Many Caucasian Americans have never experienced the traumatic effects that prejudice can have on the mind.

Jane Elliot, an elementary teacher in Iowa, decided to show her class of Caucasian nine-year-olds how it felt to be discriminated against on the basis of a physical characteristic over which they had no control, said Caleb Judy, University Board human potential coordinator. Her decision came right after the murder of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968.

Elliot separated her children into two groups, blue-eyed children and brown-eyed children. Her 1968 exercise placed the blue-eyed children in control one day and brown-eyed children in control the next.

“I chose a physical characteristic over which they had no control and attributed negative elements to this characteristic,” Elliot said in a press release.

She discovered that no matter which group was in control, members of the oppressed group became withdrawn and sad, Judy said.

From 1968 to 1984, Elliot continued her brown eyes, blue eyes exercise with schoolchildren, and she continued to be surprised each time about how the mechanics worked, Judy said.

“I administered this exercise to a group of children with dyslexia,” Elliot said in a press release. “Brown-eyed children who couldn’t really read or spell anything without stammering suddenly could spell words they couldn’t before. On the other hand, I had a very smart girl who could multiply very well. The moment she, as a blue-eyed child, became in an inferior position, she started to stammer and make mistakes doing her sums,” she said.

It is now 30 years later, and Elliot still is administering her test to adults. She travels the country, demonstrating her behavior training and letting white people experience what prejudice and oppression does to a person.

She will bring her presentation to campus tonight at 7 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom of the Martin Luther King Jr. University Union. A reception in the 1895 Room will follow her presentation, titled “The Anatomy of Prejudice.”

Elliot may seem like a leader in such a prejudice society; however, her success did not come without complications and hardships, Judy said.

Elliot said that had she known the hardships that she, her family and her community would have to endure, she would never have battled against prejudice the way she had. As a result of her blue-eyed, brown-eyed studies and her success, her own four children were taunted and even spit on by teachers, classmates and classmates’ parents in her small town of Riceville, Iowa.

In addition to the torture to her children, her father, a merchant in Riceville, was run out of business, Judy said. The day after her appearance on the Johnny Carson Show, the people of Riceville decided to boycott her father’s store and not buy from him. The townspeople thought all African-Americans would think all Riceville residents thought like Elliot and would begin moving there in droves, Judy said. His business eventually closed, and he had to declare bankruptcy.

Elliot’s family was extremely displeased with her father’s close of business and bankruptcy.

“My mother thought I’d gone crazy and asked me, `Can’t you just stop with this nonsense?’ She has never forgiven me,” Elliot said. “My brothers, self-made millionaires and conservative Republicans, wondered what the hell my problem was.”

Elliot’s father, however, always stood behind her even though he was a very prejudiced man and said he would never let any of his daughters marry a black man. He never tried to stop what she was doing, Judy said.

Elliot said she was crazy about her father.

“It’s a shame he was so prejudiced,” she said.

“The Anatomy of Justice” is sponsored by UB Human Potential, UB Lectures, the Office of Civil Rights and Diversity, EIUnity, the College of Minority Affairs, Housing and Dining Services, Department of Counseling and Student Development and the National Panhellenic Council.

Admission is $5 for the public and free for Eastern students with an ID.