Guiffrida, Douglas A. “African American Student Organizations As Agents of Social Integration.” Journal of College Student Development. 2003,
American College Personnel Association. University of Pennsylvania. April 2008.
<http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/journal_of_college_student_development/v044/44.3guiffrida.html>.
It is no surprise that African Americans would have difficulty integrating socially and academically into a predominantly white institution. Interviewed students admitted to changing their appearance and speech for a white crowd. They cannot easily fit into large student organizations, but instead create small ones to help maintain their ethnic identity. Universities directed student organizations in the direction of integrating African Americans into PWIs and making them comfortable. Minorities found it beneficial to attend a PWI because it prepared them for the real world, but had difficulty growing close with white students.
Faber College is the quintessence of the predominantly white institutions talked about in this article. Animal House is entirely about the social life in universities, and the first institution to present it is the Omega House. Pretentious, WASPy phonies welcome freshmen Larry Kroger and Kent Dorfman into the fraternity house, and seat them next to the socially awkward rejects: Mohammet, who wears a turban, Jugdish, who possesses an unidentifiable ethnicity, Sidney, a nerd, and the blind, handicapped Clayton. Surely these students could never express their ethnic identity in such a tight atmosphere.
A contrast to this image is the all-black band, Otis Day and the Knights, playing at a Delta party, whose attendees are all white. Everyone is having a great time. Otis seems like a band that would play for a different crowd at a university, and this inference is reinforced in a later scene. Delta brothers unknowingly walk into a blacks-only club where Otis performs. Boon’s, one of the brothers, disposition alters, like when he shouts, “Otis! My man!” It is clear the members of the band are not so friendly in this atmosphere. The whites have their places to let loose, which is almost everywhere as demonstrated in Animal House, and the blacks have their place to do so.


