<p>At some point all of us are just going to stop responding to posts such as this. Why bother?</p>
<p>momsdream - you write “Wealthy URMs with college educated parents in professional fields are held to the same standards as everyone else.”</p>
<p>I don’t think that is true at all. I think we ought to do that, but do not. It’s best for a college to accept URMs who can pay - they get the money, and the reputation for diversity.</p>
<p>Mini knows more about this than I do, maybe he’ll chime in.</p>
<p>I agree that society do treat blacks differently from whites. It’s called affirmative action.</p>
<p>Society is not equitable. No one is going to pretend that it is. But then how would you explain the success of the Asian race in America? The first Asians were uneducated and agricultural laborers just like most Latinos today. While blacks were protesting the inequality of their citizenship rights, Asians were denied citizenship altogether. </p>
<p>Personally, I think you should fix the problem from the bottom up. By the time kids get to college age, they have already developed most of their prejudices. They have already heard the stereotypes that URM’s are “stupid.” Consequently, it is not very surprising that when white/Asian kids get rejected from selective schools, they tend to use URM’s as scapegoats. However, if we can fix the education system at lower levels and make sure that kids of all races receive the same fundamental schooling, we can help alleviate some of the achievement gap. Yes, I know: easier said than done.</p>
<p>Affirmative Action for majority students has and is so interwoven into the fabric of our lives that it is, indeed, often invisible. The advantages of being white are so overwhelming that we should not begrudge the little good that affirmative action does for minorities. Supporting affirmative action is the very least we in the majority can do. If you have not already read this fine article on White Privilege, I recommend it to you:</p>
<p><a href=“http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html[/url]”>http://seamonkey.ed.asu.edu/~mcisaac/emc598ge/Unpacking.html</a></p>
<p>First off, blacks were the only major minority that spent a good portion of their American history as illiterate slaves. (Generations of killing people for trying to learn is bound to affect learning attitudes in a group, yes?)</p>
<p>Secondly, comparing Asians to blacks and hispanics is apocryphal. Firstly, Asians were not enslaved in the same state-supported manner as blacks. They did not have the same centuries long campaign of racism launched against them. Finally, if you read the literature by the American gentry, attitudes toward Asians were less hostile (and in certain cases deferent.) That affects a groups ability to succeed in any society.</p>
<p>Yes, I agree that we need to fix education at the secondary and primary levels. Unfortunately, this sine qua non requires that some blacks and Latinos become community leaders in order to affect attitudes toward education. If you approach many blacks and Latinos, many of them are either unaware or intimidated by options for education.</p>
<p><<it’s best=“” for=“” a=“” college=“” to=“” accept=“” urms=“” who=“” can=“” pay=“” -=“” they=“” get=“” the=“” money,=“” and=“” reputation=“” diversity=“”>></it’s></p>
<p>Wait, wouldn’t that leave mostly a wealthy student body, when a lot of schools already have one of those? And are you saying that only white kids should get FA, or no one should get it?</p>
<p>Racism and under achieving minorities are problems that need to be fixed before the students get to college. At my school, which is very diverse, there is a large African American part of the student body… but very few of those students are in AP classes, relative to white and Asian students. Either the URMs are not being identified as gifted and put into that “track” of classes when they are younger or some sort of societal pressure is keeping them out of attempting harder classes, even though they’re available. If it is “equalized” at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, there is no need for colleges to take any action, because their applicants should then reflect the diversity of America. Just taking a student who hasn’t had the resources of a suburm white kid or has had some of the opportunities but didn’t take advantage of them and plopping him/her in a good university doesn’t mean they’ll do well; many students who haven’t been challenged, when surrounded by other students who are equally smart, just shut down. The problem is more serious than college admission numbers, and preferential treatment of URMs won’t fix it, although it may help.</p>
<p>Brent -</p>
<p>Oh no, I didn’t mean that I think that’s best. I meant that from a business perspective, that is best for the college.</p>
<p>I think that we should accept kids from diverse backgrounds, but work harder at expanding the idea of diversity to include (more prominently) geographic, political, religious, socioeconomic, etc, and take the idea of diversity much further beyond race to encompass diversity of thought, belief, experience, ideas, passion, and goals.</p>
<p>High minded, and perhaps cliched, but I still believe that would be best. For me, that is, not the university’s coffers.</p>
<p>Jenskate-Have you ever followed wealthy URMs through the admissions process at Ivies? I have. Ourcome: deferred then denied. Stats: same as the rest of the average applicant pool…with mroe than one student/URM. My opinions are based on my experience, nothing more.</p>
<p>I’m with the poster that wants to stop responding to this same old same old.</p>
<p>Jews make up 13% of Brown University’3 undergraduate enrollment. Protestants make up 16%. Jews are less than 2% of the US population. Protestants are 51%. Is this evidence that Jews run the world or at least Brown University and that Protestants are discriminated against? Or is it evidence that not all cultures value the same things. Asians are also way over-represented.</p>
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<p>While AA may open the door for URMs, it is up to them to keep your seat at the table, because if you are not taking care of business your happy butt will be sent home quick fast and in a hurry.</p>
<p>Harvard University, Brown University, The University Of Chicago, Dartmouth College, Duke University, The University Of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, And Yale University **filed their brief with the U.S. supreme court in favor of Affirmative Action **</p>
<p>They closed their brief by stating:</p>
<ol>
<li><a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/br…-17-harvard.pdf%5B/url%5D”>http://www.princeton.edu/pr/news/br…-17-harvard.pdf</a></li>
</ol>
<p>We are not so far removed from the days when segregation by race in education, and race discrimination in all sorts of vital opportunities relevant to educational performance, were for many a matter of law.</p>
<p>The major points for affirmative action in their breifs are as follows:</p>
<p>These schools collectively stated</p>
<p>Academically selective universities have a compelling interest in ensuring that their student bodies incorporate the experiences and talents of the wide spectrum of racial and ethnic groups that make up our society. Amici should be free to compose a class that brings together many different kinds of students; that includes robust representation of students from different races and ethnicities; and that prepares graduates to work successfully in a diverse nation. Indeed, highly selective universities have long defined as one of their central missions the training of the nations business, government, academic, and professional leaders. By creating a broadly diverse class, amicis admissions policies help to assure that their graduates are well prepared to succeed in an increasingly complex and multi-racial society.</p>
<p>The colleges presented the following arguments
[ul]
Consideration Of Race And Ethnicity In An Individualized Admissions Process Serves Compelling Interests.</p>
<p>A. There Is a Broad Consensus On The Important Educational Benefits of Diversity.Diversity helps students confront perspectives other than their own and thus to think more rigorously and imaginatively; it helps students learn to relate better to people from different backgrounds; it helps students become better citizens. The educational benefits of student diversity include the discovery that there is a broad range of viewpoint and experience within any given minority community as well as learning that certain imagined differences at times turn out to be only skin deep. It is surely fitting for universities to undertake to prepare their students to live and work in a global economy within a multiracial world. The challenges of contemporary life demand that students acquire not just traditional forms of knowledge regarding science and the arts, but also techniques of bridging differences in perspective and in personal experience.</p>
<p>B. Consideration of Race and Ethnicity Grows Naturally Out Of The Needs Of The Professions and Of American Business.</p>
<p>Every major profession in this country has sought greater diversity within its ranks.4 Businesses have demanded more minority managers and executives, as well as non-minorities who can work well with colleagues from diverse backgrounds.</p>
<p>Leading corporations, business groups, professional organizations, and executives have repeatedly called for consideration of race and ethnicity in university admissions.</p>
<p>In adopting their admissions policies, universities are responding to the clearly articulated needs of business and the professions for a healthier mix of well-educated leaders and practitioners from varied racial and ethnic backgrounds.
[/ul]</p>
<p>The Interest In Racial Diversity Cannot Be Served By Race-Neutral Reliance On Factors, Such As Economic Disadvantage, That Are Already Carefully Considered.</p>
<p>The United States urges (as one solution) that universities look to such factors as special economic hardship instead of race. See U.S. Grutter Br. 24-25. But the decisive fact is that all of the suggested race-neutral factors, and many more besides, already enter into admissions decisions. Consideration of those factors alone does not achieve the distinctly racial diversity that amici seek in their student bodies. To accomplish that goal, admissions committees must give favorable consideration to minority race in addition to those other factors, not instead of them.</p>
<p>By deliberately tilting individual admissions toward hardship students in the hope of thereby selecting a large enough increment of minority students to make up for the losses that would result from race-blind admissions would be disingenuous at best. Such an approach would in truth be a race based policy and not a race-neutral alternative at all. Indeed, such programs, if adopted to assure increased minority enrollment, would be based on race in a causal sense and would thus raise obvious constitutional questions of their own.</p>
<p>A race-neutral preference for economically disadvantaged students, for example, would admit many more whites than non-whites, because of sheer demographic realities. And, of course, the university interest in admitting minority students goes well beyond just admitting minority students from disadvantaged backgrounds.</p>
<p>Race-Conscious Admissions Programs Are Not Open- Ended Commitments.</p>
<p>The decision of a university as to which minority groups deserve favorable consideration in an individualized admissions process designed to foster such diverse representation, and the weight of such consideration, are necessarily and appropriately decisions to be made as a matter of educational judgment, taking into account both the universitys sense of its mission and its best estimate of the leadership needs it will address not as a matter of conflicting rights.</p>
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<p>The following series of post is based on information from The Journal on Blacks in Higher Education (there are also charts that give comparisons in graduation rates at various schools)</p>
<ol>
<li><a href=“http://www.jbhe.com/features/45_student_grad_rates.html[/url]”>http://www.jbhe.com/features/45_student_grad_rates.html</a></li>
</ol>
<p>The percentage of young blacks being admitted to our brand-name colleges and universities continues to hold firm. We report current enrollment rates, school by school, beginning on page 6 of this issue of JBHE (Autumn 2004).
According to the most recent statistics, the nationwide college graduation rate for black students stands at an appallingly low rate of 40 percent. This figure is 21 percentage points below the 61 percent rate for white students.</p>
<p>Graduation rates play an important role in measuring the success of affirmative action programs. Many opponents of affirmative action assert, often without even looking at the actual data, that black student graduation rates are damaged by race-sensitive admissions. It is critical to review the statistics to see if this is true. For this reason, in this report we emphasize the graduation rates of black students at the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities. Almost always these are the institutions that have the strongest commitment to race-sensitive admissions.</p>
<p>Academically selective institutions are almost always strongly committed to affirmative action in admissions, yet at the same time they tend to deliver a high black student graduation rate. Obviously, this undercuts the assertion made by many conservatives that black students admitted to our most prestigious colleges and universities under race-conscious admissions programs are incapable of competing with their white peers and should instead seek admissions at less academically rigorous schools. </p>
<p>Nearly 19 out of every 20 black students who enter the highly competitive academic environment of Harvard, Princeton, Haverford, and Amherst go on to earn their diplomas. Other academically demanding colleges do very well, although not as well as these four. </p>
<p>Sixteen other highly competitive colleges and universities turn in black student graduation rates of 85 percent or more. They are Wellesley College, Williams College, Brown University, Davidson College, Colgate University, Duke University, Northwestern University, Swarthmore College, Wesleyan University, Yale University, Georgetown University, Stanford University, Washington University, Dartmouth College, Columbia University, and the University of Virginia. </p>
<p>Colleges & Universities With the Nations Highest Black Students Graduation Rates 2004
Amherst College 95%
Harvard 93%
Princeton 93%
Haverford 92%
Wellesley 91%
Brown 89%
Wash U. 89%
Colgate 88%
Northwestern88%
Stanford 88%
Williams 88%
Yale 88%
Davidson 87%
Duke 87
Swarthmore 87%
Wesleyan 87%
UVA 86%
Columbia 85%
Dartmouth 85%</p>
<p>Far more disturbing is the poor black student graduation rate at the academically selective University of Michigan. This is a huge state university of 40,000 students. And its performance is a national bellwether. Only 64 percent of entering students at the University of Michigan go on to graduate. Each year there are 350 or more black freshmen who enroll at the university. </p>
<p>As for the nation’s other high-ranked institutions, only five other schools have a black student graduation rate below 70 percent. They are Bates College, CalTech, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Southern California, and the University of California at Berkeley. Several other highly ranked colleges and universities Bryn Mawr College, Hamilton College, Trinity College, and the University of California at Los Angeles have raised their black student graduation rates to over 70 percent. Last year these schools had a black graduation rate below 70 percent.</p>
<p>** Explaining the Differences in Black Student Graduation Rates <a href=“From:%20JBHE”>/b</a></p>
<p>Why are black graduation rates very strong at some high-ranking institutions and considerably weaker at other top-ranked schools? Here are a few possible explanations: </p>
<p>Clearly, the racial climate at some colleges and universities is more favorable to African Americans than at other campuses. A nurturing environment for black students is almost certain to have a positive impact on black student retention and graduation rates. Brown University, for example, although often troubled by racial incidents, is famous for its efforts to make its campus a happy place for African Americans. In contrast, the University of Michigan has had its share of racial turmoil in recent years. As a very large institution of nearly 40,000 students, it has little capacity to worry about black students or their graduation rates. </p>
<p>Many of the colleges and universities with high black student graduation rates have set in place orientation and retention programs to help black students adapt to the culture of predominantly white campuses. Colleges with such programs include Williams College, the University of Virginia, and Brown University. Mentoring programs for black first-year students involving upperclassmen have been successful at many colleges and universities. Other institutions appear to improve graduation rates through strong black student organizations that foster a sense of belonging among the African-American student population. </p>
<p>Geographic location unquestionably plays a major role in black student graduation rates. For example, Bates College in Maine is located in a rural area with a very small to negligible black population. The same holds true for Grinnell College in Iowa, Oberlin College in Ohio, and Carleton College in Minnesota. Black student graduation rates at many of these rural schools are lower than at colleges and universities in urban areas. </p>
<p>The presence of a strong and relatively large core of black students on campus is important. Among the highest-ranked colleges and universities, institutions that tend to have a low percentage of blacks in their student bodies such as CalTech, Bates, Middlebury, Grinnell, Davidson, Carleton, and Colby also tend to have lower black student graduation rates. Black students who attend these schools may have problems adjusting to college life in an overwhelmingly white environment. And these schools are less likely to have black-oriented social or cultural events to make black students feel at home.</p>
<p>Curriculum differences also play an important role in graduation rates. Carnegie Mellon University and CalTech are heavily oriented toward the sciences, fields in which blacks have always had a small presence. It continues to be true that at many high-powered schools black students in the sciences often have been made to feel uncomfortable by white faculty and administrators who persist in beliefs that blacks do not have the intellectual capacity to succeed in these disciplines.
High dropout rates appear to be primarily caused by inferior K-12 preparation and an absence of a family college tradition, conditions that apply to a very large percentage of today’s college-bound African Americans. But equally important considerations are family wealth and the availability of financial aid. According to a recent study by Nellie Mae, the largest nonprofit provider of federal and private education loan funds in this country, 69 percent of African Americans who enrolled in college but did not finish said that they left college because of high student loan debt as opposed to 43 percent of white students who cited the same reason. </p>
<p>Under any circumstance, a college education costs huge amounts of money. Not only are there very large outlays for tuition, books, and travel, but, even more important, going to college takes a student out of the work force for four or more years. The total bite into family income and wealth can amount to $150,000 or more per student. High and always increasing college costs tend to produce much greater hardships for black families. </p>
<p>Deep financial pockets enable some schools to provide greater financial aid than others. And this is a major factor in student graduation rates. Well-funded universities such as Princeton, which has the nation’s largest endowment per student and probably the nation’s most generous financial aid program for low-income students, will undoubtedly claim an advantage in black student retention and, subsequently, in producing high graduation rates. Obviously, the availability of a high level of financial aid shields low-income black students from financial pressures that may force minority students to leave college to fulfill family obligations and financial responsibilities. </p>
<p>This journal has always placed emphasis on financial pressures as a major agent in producing low black graduation rates. But, clearly, cultural and family issues bear a huge responsibility. Invariably, the critical problem is that a very high number of young blacks are entering college with wholly inadequate academic credentials, ambition, and study habits. </p>
<p>We accept the view that a very strong black student graduation rate is a good indicator of institutional success in racial integration of a given campus. But readers are cautioned that a lower graduation rate can be a positive indicator of a college or university’s willingness to take a chance on academically dedicated young black students with substandard academic credentials</p>
<p>** Comparing Black and White Graduation Rates <a href=“From%20JBHE”>/b</a></p>
<p>Sometimes a better way to compare the performance of the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities in successfully graduating black students is to examine the difference in the graduation rates between their black and white students. Using this comparison, a high-ranking institution such as Smith College in Massachusetts, which has a black student graduation rate of 81 percent a figure well below many of its peer institutions nevertheless ranks high on a relative basis because its white student graduation rate of 83 percent is only two points higher than the black student rate.</p>
<p>Many academics and administrators will be surprised to hear that there are a few selective colleges in the United States that report a higher graduation rate for blacks than for whites. Five of the nation’s highest-ranked colleges and universities actually have a higher graduation rate for black students than for white students. According to the latest statistics from Mount Holyoke College, Pomona College, Washington University, Wellesley College, and Macalester College, a black student on these campuses is more likely to complete the four-year course of study and receive a diploma than is a white student. JBHE has not been able to identify the reason for this anomaly at these five institutions, which is markedly inconsistent with nationwide statistics. </p>
<p>At all of the other highly ranked colleges and universities in our survey, the black graduation rate is below and usually significantly below the white graduation rate. </p>
<p>At some institutions the difference in black and white graduation rates is very small. At Colgate University, Amherst College, and Haverford College, the white student graduation rate is only one percentage point higher than the rate for blacks. At Emory University and Smith College the difference is only two percentage points. </p>
<p>At the Ivy League schools of Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, and Brown, the black graduation rates are relatively high, and in all instances they are seven percentage points or less below the graduation rate for white students. At Yale, Penn, Dartmouth and Cornell, there is at least an 8 percentage point racial gap in graduation rates. </p>
<p>All told, there are 36 high-ranking colleges and universities that have a favorable black-white graduation rate difference of eight percentage points or less. Last year there were only 30. Three years ago only 16 high-ranking colleges and universities had a graduation rate gap of eight percentage points or less. This is a strong sign of progress.
Overall, 20 of the 56 colleges in our survey report a black graduation rate that is 10 percentage points or more below the graduation rate for white students. Last year, there were five high-ranked colleges and universities at which the black graduation rate gap was a huge 20 percentage points or more below the graduation rate for white students. </p>
<p>This year the racial gap is 20 percent or more only at the University of Michigan. The other highly ranked schools with the largest black-white graduation rate gaps are Trinity College, the University of California at Berkeley, CalTech, Bates College, Washington and Lee University, and the University of California at Los Angeles.</p>
<p>RIDICULOUS… RIDICULOUS. WHy are people disowning their own ethnic background for the sake of college admissions. My goodness, I’M Asian (KOREAN) and im proud that i am, and guess what, when most koreans and asians put a “blank” for the ethnic background part of the application, i put korean american. so what if a african american or a native american has an egde in the college admission, you can’t change your ethnicity. The ethnicity edge isn’t the only factor into admission. Sooner or later, AA is going to be abandoned. I’ll guarentee it. public schools abolished it in California already abolished the use of race. People are crying over admission to an undergraduate admission and are beginning to hate themselves for being born a certain race.</p>
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<p>A handful of personal anecdotes do not qualify as evidence when we’re discussing a national practice. Fact of the matter is, I’d rather be a URM than not when applying to college.</p>
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<p>And would you rather be a URM BEFORE applying to college-- with all the experiences that being a URM entail? Because you cannot in the fall of senior year, suddenly acquire a totally different identity and life experiences.</p>
<p>I’d rather be Colin Powell’s son than the lilly white son of a Maytag repairman from East Tennessee any day marite. Life is a long row to hoe for a lot of people.</p>
<p>Anyway the discussion of affirmative action is tiresome. I believe that the good it has done in the past is now outweighed by the harm that it does but don’t expect to convince anyone of that and even if I did I don’t expect the courts to change their rulings or the schools to change their admissions practices. Everybody should just learn to live with AA. For those who think they didn’t get into Harvard or wherever because of AA they are probably mistaken.</p>
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<p>Yep. As the famous Wesleyan alum, Bill Belichick, likes to say, “it is what it is.”</p>
<p>I do disagree about the courts. Reinquist’s majority opinion in the undergrad UMich case was a frontal assault on affirmative action dressed up to look like an endorsement. His language was like a big road-map with huge glaring neon signs pointing to the next round of incremental challenges. Colleges are scurrying to remove racial qualifications from orientation programs, scholarships, etc. </p>
<p>It took one letter from the legal team at Linda Chavez’ public policy PR firm to get Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr to open up the minority enrichment/orientation program they’ve run for 25 years to white students. Legal council for affirmative action schools only need two words in their vocabulary to answer just about any question from their clients, “You’ll lose.”</p>
<p>Racial qualifications are being rewritten as “socio-economic” factors and students “who will further our understanding of diversity”.</p>