I read an article this morning titled “Diversity Grows.” It sounded promising:
“Michigan’s ban on affirmative action has hurt minority recruiting at some colleges, but Saginaw Valley State University isn’t among them…By using focused recruiting and special scholarships as tools, SVSU has increased its share of under-represented minorities — blacks, Hispanics and American Indians — by 4.25 percent this fall, to 245 freshmen from 235.”
So Saginaw Valley State University (SVSU) has done what others thought impossible: increasing “diversity” without discriminating. Wonderful! Then I continued reading:
“‘Through our private SVSU Foundation, there continues to be individual scholarships for which ethnicity is a consideration, based on the wishes of the donor, [spokesman J.J.] Boehm said. ‘But those are administered through the 
foundation, not through the university’s general fund.’”
Although the taxpayer-supported SVSU claims it never admitted students under separate standards based on race, it does use private scholarships in which race is a criteria. Isn’t that illegal? Proposition 2, which passed with 58 percent of the vote in 2006, amended the state constitution to read:
“The University of Michigan, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and any other public college or university, community college, or school district shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Are race-based private scholarships covered by Proposal 2? Center for Equal Opportunity president Roger Clegg told The Chronicle of Higher Education that such scholarships can come under scrutiny, particularly if the foundation administering them “shares university resources or works closely with the financial-aid office.”
In this case, SVSU has a private foundation that offers race-based scholarships administered through the foundation and not through the general fund. The story characterizes the foundation as the “SVSU foundation,” and it’s listed under the financial aid section on SVSU’s web site. We may assume the foundation shares university resources and/or works closely with the financial aid office.
SVSU’s attempt to get around Proposal 2 might be illegal.
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