very, very important for families, for example, in Brownsville, trying to figure out how to make an Ivy League education work - very important.

So that's been wonderful and very inspiring, to see all the students who grasp that and then come to university knowing that they have everything they need to be able to go to college.

Another thing you said a few moments ago, you were talking about - you kept using the word "discovery." This journey to discovery that you have been on to understand who you are, and that you are capable and that you do deserve and that you can be the president of an institution - you said you still wrestle with that even to this day.

Simmons: Oh, sure.

Tavis: Tell me about the unique challenges that a Black woman has in navigating that journey of discovery.

Simmons: Well, I think it starts as a child, and again, I have to put my own discovery in the context of how I was reared. First of all, the youngest child -

Tavis: That's an old-school word, "reared."

Simmons: Oh, okay, sorry. (Laughter)

Tavis: No, no, no, no, I love that. It reminds me of my mother now.

Simmons: Okay.

Tavis: I wasn't raised, I was reared.

Simmons: You were reared, okay. (Laughter)

Tavis: All right, go ahead.

Simmons: So the last of 12 children and with seven brothers, and in a very traditional family where my father was the absolute authority in the family. So coming from that context I didn't grow up feeling that as a girl I was entitled to the same thing that my brothers were entitled to because they were - they would disagree with this, but they were really on a pedestal. (Laughter) I can hear them complaining now.

Tavis: Yeah, I'll be getting email. "My sister was not telling the truth."

Simmons: Right. (Laughter) So I think the first thing as a child, in a very careful way, beginning to discover gee, maybe that's not true. Maybe I could be as smart as they. Maybe I could be as achievement-oriented as they. Maybe I could do things too.

So it starts there. I'm thankful that I had older sisters who led the way in showing that we should have some strong self-identity as girls. From there, of course, through school, just figuring out that guy in the class who was just the smartest thing ever, and for the longest I didn't think I deserved to be in that class.

I think I frankly held myself back a lot when I was in grade school and even in junior high and high school because I thought that the guys should be first in class.

So I think working against that and finally trying to discover what I would be comfortable being and also what was socially accepted in my family and in my social group. In our community we still have problems with women achieving. We believe that men, Black men, should be out front, they should be accomplishing more, and that it's problematic for women to be doing, for example, what I'm doing more than, let's say, a male.

Let me just say that the people always refer to me as the first Black woman president of an Ivy League university. They never say, "The first Black person."

Tavis: I did a moment ago.

Simmons: No, I'm just saying in general.

Tavis: I did both. I did both.

Simmons: In general. I think that's because it's so deeply embedded in our culture. So I think it's always the case that what we learn to do is to accommodate those feelings by trying to be non-threatening, by trying to demonstrate that we are women, that we want everything that any normal woman wants and at the same time we think we can do that and achieve as well.

That's a constant struggle for most of the women that I know in my age group, and I think it's even more so for the young women who are coming along today.

Tavis: The irony of this is - and all my friends know this, so I'm not saying this because Ruth Simmons is sitting here - I've always believed, since I started studying this, I think that women are smarter than men, on balance. That's just my own assessment and I could debate that all day long.

Simmons: Well, I would not agree with that, but okay.

Tavis: I think across the board there are examples of that, but we won't debate that, that women are smarter than men. But that said, what do you make of this particular irony, which is as you talk now about the era and the age that you grew up in, one could make the case now that in the Black community specifically that women are the overachievers?

There are all kinds of stats one could point to about the difficulty and the challenges that Black males, that Black men are having, and that women now are the super-achievers in our community specifically.

Simmons: Yeah, I think that's one of the holdovers from the bigotry, the long history of discrimination in his country, is that it was easier for women to move through than it was for men, and to some extent that's still true.

I had a conversation with a very powerful group of men recently at the top of their profession, and they said something very shocking to me - I should say African American men at the top of their profession - and they are wealthy, they're accomplished, they've done all the right things, and when I asked them about the workplace and what they do in the workplace they say they make every effort to shrink in size and not to be intimidating to their coworkers.

That's how long-lasting this stigma is. So I think it's not surprising to me that women are, in fact, overachieving to that degree, because in a sense we don't have the same impediments.

At the same time, I think the educational system has become, in an odd way, antithetical. Now this is very controversial to say this, but antithetical to the way that boys are socialized. So as a teacher, what do I want? I want you to come in my class and sit down and be quiet and do all your assignments the way I want, to be on time and so forth.

Women are socialized to do all those things, and whatever you tell me to do as a teacher, I'm going to do it because I want to get the star on my paper, okay? Many boys are relegated to, oh, dear, special classes and so forth because of so-called behavioral issues and so that sets them on a path, often, where as you know, high drop-out rates for males, and that's true in a number of different categories, frankly; it's true for African Americans, it's true for Hispanic-Americans, it's becoming more true for White Americans, this issue with boys in school.

So I think it's easier for girls to come through that process and to succeed, and colleges reward good behavior. Good behavior is testing well, making As, not making Cs or being so much a slow developer. Colleges reward people who are fast developers, and often boys, as we know, develop somewhat more slowly than girls.

Tavis: We skimmed the surface of it, Dr. Simmons, but I want to come back now to your personal educational odyssey because it's easy now, and I certainly revel in it - as I said, I've been waiting for years to talk to you on this program - I revel in your accomplishment as the president of Brown.

But it's still a fascinating journey for me from that family in Texas where you were so poor that your family couldn't even afford books. Tell me more about how you - and you hit on it earlier, but I want to go back into it again - about how you developed a love of education. How'd that happen?

Simmons: Well, this is the great thing about the kind of society we can have. Whatever families don't have, we can as a society provide it. That's the beauty of it. So it's true that my family was, at a point, desperately poor and unable to provide those things, but there was a community center where my brother was able to go and learn how to play basketball and get a basketball scholarship to go to Prairie View and has spent his life as a coach.

There was a community center where we could go and get books, borrow books and take them home and read them, or get involved in other kinds of cultural events.

So this is why what we provide in our schools - arts education, music, a variety of things - is so important because so many children don't have that at home. So I found my way to school. I had teachers who said, "Gee, you seem pretty smart, Ruth. Let me find some more books for you," or "Let me take you to a play," or "Let me see if maybe you could get into college."

Teachers, teachers, teachers, plus all the other help that we had, really, outside the home - that's really my story. And I was hungry for it and I took advantage of it, and as a consequence, I was able to go to college. That's really what made this possible for me.

Tavis: To your point now about college, there are two questions I want to ask relative to your college years - one question about HBCUs period and the other about Africana studies. Specifically with regard to HBCUs, you went to an HBCU.

Simmons: I did.

Tavis: Historically Black college or university - Dillard.

Simmons: Dillard.

Tavis: Tell me about your experience there, and moreover about what you see as the relevance today of Black colleges. And I ask that against the backdrop of this conversation, now that we have a Black president, of the day being near when we need to do away with what people call segregated studies - we don't need Black studies, we don't need Chicano studies, we don't need women's studies.

We got a Black president; we're in a post-racial America. Tell me about your experience and again, your assessment of whether or not there's still a need for HBCUs.

Simmons: Well, I think post-racial is a lovely idea, but practically speaking I went to Dillard because my teacher was very concerned that if I went to another university that I might not have the same opportunity to act in plays, because at the time I was going to be a drama major.

So she recommended that I go to Dillard because it was a Black college and she thought I would have a chance to - more of a chance to get roles and to be successful in theater. Of course I didn't do theater, but that's beside the point - she thought that was a good reason to go.

Now as for HBCUs, very valuable. Hispanic-serving institutions - very valuable. Community colleges - fantastic. Religious institutions - great. What has been great about this educational system in our country is that it's diverse. We don't all have to be the same. We can be different and still be unified. So HBCUs are good for some students who desire to have that. I was president of a women's college, for goodness sakes - women's college. Some people think that's a throwback.

But honestly, for the students who are able to go to Smith or Wellesley, that's a good experience for them. Education is so valuable that we should be trying to found as many different kinds of institutions to capture the interest and the imagination of students. So I applaud diversity in our educational institutions.

Tavis: I mentioned Africana studies. We on my radio program just a couple weeks ago did what I thought was a pretty good program - we spent the entire show celebrating the 40th anniversary of Black studies, Africana studies, African American studies - whatever. Every university has its own name. Had a wonderful conversation about the 40th anniversary of these departments on major campuses across the country.

One of your scholars, Patricia Rose, Professor Rose, who runs your leadership of Africana studies -

Simmons: Brilliant.

Tavis: - absolutely - was a part of that conversation. There were two things that came out of that that I want to ask you about. One, your sense of how we ought to be celebrating 40 years of teaching this on college campuses, and why Brown has a department that it supports that does this kind of work.

Simmons: Okay. First of all, universities are all about knowledge and inquiry, and there are so many different areas that are valid areas for inquiry, and inquiry is all about going through an exacting process to unearth facts that we ordinarily wouldn't understand or be able to see.

So we have Sanskrit at Brown, we have Middle Eastern studies at Brown, we have all kinds of different areas because that's what universities do, and that's not well understood. Universities study things - everything - and this is something that people hear about. People hear about basket-weaving, but really, there are -

Tavis: Let me jump in right quick.

Simmons: Yes.

Tavis: Why do you say that's not well understood?

Simmons: I think it isn't well understood because so many people see a subject area in a university and they pooh-pooh it. They say, "Well, why on Earth are you studying that?" Meaning gee, I don't like that category - why are you studying it? We study genes. We study every conceivable thing. So let me get back to Africana studies and Afro-American studies. For so long in our country we relegated anything having to do with African American life and culture and history to a non-academic approach.

African American studies was all about explaining that African American studies, just as any other legitimate area of study, was appropriate to undertake. But here's the thing that I would add to it that's important to me - African American studies has to be a series inquiry. It can't just be making people feel good about themselves.

So I often say in African American studies if you want to feel good about yourself, go someplace else, because that's not what African American studies does. African American studies is supposed to bring a critical perspective about African American life - what happened, why did it happen, what are the manifestations of African American culture, do we understand it well enough? What is hip-hop all about?

So people confuse hip-hop and the study of hip-hop, so hip-hop may be a genre that some people don't like or don't approve of, but it's a legitimate area to study - two separate things. So I think the way to celebrate it is to be demanding, to insist on the most rigorous study and excellent scholarship, and I think that's what you see developing around the country.

Tavis: How did you personally navigate going to school during the civil rights era and studying French?

Simmons: (Laughs) Well, that was interesting. A lot of people didn't approve because they thought I should be in something practical like sociology or I should go to law school and do what Thurgood Marshall had done and so forth.

But I think it's possible for all of us to make our contributions to the world but also to be happy. I was happy studying French. It's a fascinating culture, it's a fascinating language, I love the literature, and so I was drawn to it the way you would be to any interest.

So I owned it the way I could have owned anything else as a student, and I think making the statement that I could study anything I wanted at that particular juncture was very important because African Americans had a list of things they should study.

Tavis: Let me close our conversation by asking this. I was just reading the other day about your tenure at Brown, and you are rare amongst college presidents - you have now, as we speak, an over 80 percent, last time they checked it, at least, an over 80 percent approval rating amongst the students at Brown. Is there anything more important to you as a president in terms of having the approval of all those on the campus?

Is it the students' approval that matters most, or am I missing something here?

Simmons: Well, I think - I even say to my students it's not approval that's important to me. I want to do something that's meaningful and I want to do something that really makes a difference. So if people approve, that's okay; but it's not what I seek.

Given the journey that I've had - I know you'll understand this - given the journey I've had and the people I've seen in that journey, it would be unworthy of me to do a job because there is some strong approval for it. I seek to be courageous enough to do what's difficult.

So it makes me a little bit uncomfortable, frankly, having that degree of approval, but as I said at the beginning, I'm still on this journey of discovery and I'm still uncomfortable, coming from where I came from, with the fact that people approve of me. (Laughter)

Tavis: And that is why she's the president of Brown and so beloved as the president of Brown, because of that demeanor and that attitude right there. She is, of course, Dr. Ruth Simmons, the first African American woman, the first African American, to be at an Ivy League institution and we celebrate that. An honor to have you in L.A. on this program.

Simmons: Thank you so much.

Tavis: Nice to see you.

Simmons: It's been a pleasure.

Tavis: My pleasure.