Harding University

lead to broken homes and a rise in crime. Benson maintained that mixing of the races was against the divine order. In 1953, Norman Adamson became the first black person accepted to Harding. However, when administrators learned he was black he was denied admission.
In 1963, three black students were admitted to the Searcy campus, making Harding the second private institution in Arkansas to admit black people. In a 2012 article, it was suggested that this decision was motivated by expectation that the coming Civil Rights Act would require "Harding to desegregate to continue receiving federal funds", but contemporary sources make no mention of this as a consideration: The Gazette applauded Harding's "voluntary action" as an "example" for other Arkansas church-related colleges and deserving an "ovation...for the grace with which they have undertaken this social change". The Bison proclaimed "Benson's leadership in the movement for equal opportunity makes us proud, even boastful; it makes us happy, even ecstatic", …