Archive for November, 2009
In an effort to raise money, the University of California at Berkeley plans to admit fewer in-state students next fall and enroll more out-of-state students. This, some say, will reduce the percentage of “underrepresented minority students” on campus. (Source)
Budget shortfalls mean schools have to decide which is more important: more brown faces for the brochure and less money, or fewer brown faces and more money. If the school opts for more funds, the percentage of blacks could drop by 13 percent and Hispanics by close to 18 percent, as these groups tend to fall near the admissions “cutoff point.” An excerpt:
The potential for a decline in Berkeley’s racial and economic diversity has drawn criticism from some faculty members and others who believe the university should retain its focus on California residents in spite of the budget cuts…Christopher Newfield, an English professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, said in an e-mail that the political cost of enrolling many nonresident students would outweigh the financial benefits. Berkeley officials believe new revenue from nonresident tuition will fill about 15 percent of the campus’s budget gap next year.
Mr. Newfield said it would be better to get the money by imposing a temporary surcharge on all students—a proposal unlikely to sit well with students who will already be paying for a 32-percent increase in tuition. Relying on nonresident tuition, he said, is “more of the California fantasy that somebody else will pay to fix this.”
By law, Berkeley is barred from admitting or denying applicants based on race, but there’s a workaround. The school admits students under a “comprehensive review” process that takes into account an applicant’s “personal qualities” and “[l]ikely contributions to the intellectual and cultural vitality of the campus.” (Source)
This process, apparently, increases diversity.
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The assumptions some folks on the left make never cease to amaze. For instance, if whites leave loud, dirty, and expensive cities for quieter, cleaner, and cheaper suburbs, they’re racists. If they remove their children from mediocre government schools and send them to better government schools, they’re racists. If taxpayers in low-crime areas oppose Section 8 housing in their neighborhood, they’re racists.
Are racial minorities racist when they do the same thing?
Hartford Courant reporter Rick Green implies that Republicans are sending coded messages to “white folks like” him. The Republican Board of Education, which opposes government discrimination and preferential treatment, is targeting like-minded voters. The board’s goal is to appeal to parents of any color who oppose racial bean-counting and sending their kids to schools across town to satisfy someone’s idea of skin deep-only diversity.
Green quotes two men who support and oppose such practices. Supporter John Brittain, who led a desegregation case, said “our neighborhood schools” is code aimed directly at white people.
The Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg commented on the post:
“Well, if children are assigned to schools on the basis of race, that IS racial discrimination (and the Supreme Court did strike down such racial balancing in the Seattle and Louisville cases). And if ‘neighborhood schools’ is a ‘code word’ for the preservation of whiteness, what phrase would be better to convey the fact that many (most) parents prefer that their kids go to nearby schools? I suspect that whatever phrase is chosen, those who want racial balancing will criticize it as code-worded racism.”
What irritates me about white liberals like Green is their assumption that all racial minorities support so-called desegregation efforts and have no problem sending their children across town. One commenter writes:
“I love it when idiots like Brittain claim real words/phrases are code words for sinister purposes…As a minority, I want my children to go to our neighborhood schools. The idea my children might be shipped across town so that white students can see what a Mexican kid looks like is disgusting to me.”
More like him, please.
The racial balancing issue has more to do with misplaced white guilt and coercion than concern for minority kids. It is my fervent wish that more minority parents speak out against such condescending practices. In the U.S., people have a right to live wherever they wish and for whatever reason. If this right results in taxpayers of a certain color flocking to districts with better schools, so be it.
The government has no business barring children from certain schools based on the color of their skin. Local lawmakers (and judges) should (re)read Brown v. Board of Education.
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The American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly was quoted in a New York Times article about “holistic” or comprehensive admissions.
According to the story, holistic or comprehensive admissions supposedly allows officials “the luxury of thoughtfully knitting together a multitalented student body as well as a diverse one” by looking beyond grades and scores.
In less flowery language, holistic or comprehensive admissions criteria typically are “noncognitive” factors like personal essays, extracurricular activities, so-called leadership skills, disadvantaged backgrounds, etc. The process isn’t new or innovative; it provides a way for schools to admit more lower qualified minorities to satisfy an arbitrary diversity standard.
“One catalyst for holistic review is the desire for a diverse student body without quotas,” says NYT.
Are noncognitive assessments a proxy for race? It depends.
If all applicants are assessed under holistic or comprehensive review equally, the process would be fair, for lack of a better word. As I’ve asked many times, why would this kind of review result in more black students? Do admissions officers use a heavier hand when applying it to black applicants than they do with Asians or whites?
An excerpt:
“The anti-affirmative-action activist Ward Connerly says that ‘many publics are converting to comprehensive review in anticipation of the demise of race preferences.’ He favors the approach but objects to what he calls attempts ‘to circumvent the Constitutional prohibition against the use of race’ by admitting students who fall short on academic achievement.
“As a regent of the University of California, Mr. Connerly also acted, he says, to ‘remove legacy and fat-cat preferences’ as factors in admission. ‘If you’re going to have a system that rewards admission on the basis of individual achievements,’ he explains, ‘I concluded that it would be hypocritical to eliminate race but to keep legacies or be admitted on the strength of some donor who wanted a friend to be admitted or a relative.’
“Mr. Connerly was referring to the admission scandal that has roiled the University of Illinois’s Urbana-Champaign campus in recent months. The Chicago Tribune uncovered a ‘clout list’ of well-connected and sometimes unqualified applicants who were given special consideration; a state commission called the process ‘perhaps unparalleled among universities in its level of formality and structure.’ In September, the university president resigned, and most trustees have been replaced.”
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