# Are Ivy League and other top universities hotbeds of racism? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 10, 2015, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033 "2015-12-10T02:55:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![andros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e480ec/32.png) [@andros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/andros)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/21 "2015-12-10T15:11:58Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Many minorities at exclusive college feel like they don’t belong and are being excluded. This is generally because they don’t belong and are excluded. Generally students are selected for these colleges for the top 2 to 5% of intelligence. Affirmative action means that blacks and latinos at selective schools are in the top 10% of intelligence. These students were the best students at their high schools and were actively pursued by the top colleges in the country but they are unprepared and overmatched. So the blacks and latinos are in the bottom quarter of intelligence at these schools and since professors aim for the median students in the class, everything is over their heads. They are struggling to keep up academically and don’t have as much socially in common with their fellow students. > They then learn the myth of institutional racism which tells them the school has been set up to exclude them. They buy this because it matches their experience and because it is human nature to want to blame others for your own hardships. > They switch from hard majors to easy ones like race and gender studies. This makes them feel better about the present but apprehensive about the future since most of the race and gender factories have moved overseas. They then protest and at the top of every list of demands is more money for people in the race and gender studies departments and more training for everyone else. Another way of putting the demand quoted in the OP is “We demand you create jobs for us after graduation”. Can you support any of this with actual evidence? Or are you just sharing your opinion? ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/22 "2015-12-10T15:23:04Z")
If he was going to support it, he would have. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/23 "2015-12-10T15:39:07Z")
> [@inscrutable](#): > > What sort of “institutional racism” could possibly be occurring at those liberal bastions? Why the scare quotes? Institutional racism is a real thing, and even liberal institutions aren’t immune to it - seriously, you think only conservative universities have[these problems](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Institutional_racism#Impact_on_students)? > [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Or maybe students at these universities actually think there’s a chance of being heard. I’m sure that’s also a factor, yes. Kind of how like street protests aren’t a thing in North Korea… ---
**Author:** ![Robert163](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/4af34b/32.png) [@Robert163](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robert163)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/24 "2015-12-10T15:57:15Z")
> [@puddleglum](#): > > Many minorities at exclusive college feel like they don’t belong and are being excluded. This is generally because they don’t belong and are excluded. Generally students are selected for these colleges for the top 2 to 5% of intelligence. Affirmative action means that blacks and latinos at selective schools are in the top 10% of intelligence. These students were the best students at their high schools and were actively pursued by the top colleges in the country but they are unprepared and overmatched. So the blacks and latinos are in the bottom quarter of intelligence at these schools and since professors aim for the median students in the class, everything is over their heads. They are struggling to keep up academically and don’t have as much socially in common with their fellow students. > They then learn the myth of institutional racism which tells them the school has been set up to exclude them. They buy this because it matches their experience and because it is human nature to want to blame others for your own hardships. > They switch from hard majors to easy ones like race and gender studies. This makes them feel better about the present but apprehensive about the future since most of the race and gender factories have moved overseas. They then protest and at the top of every list of demands is more money for people in the race and gender studies departments and more training for everyone else. Another way of putting the demand quoted in the OP is “We demand you create jobs for us after graduation”. Even if it is true that (many) minority students are unprepared for Ivory League academics, a statement that may very well (or not) be true, it does not logically follow from that that any attempt to have more training and education is simply “pointless job creation”. Your two conclusions contradict one another. If it is true that minorities are underprepared for Ivy Leauge education (and other areas as well), then, creating jobs and training and education to try and fix the problem is not “pointless” job creation. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/25 "2015-12-10T16:02:24Z")
> [@Jonathan\_Chance](#): > > Please don’t insult other posters, even in jest. The link went to an article featuring an idiotic statement by Anthony Scalia. AKA “Fat Tony.” I don’t know Shodan’s first name, nor the state of his physique. I was criticizing his choice of sources. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/26 "2015-12-10T16:14:56Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Our entire society is racist, including Ivy League universities. I’ve encountered a lot of dogmatic statements like that, both regarding our entire society and Ivy League universities. I never encounter much factual evidence to back any of it up. On issues such as whether the earth is 6000 years old, or whether humans are causing global warming, or things of that sort, I should base my conclusions on objective facts and logic, rather than blindly following dogma or uncritically accepting what someone says. Surely I should use the same approach to analyze claims that Ivy League universities are racist. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/27 "2015-12-10T16:23:17Z")
You’ve encountered plenty of factual evidence that institutional racism pervades our society in GD (even if not in your everyday life). You simply refuse to accept it, or you choose to believe that the evidence does not support any broad conclusion. For example, we’ve often discussed the ACLU’s evidence regarding “driving while black.” I don’t think that law enforcement officers are more likely as a group to be racists; in fact, the opposite should be true since LEO background investigations are designed to weed out open racists and other undesirables. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/28 "2015-12-10T16:27:47Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > In addition to what was said about the untruthiness of this double-cut, there’s the possibility that students at the Ivies are better educated _by those institutions_, being liberal bastions, to recognize institutional racism when they see it - sort of a self-innoculation. Or here’s another possibility. The Ivies educate their students to spot racism lurking under every rock and crevice, regardless of whether or not such racism exists. Technical colleges in Minnesota and other schools like that are more interested in giving their students useful skills and preparing them for productive careers, less interested in teaching their students to spot imaginary plagues of racism. In a different post, you linked to a Wikipedia article about institutional racism. It offered up a lot of claims about feelings: …students of color felt differently… …students of color perceived the climate… …Students of African descent and other students of color felt the campus environment… …students of color felt that… Lots of feelings, but no objective facts. To some skeptics, that might suggest that students at certain universities are being taught to feel about racism in certain ways, even if racism does not, factually, exist at those universities. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/29 "2015-12-10T16:34:59Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Can you support any of this with actual evidence? I’m not **puddleglum** , but before I go off chasing cites, which of the factual assertions do you doubt? Not the opinion parts, the factual assertions on which the opinion is based. For instance, do you believe that elite universities generally select for the top students, that students admitted under affirmative action guidelines are generally less academically qualified, that they often struggle academically, that they drop out more, take longer to graduate, often switch to easier majors like the humanities rather than STEM fields like engineering or medicine, or that race or gender studies majors have more trouble finding jobs after they graduate? Do you believe that blacks generally have lower GPAs in those schools? I don’t see how you need a cite that minorities say they feel excluded. Cites to that effect are in the OP. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/30 "2015-12-10T17:18:21Z")
> [@Robert163](#): > > Even if it is true that (many) minority students are unprepared for Ivory League academics, a statement that may very well (or not) be true, it does not logically follow from that that any attempt to have more training and education is simply “pointless job creation”. > > Your two conclusions contradict one another. If it is true that minorities are underprepared for Ivy Leauge education (and other areas as well), then, creating jobs and training and education to try and fix the problem is not “pointless” job creation. The training and education is not for the minority students to be prepared for Ivory League academics. The training is for other students and for professors so they will learn how to think about minorities and how to act around them. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/31 "2015-12-10T17:29:57Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > I would guess that there’s some racism, sexism, etc. everywhere. I have no idea how common it is at various colleges. The amount of protest against such things is more common at colleges where students more often recognize it. You’re assuming that people who engage in racist/sexist/etc. behavior consistently recognize that they’re doing so and that people who are the objects of such behavior consistently recognize that they are the objects of racism/sexism/etc. The second part of that assumption seems perfectly sound, at least. There are black students at Minnesota State University of Moorhead, and at thousands of similar institutions throughout the country. To imply that black students at MSUM (or anywhere) are victims of a great deal of racism and violence, but aren’t intelligent enough to know that they’re victims, would be … how shall I say it … incredibly condescending? ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/32 "2015-12-10T17:41:03Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Or maybe students at these universities actually think there’s a chance of being heard. Students experiencing racism at other schools may assume that their experiences will be trivialized or ignored, or that they may face backlash for even mentioning racism. I would agree with this. I teach at a small state college in the deep South, with a lot of first-generation students; not exactly Minnesota State Community and Technical College, but close enough. About 40% of our students are minorities, and the vast majority of those are African-American. Some of the same grievances students have raised at other schools are definitely equally true here (underrepresentation of minorities on the faculty, buildings and facilities named after people who actively blocked racial integration of the university, etc.) But our students don’t actively protest any of this stuff. I think it’s partly because we’re in a part of the country where most people are raised to defer to authority and not make waves, but also because most of our students don’t see themselves as having the _agency_ to change things through protest. You have to start with a certain baseline level of privilege for this to be thinkable, and you also have to be not-too-worried that one wrong step will cost you everything you’ve sacrificed to get here. **ETA:** On at least one issue of local significance, I know for a fact that students aren’t silent because they don’t care – they held a well-attended forum about it, and the vast majority of students who got up to speak disagreed with the university president’s decision about said issue. But that was as far as it went. They may disagree strongly with the administration, but they aren’t socialized to see protesting as something they either can or should do under those circumstances. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/33 "2015-12-10T17:42:26Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > The second part of that assumption seems perfectly sound, at least. There are black students at Minnesota State University of Moorhead, and at thousands of similar institutions throughout the country. To imply that black students at MSUM (or anywhere) are victims of a great deal of racism and violence, but aren’t intelligent enough to know that they’re victims, would be … how shall I say it … incredibly condescending? What, _now_ you’re concerned about being condescending to blacks? Where was that concern when you wrote the OP? ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/34 "2015-12-10T18:07:59Z")
> [@andros](#): > > Can you support any of this with actual evidence? Or are you just sharing your opinion? Ethnic studies majors have a unemployment rate [28](http://jobs.aol.com/articles/2012/05/15/10-college-majors-with-the-highest-unemployment-rates-infograph/)% higher than average. Only [22](http://sites.nationalacademies.org/cs/groups/dbassesite/documents/webpage/dbasse_088834.pdf)% of black students who enroll in college with the intention of earning a degree in the STEM fields actually do so. The best study on this was done at Duke which found that “Over 54% of black men who express an initial interest in majoring in the natural sciences, engineering or economics switch to the humanities or social sciences compared to less than 8% of white men, 33% of white women switch out of the natural sciences, engineering and economics with 51% of black women switching.” Michelle Obama’s [thesis](https://obamaprincetonthesis.wordpress.com/)on attitudes of black alumni of Princeton, found that the respondents became more comfortable dealing with blacks in an intellectual environment and less comfortable dealing with whites. It also found that the respondents spent more time with blacks and less time with whites during their time at Princeton compared to before or after. Anything else that you are unclear about? ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/35 "2015-12-10T18:25:14Z")
No. But drunken frat boys are hotbeds of crassness & crudeness, which often includes stuff that sounds very racist. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/36 "2015-12-10T18:45:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > No. But drunken frat boys are hotbeds of crassness & crudeness, which often includes stuff that sounds very racist. There are also a lot of privileged elitists at colleges. But it’s not really limited to the Ivy League. Schools are a hotbed of many of societies worst qualities, because they are filled with [del]sub-humans who are leeching off society[/del] teenagers and young adults. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/37 "2015-12-10T19:06:05Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > False dichotomy. I don’t think most schools are run by dyed in the wool racists, nor are the vast majority of the accusations of racism false. If anything it’s not the fact that racsm doesn’t exist at Minnesota State Community and Technical college, but rather that no one gives a shit about the school, nor does anyone have lofty expectations of what they should be doing to train their students. Brown University responded to the protests by offering to spend one hundred million dollars on vaguely-word initiatives have something or other to do with race. Not surprising, I guess. Yale had offered fifty million dollars a few days earlier, so Brown had to outdo the competition. Harvard will probably offer an ever bigger amount soon. It might come as a surprise to Ivy League liberals, but there are some places where such sums of money can’t be tossed around as if they were chump change. Probably no community college anywhere has that sum of money to offer. What could they possibly do to compete with Yale and Brown? So the basic premise here seems to be, if you’re a student in the Ivy League, you might as well protest, because the administration will spend huge sums of money in order to appease you. If you’re a student at a school that’s focused on education and job preparation, such as Minnesota State Community and Technical College, you might as well focus on your classes, do well, and get ready to search for a job, since nobody will pay you just to whine. But I don’t think it’s true that “no one gives a shit about the school, nor does anyone have lofty expectations of what they should be doing to train their students”. I think that the government officials who run community colleges cares about having students get the best possible education at the best possible price. In the Ivy League, not so much. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/38 "2015-12-10T19:40:56Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Brown University responded to the protests by offering to spend one hundred million dollars on vaguely-word initiatives have something or other to do with race. Not surprising, I guess. Yale had offered fifty million dollars a few days earlier, so Brown had to outdo the competition. Harvard will probably offer an ever bigger amount soon. > > It might come as a surprise to Ivy League liberals, but there are some places where such sums of money can’t be tossed around as if they were chump change. Probably no community college anywhere has that sum of money to offer. What could they possibly do to compete with Yale and Brown? > > So the basic premise here seems to be, if you’re a student in the Ivy League, you might as well protest, because the administration will spend huge sums of money in order to appease you. If you’re a student at a school that’s focused on education and job preparation, such as Minnesota State Community and Technical College, you might as well focus on your classes, do well, and get ready to search for a job, since nobody will pay you just to whine. But I don’t think it’s true that “no one gives a shit about the school, nor does anyone have lofty expectations of what they should be doing to train their students”. I think that the government officials who run community colleges cares about having students get the best possible education at the best possible price. In the Ivy League, not so much. So, you ask a question. Then you supply\* your\* answer… ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2015, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/39 "2015-12-10T22:18:08Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Brown University responded to the protests by offering to spend one hundred million dollars on vaguely-word initiatives have something or other to do with race. Not surprising, I guess. Yale had offered fifty million dollars a few days earlier, so Brown had to outdo the competition. Harvard will probably offer an ever bigger amount soon. > > It might come as a surprise to Ivy League liberals, but there are some places where such sums of money can’t be tossed around as if they were chump change. Probably no community college anywhere has that sum of money to offer. What could they possibly do to compete with Yale and Brown? > > So the basic premise here seems to be, if you’re a student in the Ivy League, you might as well protest, because the administration will spend huge sums of money in order to appease you. If you’re a student at a school that’s focused on education and job preparation, such as Minnesota State Community and Technical College, you might as well focus on your classes, do well, and get ready to search for a job, since nobody will pay you just to whine. But I don’t think it’s true that “no one gives a shit about the school, nor does anyone have lofty expectations of what they should be doing to train their students”. I think that the government officials who run community colleges cares about having students get the best possible education at the best possible price. In the Ivy League, not so much. Or, maybe Brown, Yale, Harvard, etc. are more responsive to student concerns because they rely on alumni contributions to create a wholistic learning and social environment, whereas Minnisota Bumfuck University is basically offering job training. That’s fine, and there is nothing wrong with that, but don’t pretend elite universities are offering the same thing. You are competing a BMW to a moped. Elite universities create leaders who run the world, and who occasionally “whine”. Your school generally does neither it would seem. Kudos to them for having a clear mission and mandate that doesn’t seem to involve anything but teaching students academic subjects at a mildly competent level. It doesn’t speak at all to whether there are racists in either place. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2015, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033/40 "2015-12-11T04:10:06Z")
> [@tnetennba](#): > > I think you’re conflating the liberal sensibilities of (some, probably most) faculty with the more conservative, plutocratic administrations, alumni, etc. I rather doubt that the administration of any Ivy League school is conservative. While polls [show](https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left) university faculty leaning strongly left, I’ve never seen a poll of administrators on the subject. But consider Larry Summers. He was forced out of Harvard for not being left-wing enough, but landed a cushy job as advisor to President Obama. Think any Ivy League president will become advisor to a Republican any time soon? As for “plutocratic”, I wouldn’t deny that many Ivy League denizens have that tendency. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-ivy-league-and-other-top-universities-hotbeds-of-racism/740033.md?page=3)