Jane Elliott’s Blue-Eye/Brown-Eye Experiment: A Controversial Lesson in Racism

Have you ever wondered how easy it is to create segregation? After the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee, the controversial figure in U.S education Jane Elliot set out to teach her students a powerful lesson about racism and discrimination through a (social/psychological) experiment. This became known as the blue eye/ brown eye experiment. 

Elliot divided the classroom between blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children, giving the brown-eyed children special privileges and while treating the blue-eyed children unfairly. Within just hours the dynamic of the classroom changed and the blue-eyed children began treating even their friends with brown eyes poorly. She did this twice over the span of 2 days; but the second time the roles were switched and the brown-eyed children were the ones treated poorly. The group of children labelled ‘inferior’ experienced a decrease in self- esteem and it all but disappeared, while prejudice materialized even though none had existed before. This experiment revealed how easily social norms and biases can form and how discrimination can affect behaviour and self-perception. 

While Elliot’s experiment was praised for its demonstration of learned prejudice, it has also been criticized for its ethical and emotional impact on the children involved. This article looks into the significance and controversy surrounding Jane Elliot’s experiments and how experiments like these can spark debates about ethics and education.

The experiment first began in April of 1986 the day after the assasination. Elliot had spent the day before glued to her tv observing the racist comments and her sadness quickly turned to anger. The next day her third grade students' lack of knowledge on racism fuelled her belief that we, as a society, are responsible for ending racism and discrimination. 

On the first day she gave both groups from her  third grade class collars labelled ‘blue-eyed’ or ‘brown-eyed’ to separate them, then she appointed the brown-eyed children as the ‘superior’ group. They were considered better and they had special privileges; that is, they were considered cleaner, smarter and just generally better. This lead to problems among students like broken friendships and mistreatment of the blue-eyed children. On the second day the roles were switched and the blue- eyed children became the children deemed superior; however, an interesting observation made was that they were far kinder to the ‘inferior’ brown-eyed children than the brown-eyed children had been to them when they were the ‘inferior’ ones. Elliot deduced that the blue-eyed children were kinder to the brown-eyed children because they knew what prejudice and discrimination felt like. 

After the experiment Elliot had all the children write an essay on what it felt like to be discriminated against which was later published in a local newspaper called The Riceville Recorder  and was picked up later by The Associated Press. This brought national attention to the experiment sending a shock through the United States and it earned Elliot great fame giving her the opportunity to, for example, star in The Tonight Show and her experiment later even became a documentary. 

So why was Jane Elliot considered so controversial and why was her experiment deemed unethical by some? 

Quite a few of Elliott’s experiments crossed ethical boundaries because they often subjected the participants to stress and emotional harm.  A lot of people argue that her experiments have had negative long term effects especially on children because they were often left feeling bad. Another issue with quite a few experiments she has done is that often the participants often did not give their consent. For example, in the blue-eye/brown-eye experiment it is stated that she did not inform involved students of what the experiment entailed, and instead simply asked them if they wanted to learn about discrimination. 

Quite a few of the participants talked about the effect the experiment had on them,  however the answers varied very much. A lot of the students were influenced by their parents to be offended by the study because many were angry saying things like “How dare you try this cruel experiment out on white children”; further justifying it with reasons similar to this: "Black children grow up accustomed to such behavior, but white children, there's no way they could possibly understand it. It's cruel to white children and will cause them great psychological damage." Elliott fought back and forced the parents to ask themselves: "Why are we so worried about the fragile egos of white children who experience a couple of hours of made-up racism one day when blacks experience real racism every day of their lives?" 

Many children, hearing their parents, decided they were angry as well but some actually said that it made a positive impact on them and they would never forget the experience.One of Elliott’s old students, Malinda Whisenhunt, even said to Elliott, "I've never forgotten the exercise… It changed my life. Not a day goes by without me thinking about it, Ms. Elliott. When my grandchildren are old enough, I'd give anything if you'd try the exercise out on them. Would you? Could you?" after seeing Elliott again for the first time in years. However, the experiment still caused a lot of backlash for not only Elliot but for her children as well. Her daughter Mary for example, was surrounded and taunted in a hallway being told her mother will begin sleeping with black men at this point and her son got beat up badly at school, one of her daughters even called a ‘Nigger lover’. Despite all this backlash Elliot continued to  conduct this experiment several more times as she kept teaching in Riceville and later in other places. People still have mixed feelings to this day including her old co-workers. 

In conclusion, Jane Elliott’s blue-eye/brown-eye experiment is to this day one of the most powerful yet controversial lessons on prejudice that has ever been done. Even though the experiment is simple in itself, Elliot still managed to expose how quickly discrimination can form and how much it affects people’s behaviour and self-perspective. While her methods are considered harsh and ethically questionable by some, one could argue her experiments forced people to confront uncomfortable truths about racism that still apply in today's world, and that should still be acknowledged today. The long lasting impact it made on her students and the national attention it got truly did open people’s eyes to the dangers of prejudice but also the importance of empathy. Irrespective of whether you see it as unethical or ground-breaking, Elliot’s experiment continues to challenge society, reflecting on how easily hatred is learned.