|
One university's case for race
Page 2 of 2
Beginning of article
The trickledown effect
Indeed, the University of Virginia - like many others - still struggles with its legacy. Last fall two fraternities were censured for permitting members to perform skits in blackface.
The campus was shocked again in February when a minority woman running for student council president was assaulted by an unknown white assailant and harassed with racial epithets. She recovered, and was elected.
Still, parents like Joann McCullough, who drove to campus to visit her daughter, are concerned about their children. "I'm just here visiting, making sure she's OK," Ms. McCullough says.
Such incidents also trouble M. Rick Turner, director of African American Affairs at the university.
"I have never seen [black] parents as fearful and concerned for the safety of their children as right now," Mr. Turner says. "I still think UVA has done a remarkable job. It's still the best place for African-American students. We shower them with love and attention. But this university has got to respond with much more than a Band-Aid to this problem."
Corey Walker, an Afro-American studies professor, says the growing acceptance of the idea that affirmative action is reverse discrimination ignores reality.
"Look at the huge athletic facilities we have being built here," he says. "You have the football team, mostly black, cheered on by an audience almost entirely white. Now what's wrong with this picture?"
What's wrong, he says, is that blacks are still pigeonholed within society and academia as athletes and entertainers, and are only slowly breaking out of that box to be taken seriously. Even at UVA, he says, faculty diversity lags far behind that of the student body.
But no one questions university president John Casteen's commitment to racial diversity. As director of admissions in the early 1970s, he was instrumental in opening the university to blacks. Still, he has been under pressure in recent years from the state and the university's governing Board of Visitors to moderate the school's "race-sensitive" admissions policy.
In 1999, in the face of legal threats, the university did drop a numerical scoring system that gave points for race. Today, some see a slowing of the number of black students admitted, and a weakening of the university's commitment.
"Will America's great cheerleader for racial diversity in higher education lose its leadership position?" asked the Journal for Blacks in Higher Education in 1999.
Black freshmen as a percentage of total first-year enrollments slipped from about 12 percent in 1993 to about 9 percent today. And UVA has also fallen from first to fourth among the nation's most racially diverse universities in that category.
Dr. Casteen is quick to defend the university's admissions policy. "What we have done historically is not affirmative action," he says. "There never were quotas."
But he insists that the university is sticking by its policy of "race sensitive" admissions. It is not, he says, backing off its commitment to minority students - a commitment he believes makes UVA academically stronger, not weaker.
Casteen loves to share the story of Robert "Bobby" Bland, who in 1959 became the first African-American to graduate from the university, even though the state had adopted a policy of "massive resistance" to desegregating state colleges and universities.
"[Bobby] made a conscious decision to remain here even after his roommate decided to pull out," Casteen says.
"Over the years, it became a student slogan that's been passed down into the lexicon of the Caucasian community on campus and other students: 'Bobby stayed.' "
Casteen leans back in his chair and glances thoughtfully at the ceiling. "That's it," he says about the two-word mantra.
"Nowadays when somebody - anybody, really - becomes discouraged and talks about leaving or giving up, there's always someone to remind [that student] that Bobby stayed."
Classes confront the recent past
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. - In his class on civil rights, Julian Bond's booming voice carries easily across the hall of 180 students, almost all of whom are white.
Most in this class were born in the 1980s. For many, it is their first serious exposure to the sit-in protests of the 1960s and the face of racism it revealed in America. "The sit-ins were a direct challenge to cherished white beliefs," he intones, "specifically, the idea that blacks were satisfied with segregation."
Several white students cringe as a slide pops up showing white youths pouring ketchup on a black man seated at a diner counter. Later, Mr. Bond, who lived through the 1960s crucible and helped organize many sit-ins, says that having even a few minority students in class is important. "I can't teach what I'm teaching to white students alone."
The benefits of a new perspective may be equally powerful for black students as well. "The class has meant more to me than I thought it would," says Erika McCullough, a third-year art major from New Jersey.
Later, just a few buildings away, a morning anthropology class has decided to make a "teachable moment" out of a recent racial assault on campus and debate what to do about it.
Wearing a red sweatshirt and an anguished expression, a white male student suggests that a mandatory class on race relations might be a good idea.
"Hey, look, I didn't learn anything about race or race relations until this class," he laments. "I just think I need a class to be able to deconstruct it."
Jamie Williams, a student whose mother is white and father is black, wishes there were more social integration on campus - a common sentiment. At present, fraternities divide along racial lines, as do dorms. Still, she takes a long view.
"We have to remember it's taken 200 years for it to get this way - and the University of Virginia is really just a microcosm," she says. "This [racism] is really an American problem."
Arbitrary criteria in admissions
Barbara Grutter, a mother of two, housewife, and healthcare consultant who lives in Plymouth, Mich., has wanted to attend law school since 1997.
Very soon, the wait may be over.
In oral arguments expected today, her lawyers will tell the US Supreme Court that the University of Michigan Law School discriminated against her because of her race (she is white), while minority applicants with lesser grades and test scores won admission.
Likewise, in a parallel case being heard at the same time, attorneys for Jennifer Gratz will argue the University of Michigan's undergraduate admission policies also discriminated unfairly against her because she is white.
On the opposite side, the University of Michigan - supported by at least 80 friend-of-the-court briefs filed by dozens of universities and major corporations - will argue that giving weight to an applicant's race in support of diversity is a "compelling interest" needed for educational quality.
The court's decision could change the face of American higher education. Some fear it will shut the door on many minorities at elite institutions if "race conscious" admissions is outlawed.
Further complicating the case is the fact that most selective colleges and universities have long used arbitrary criteria in admission - not just scores and grades - because of diversity.
Few would want to attend a school where everyone is a bookworm - which is why some applicants are admitted in part because they play the flute or football. Others get in because their parents are big donors or alumni.
Universities have long relied on a 1978 Supreme Court ruling in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke that outlawed outright racial quotas in college admission, but permitted schools to give limited weight to race.
Still, that decision, written by Justice Lewis Powell Jr., has been under assault for a decade. In the wake of court reversals and voter referendums, states such as California and Florida have adopted race neutral "percent plans." In Texas, the top 10 percent of a high school graduating class wins automatic admission to a state school.
Such alternatives, however, have plenty of critics, who say unevenly funded and segregated K-12 schools often do a poor job preparing students. As a result, their top students may get into college but not succeed there.
A history of integration in higher education
1823: The first African-American to receive a US college degree, Alexander Twilight, graduates from Middlebury College in Vermont.
1896: Plessy v. Ferguson
Black shoemaker Homer Plessy sues when he is barred from a 'whites only' railroad car. The US Supreme Court rules that it is legal to maintain 'separate but equal' public facilities.
1954: Brown v. Board of Education
Linda Brown's family sues to allow the third-grader to attend a nearby white elementary school. The high court overturns Plessy v. Ferguson and orders public schools to integrate.
1962: James Meredith becomes the first black student to enroll at the University of Mississippi. Two students die in the ensuing riots.
1963: Gov. George Wallace bars the door of the University of Alabama to prevent two black students from enrolling.
1978: Regents of the University of California v. Bakke
Allan Bakke sues when he is twice denied admission to a California medical school despite having better grades and test scores than some minority enrollees. The high court outlaws a racial quota system, but affirms race as a factor in school admissions.
1996: Hopwood v. Texas
Cheryl Hopwood, a white applicant, sues the University of Texas Law School when she is rejected and minority students with lower scores are accepted. The Fifth Circuit court rules that the affirmative-action system is discriminatory, ending all consideration of race in college admissions in Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
1997: Grutter v. Bollinger
Barbara Grutter sues the University of Michigan for denying her admission to its law school, citing higher grades and test scores than some minority applicants who won admission. Her case goes to the US Supreme Court.
1997: Gratz v. Bollinger
Jennifer Gratz sues the University of Michigan after her undergraduate application is rejected. Her claim was denied by a federal district judge. Her case heads to the US Supreme Court.
2003: The US Supreme Court hears arguments on Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger. A decision is expected by July.
|
RSS feed
