Black Women Seek a Role in Philosophy.

The article focuses on the Collegium of Black Women Philosophers, which will hold its first meeting in October 2007 at Vanderbilt University. The group, which has only 30 members and some graduate students, was formed by Kathryn T. Gines who comments on the low numbers and isolation that African American women philosophers confess to feeling. Joyce Mitchell Cook was the first African American woman to receive a doctorate in philosophy from Yale University in 1965. Sally Haslanger of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology discusses her own research into the demographic data of philosophy teachers in the U.S. and found that only about 19 percent are women but is unsure how many are African American.