Diversity and enrollment in higher education
Colleges and universities across the country approach enrollment diversity in many different ways. Some schools actively seek to diversify their student body, while other schools maintain that academic excellence should be the most important factor when considering a student’s admission.
Currently, the Board of Regents of the University System of Maryland is considering the role of diversity in higher education. Recently, at a forum on diversity in Maryland, many influential members of the state education system came together to discuss how Maryland is dealing with diversity in higher education. Dan Mote, president of the University of Maryland, Brit Kirwan, chancellor of the university system, and others expressed concern about diversity in the state of Maryland:
“There is no panacea for this problem. It’s not a one problem, one program, one idea problem. There are many pieces to this… We have many programs that support disadvantaged people.” circumstances and of course minority enrollment and diversity and all these issues,” Mote said. The university’s minority programs provide “a lot of opportunities to implement ideas,” Mote said, adding that this university will work with USM in developing initiatives targeting black men.’ 1
A diverse student body in higher education is important to different schools for different reasons. In Maryland, officials expressed concern that if minority access to higher education is not improved, the future of the state may be at stake; “because if the growing minority population doesn’t get a proper higher education, the state’s workforce will shrink and the economy will suffer.”
Promoting racial diversity in higher education is a complicated endeavor, as Justice Ginsburg noted: “It’s very hard for me to see how you can have a racial goal, but a non-racial means of getting there.”
In this regard, the American Civil Rights Coalition, a group that has been called “anti-affirmative action,” is investigating admissions policies in Arizona and 8 other states.
An ASU spokeswoman stated that “a student’s ethnicity has never been used as a factor in determining admission to ASU”, also stating that academic grades are the only criteria for admission.
Rather, in an attempt to increase diversity in the student body, the University of Wisconsin has decided to include race as a factor in the admissions process.
As Dan Mote put it, the problem of racial diversity in higher education is much more entrenched than the admissions process. The mere fact that the pool of qualified applicants is not in proportion to the racial makeup of a given population is a good indication that there is a more entrenched problem.
Unfortunately, this point closes the argument; How can we change racial diversity in higher education without using racial qualifiers to achieve these goals?
Perhaps we should revisit the broader issue: should promoting diversity be viewed as reverse discrimination?
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–Sources 1 Overly, Steven; “College Struggles With Minority Education,” Diamondbackonline, 2-20-07 2 Associated Press “Anti-Affirmative Action Group To Investigate Arizona Schools” Mohave Daily News, February 19, 2007