There’s a news story here about how “Black students at Duke University are angry over a university research paper that found African-American undergraduates at the school are disproportionally more likely to switch from tough majors to easier ones.” The story suggests that many think researchers should keep such unpleasant facts to themselves, but there’s not much in it that denies the truth of the paper’s conclusion. The story also notes that the paper’s findings suggest that “attempts to increase representation [of minorities] at elite universities through the use of affirmative action may come at a cost of perpetuating underrepresentation of blacks in the natural sciences and engineering.” The paper was cited in the amicus brief filed this fall by Stuart Taylor and Richard Sander that makes that point in urging the Court to grant review in Fisher v. University of Texas, a challenge to that school’s use of racial and ethnic preferences in undergraduate admissions (word on the Court’s decision may come today, by the way).
Just one quibble: universities are not attempting to increase representation of "minorities," tout court, they are attempting to increase black and Hispanic representation. Generally speaking, Asians don't need preferences to get into selective universities.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseNope, they are trying to keep Asians out to prevent their "over-representation."
The new buzz-word is "under-represented minorities" to justify the (generally unacknowledged) exclusion of Asians.
Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseAlthough in at least some STEM programs, domestic students, regardless of color, are an underrepresented minority on campus, and recruiting them is generally not a high priority at the university level. At the faculty level it is a different matter, simply because holding meetings and writing papers with people whose native language is English makes life easier.
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Reply to this commentLinkReport AbuseYou forgot, in the liberal lexicon, the definition of minority is limited to five groups; Gay, Women, African American, Hispanic, and evolving political correct suffering group to mine for votes of the day.
You will note Hispanic and not ‘Hispanic American’ because that could potentially be construed as excluding the very popular aggrieved minority, illegal aliens…oops strike that I mean, undocumented Americans.
Roger-
I attended a prospective admissions night for a different Top 10 school where the minority admissions counselor informed the minority questioner asking about the List of Books Read portion of the application, not to worry because they were counting anything between 2 covers now. If true, what does that say about the actual level of academic expectations? If it was said to mollify the concerns and get more minorities on campus, how unfair to the student once enrolled and mismatched to actual expectations.
That was the beginning of the recognition that something substantial had shifted in the mission of the campus.
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