January 5, 1999
Advocate and Speaker Jane Elliott Presents “The
Anatomy of Prejudice” at Middlebury College on Jan. 25
Praise for Elliott’s “Brown Eyes/Blue
Eyes” Program: “Over
800 students, faculty, staff, and community members attended this
event.
Students have continued to speak about the impact
that Ms. Elliott has had on them. Many students have changed their
attitudes towards individuals who are different from themselves.”
—Jodi Garbin, Student Life Office, Grand Valley State University,
Allendale, Mich.
Jane Elliott, a former teacher from Iowa who has
committed herself to leading a fight against prejudice for the
past 30 years, will conduct a three-hour workshop at 7:30 p.m.
on Jan. 25 in Middlebury College’s Mead Chapel on Hepburn Road
off College Street (Route 125). The event is free and open to
the public.
Elliot continues to rivet the attention of her college,
military, and corporate audiences with the nationally acclaimed
“Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise that first captured
the attention of her third-grade class the day after the assassination
of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1968.
In her workshop, she divides members of her audience
into two groups based on a physical characteristic over which
they have no control-eye color. Declaring that those with brown
eyes are more intelligent, better behaved, quicker to learn, and
in every way superior to those with blue eyes, she grants privileges
to the brown-eyed group that are denied to the blue-eyed group.
Elliott’s thought-provoking and enlightening exercise
causes many to experience for the first time a bigotry that numerous
people encounter throughout their lives, and offers new understanding
as a result.
The “Blue Eyed/Brown Eyed” program pioneered
diversity training and has been featured on “Oprah,”
“Today,” “The Tonight Show,” ABC News, and
PBS’s “Frontline.” Elliott and her work have been the
subject of three award-winning films: “Eye of the Storm,”
“Eye of the Beholder,” and “Blue Eyed.” Disney
Studios currently plans to produce a feature-length film starring
Susan Sarandon as Elliott.
For more info, call Mary Duffy, women’s studies administrator,
at 802-443-5937.