I think that the nebulous “college experience” is also a factor. If a young person goes through his or her entire education with minimal contact with people who aren’t like him, how prepared is this person going to be with dealing with them out in the “real world”? One of the great things about college is the wide variety of types you meet and interact with. In every college, there’s a great range of personality types that you’ll have to deal with a LOT in the future: asshole, drunk, radical, sluggard, whiner, overachiever, etc. Frankly, I think the “college experience,” and the student’s ability to deal with the outside world, can only be improved by diversity. And this counts just as well, if not better, for the minority students than for the white ones.
TVAA: If we’re trying to find qualified students, the answer is no. The ethnic backgrounds of the students are not related to their individual academic qualifications and test scores.
Huh? Of course they are. You must mean that ethnic backgrounds are not necessarily related to test scores. On average, though, ethnic background and socioeconomic class do have some correlation, and socioeconomic class and test scores also have some correlation.
This also raises the question of what “qualified student” means. Is it okay to accept applicants with lower-than-average grades and scores if they show above-average talent in sports, music, the arts, etc.? Or should we just take the highest scorers in academic criteria? If so, how would that affect sports, music, arts, etc., not just at colleges but in the high schools where students are collecting their college credentials? Would it really be better if we looked only at “academic qualifications and test scores”?
And what about, as Bj noted, other forms of affirmative action like gender balancing, geographical diversity, alumni preferences? Does having an approximate numerical balance between the sexes, or students from a wide range of regions and countries, or students whose parents also went to that school, improve the quality of education?
Some of these policies apparently have a very significant impact on the composition of the student body. december declined answering Bj’s question about such preferences on the grounds that the racial-preference policies are the ones coming before the Supreme Court, but in fact, as this Wall Street Journal article points out, an anti-affirmative action decision could affect “legacy” or “alumni-brat” policies too.
So “alumni brats” (a group that is overwhelmingly white and privileged, even more true for the “grand-brats” who also get some edge in the admissions process) can be two to four times as likely to get accepted, and can constitute as much as 15% of the student population. By comparison, most such schools have about 30% minority enrollment. Why is it considered so much worse to allow preferences for minorities than for legacies?
Seems to me that the fact is that nobody gets into college “solely on their merits”. College “qualifications” are a real smorgasbord of intellectual, academic, behavioral, physical, extracurricular, experiential, family, economic, and personality factors. Everybody tends to take their own advantages for granted while seeing other people’s as unfair.
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Vorlon, you have introduced a new variable, negating the premise “all things being equal.” My question was in response to those who appeared to be arguing against diversity unless it had a demonstrable improvement on education. If it is education neutral (again, please note the premise), isn’t it worthy for other reasons, such as those I noted in my previous post.
As to the last two sentences of your post, I am having a hard time interpreting them.
A chorus of windchimes, etc, etc. 
Hentor:
Can you define what you mean by diversity? I don’t mean to single you out specifically, so if anyone else wants to chime in. please do. There’s been a lot of discussion on this thread about diversity, and no one has defined what they mean by that word.
Personally, I dislike the word because I always get the sense that some is trying to sell me a used car when they start talking about “diversity”.
JM: *Can you define what you mean by diversity? I don’t mean to single you out specifically, so if anyone else wants to chime in. please do. *
In the context of discussions about race-based preferences in college admissions, it means “racial diversity”; namely, having the racial mix in the student population more or less proportional to the racial mix in the society as a whole.
Personally, I dislike the word because I always get the sense that some is trying to sell me a used car when they start talking about “diversity”.
I didn’t know the term was ever used in selling used cars. What does it mean in that context?
The above reasoning is flawed. The purpose of the study was to measure views of the educational benefit of diversity as it is now incorporated in higher education policy. In order to measure these views objectively, the authors of the study surveyed a random sample of more than 1,600 students and 2,400 faculty members and administrators at 140 American colleges and universities, asking them to evaluate the quality of education at their institution, the academic preparation and work habits of the student body, the state of race relations on campus and their own experiences of discrimination.
The statistical criteria for an objective public opinion survey have been met (i.e., large and random samplings of students/faculty across a wide cross-section of American colleges/universities) and the questions are general enough to be understood by each of the respondents. A very simple scale could then be used to accurately gauge each respondents opinion in regards to each of the survey questions (example: very favorable, favorable, neutral, unfavorable, very unfavorable).
Your point regarding the nature of perception is irrelevant to the accuracy of the survey. It is well understood that our perception of things can be influenced by our own individual experiences and biases–this is precisely why opinions tend to DIFFER. Furthermore, of the four questions asked in the survey, two are related to diversity and two are related to the respondent’s educational experience (with no reference to diversity). Since none of the questions single out a certain race or group, your assertion that the survey concludes that students “feel better about some students than others” is completely baseless.
Again, the survey did not frame any of the four questions to include any particular race. The statistics that mention a specific race were derived by correlating the “responses with the proportion of black students attending each institution, based on government statistics.” In addition, the article clearly states that the survey used control groups for other “demographic and institutional factors like the respondent’s race, gender, economic background and religion.” The survey found that “a higher level of diversity is associated with somewhat less educational satisfaction and worse race relations among students” in the control groups. Therefore, you are implying that black students who responded to the survey are “anti-black” since the responses were consistent across all groups.
I’m sorry but you are way off base again. Could we be reading a different article? The study makes it abundantly clear that the intent of the authors is to gauge the educational benefit of diversity as it is now incorporated in higher education policy. They are doing this to verify a popular justification for preferential treatment of minority applicants: that a diverse student body necessarily improves the quality of education for everyone. All of this is mentioned in the article. They focus on racial preference (as opposed to geographic, alumni, gender, etc) because the Supreme Court will be hearing this issue next week (first thing mentioned in the article). So I’m not sure how could state that the authors are interested in a “stronger student body” when that is not mentioned anywhere in the article nor is it implied.
The survey was conducted at 140 colleges and universities across America, some were a little diverse, some were very diverse. The article makes no mention of “elite” colleges.
Based on the questions asked in the study, it would be impossible to determine why the Hispanic enrollment has such a small effect on the ratings.
The goal of what? the survey??
It saddens me that your comments regarding the findings of the study were so overtly racist. It is especially troubling because none of the respondents were asked questions about any particular race and the answers were fairly consistent regardless of the respondent’s race.
Personally, I’m not too surprised by the results. How can diversity improve the quality of education when (in order to meet the criteria of “diversity”) certain academic standards must be lowered? After all, this is what the central issue is in the U of M case–A higher value is placed on an applicant’s race than on a perfect SAT score. How could anyone (who claims to not be a racist) agree that it was morally acceptable for the U of M to deny admission to a student because he/she is white? Even more perverse is the hypocritical notion that in order to create a sufficiently diverse campus (for the alleged benefit of the students) the school must engage in openly racist policies!
OH well…I have a lot more to say on the subject but it’s getting late and I will save it for another day. 
John,
This relates well to other race threads that you have participated in. “Race” here is a sociologic construct. As such it has a statistical correlation with a set of sociologic experiences … a more meaningful correlation than “race” has with most items of biologic significance. It is a marker, a stand-in, for these diverse sociologic experiences. Certainly an imperfect one, but whereas in medicine we have genetic markers (to be) identified as better markers for items of biologic significance, we have no quick and easy marker for diverse sociologic experiences or any means of identification that works better than “race.”
Now then, is “diversity” per se make for a “better” educational experience? If one defines “better” as being comfortable with your educational process, as not experiencing the discomfort of having to mingle with those of divergent points of view and perceptions in ways that may occasionally even be conflictual (which apparently is how it was defined in this study), then obviously diversity is bad. I would posit that such experiences are themselves an important part of an education for all involved when one intends on functioning within American society as a whole, let alone within the global economy.
Is this expected to be measurable in test or paper performance? No, of course not. It could be measured but the instruments to do so have not, to my knowledge, been yet created, let alone standardized. So, sans any conclusive evidence either way, should a university be free to consider the creation of a diverse population of students and teachers as a factor in their acceptance and hiring decisions, just like they do for picking a student who is great tuba player when the band needs one, and so on?
One more related comment: what is a diverse educational experience. I think about this a lot as my eldest is starting the college hunt process with diversity near the top of his wish list. Percentages don’t do it if within the school populations are self-segregating. One school with a smaller minority population may offer a more “diverse” experience if classes and social life actually encourage meaningful contact, than a school with a larger population on paper but in which the populations have little meaningful direct contact with each other. Such would also have to controlled for in a study that was actually wanting a meaningful answer.
DSeid:
OK, I get your point about race being a stand-in for socioeconomic experience. And I will accept the whole social vs scientific dichotomy on the definition of race, for the sake of this argument. But… why use a stand-in when you can use the real thing? If you are looking for diversity of socioeconomic background, why not recruit directly for it? It’s not hard to measure. You could probably use Zip codes to determine socioeconomic background as well as if not better than using race. And surely these institutions of higher learning could come up with a better scheme than Zip codes. Businesses do this all the time.
JD: Personally, I’m not too surprised by the results. How can diversity improve the quality of education when (in order to meet the criteria of “diversity”) certain academic standards must be lowered?
As I pointed out above, though, this study did not in fact distinguish between increased diversity that was due to “lower-standards” admissions policies and increased diversity that wasn’t. You are assuming that the correlation of dissatisfaction with increased diversity is due to a greater number of underqualified students, but in fact, the study did not test that hypothesis.
After all, this is what the central issue is in the U of M case–A higher value is placed on an applicant’s race than on a perfect SAT score. How could anyone (who claims to not be a racist) agree that it was morally acceptable for the U of M to deny admission to a student because he/she is white?
I don’t think you’ve described the situation quite correctly there. U of M does not have a policy against admitting white students—that would be racism. In fact, most of the U of M’s students are white. But its admissions policies don’t require it to accept the students with the highest SAT scores.
That’s standard practice with most university admissions: they’re not looking only for the highest test scores, they’re also looking for lower-scoring applicants who are athletes, musicians, economically and religiously and geographically and ethnically diverse, etc. etc. The U of Michigan has a complicated system of awarding “points” to applicants, up to a total of 150 points. Some of the factors include:
- 20 points for earning an athletic scholarship
- 20 points for being socioeconomically disadvantaged
- 20 points for white applicants attending a high-minority-enrollment high school
- 20 points for (underrepresented) minority applicants
- 20 points for children of longtime donors or devoted alumni, or those recommended by someone like the university president or the governor
- 10 points for Michigan residents
- 80 points for a 4.0 GPA
- 12 points for a perfect SAT score
So you see, it’s not as though a perfect SAT score would guarantee you admission if it weren’t for the racial-preference points. As I said above, there’s a whole smorgasbord of qualities that go to make up a desirable college applicant, and just having top scores doesn’t mean you can write your own ticket.
By the way, I noticed another interesting comment in the linked article:
If attempts to increase racial diversity really decrease the quality of education as the OP tries to argue, how come more and better-qualified applicants are trying to get into Michigan? (The increase in sheer numbers can be at least partly explained by the demographic swell due to the “baby boomers’ babies”, but the improved qualifications can’t.)
As to the OP:
By definition diversity improves the quality of education. I can’t tell you how many times a student of mine has replied to another, “Huh. I never thought of it that way before.” That happens because every thing that makes you you affects how you interpret/analyze/respond. If your life experience is different from mine, our responses will vary. That variation can’t help but be educational. Even if a difference in, say, our politics or religion doesn’t necessarily get me to change my beliefs, at least you’ve caused me to think about my positions and why I hold them. And that’s what education is all about.
This sort of thinking has justified racism in the past. Seventy years ago, many colleges had quotas for Jews. Thankfully, these no longer exist. Jews are overrepresented at top colleges, because their culture focuses on education. Is this bad?
I can recall the “50% rule” in baseball. For a brief period in the 1950’s it was thought by some that fans would find it unacceptible if 5 of the 9 players on the field were black. It turned out that fans are less interested in skin color than in excellence.
I agree with other posters that use of the word “diversity” to mean racial diversity is spin. There is indeed value to a college including various cultures and POVs, but it’s simply racist to assume that race is the most important factor in creating diverse backgrounds. Furthermore, it doesn’t work that way in practice at top schools. I believe you will find that blacks at Ivy League colleges tend to come from well-to-do, educated families.
I suspect that most proponents of racial diversity would not apply the same reasoning to intellectual and political diversity. Try re-writing the quoted statement to, *“Well, if all other things are equal, isn’t it better to have a sample of the political beliefs representative of that population?” * Should there be quotas amoung students, faculty and administrators to have a proper number of right-wing conservatives?
I don’t support quotas for Republicans. But, I do think that diversity of opinion is a lot more valuable than diversity of skin color.
John,
If it was only socioeconomic diversity that was desired perhaps, but diverse sociologic experiences transcend the economic factors.
December,
Yes, you have a point. I think that a campus full of liberals reciting party lines without question would not be as good of an educational experience as a campus with divergent views represented. Just as this board benefits diverse views and would be less of an experience for its lack.
Well, I did not carry my statement forward from the post in which I originally put forward this assertion, so I could see how you missed it. I was trying to see what arguments exist against diversity, with all other things being equal, without debating the methods of achieving diversity. I also feel that the actual justifications for racism were far different than a desire to have everyone represented, and your effort here to equate them is paltry, deceptive and decemberish.
I suspect that this kind of assertion is more likely the product of your own thinking and not at all likely to be held by “most proponents of racial diversity.” I believe that you fear dissenting and differing points of view in ways that “most proponents of racial diversity” do not. I am entirely comfortable with the application of my quote to any categorization you wish to make. I am comfortable comparing and contrasting my thoughts with any others, and perhaps coming away from the exchange with a new way of considering things. Your failing to appreciate that is illuminating as to the ways you approach the world. IMHO, of course. Oddly, it is not the quote that you cited in which I raised the issue of race, or more specifically, past racism. I wonder why.
DSeid: Diverse sociologic experience can also be easily recruited for w/o reference to race. Is that not so? I have to say that most people I hear talk about diversity mean ONLY racial diversity, meaning, litterally, diversity of skin color. They know that won’t fly, so they hide under the unbrella of “diversity”. I prefer to argue issue out in the open. If someone wants racial diversity, just say so. Then we can talk.
First we were told that racial diversity was a noble goal that had to be achieved. When the courts starting challenging that, we were told that “diversity” benfits not only minorities, but non-minorities as well. That’s clever. How can you be against something that is so good for everyone? The only thing is we’re supposed to accept that statement at face value.
And pls note, I have absolutely nothing AGAINST racial diveristy. In fact I think it’s great. But if someone tells me education is improved by racial diversity, I want them to prove it to me. It’s not blinidnigly obvious.
John,
Take four people of identical economic situations, be it poor, wealthy, or firmly middle class. Make one Black, one White, one Hispanic, and one Asian. Tell me whether their experiences of America are as likely to be as similar to each other as four people of the same ecomonomic group who all belong to one “race”. A wealthy Black man has a different set of experiences than a wealthy White or Asian man; a poor Black woman has a different set of experiences than a poor White woman. We do experience our society differently based on others reactions to our “race” and on our reactions to others’ “race” - in many ways, some obvious and some subtle.
Tell me please how to “easily” recruit for diverse sociolologic experiences without taking race into account, again noting that economics alone is an insufficient means. Unless you do not believe that skin hue “colors” our experience in this country, it is difficult not to consider race as part of diversity.
Now again as to the proof of its benefit, I have none. I have a logical argument which makes me believe that it is likely to have one, but no evidenciary basis.
I think this also depends in part on how narrowly “education” and “improvement” are defined.
At the most narrow end, “education” is solely the ability to retain what you have been taught in the classroom, and “improvement” would be defined as an increase in the ability of students to retain that information. For quantitative disciplines, this may actually be a fair measure of improvement, though education, I believe, is much broader.
For non-quantitative disciplines, the above-cited definitions of “education” and “improvement” may be far too narrow. An easy example I can think of is law school. My law school class was fairly diverse, though I don’t have numbers handy, admittedly. In our criminal procedure class, the perspective of non-white in debates was different from those of white suburbanites on a number of issues, which led to stimulating and illuminating exchanges. Criminal procedure, for those who aren’t lawyers, is the class where you learn about things like search and seizure, probable cause, right to counsel, and the restrictions that the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendment are supposed to put on law enforcement. At the risk of gross stereotyping, those who were white tended to have a much more benign and trusting view of law enforcement than those who were African American or Latino, even among people of similar economic and educational backgrounds. Did this “diversity” help us better pass the multiple choice sections of the bar exam where the concepts of criminal procedure were tested? Probably not. Did it illuminate our understanding of varying perspectives of the law? Most certainly. Did it make us better lawyers? Absolutely. Understanding how others think is critical to success in legal practice.
Socio-economic categories that have nothing to do with race:
family income
family makeup (two parents; grandparents live at home; divorce)
non-English language spoken at home
work experience
lived or travelled abroad extensively
geographic area of birth/school years
grew up in the city/suburbs/country
millitary service before college
age
intended major
Those are the ones I could think of in 30 seconds. I’d hope that some academic wonders could expand on that pretty easily.
Do two poor white people have the same set of experiences? I have no idea. Some probably do, some probably don’t.
Think about the OP. The contention is that we are always told that “diversity” improves education. If it does, someone should be able to prove it. If they can’t, then let’s not use that an excuse for Affirmative Action. The real reason for Affirmative Action is to give so-called disadvantaged people a leg up. The “diversity improves education” solgan is a smoke screen to make it more palitable to more people. I dislike subterfuge, though, as I suspect many other people do as well.
John,
The items on your list are used a selection critera between similarly qualified canidates at many schools or alternatively are already well represented in diversity in most universities without any special effort to do so.
Are two poor White people statistically more likely to share in common experiences than a poor White and a poor Black person? Be fair, this statisitcal likelihood was your critera for “race” on another thread. If so, and if one accepts the concept that a University education is improved by open interaction with a wide variety of worldviews, then it follows that education is improved by racial diversity.
Kimstu, I agree with your observation that the study does not distinguish between natural diversity and diversity as a result of intervention, however, this is NOT a flaw in the study. The intent of the survey was to answer the question: Does a diverse student body necessarily improve the quality of education for everyone? There was no distinction made between different types of diversity because none was needed.
I actually made a careless error when I typed “Personally, I’m not too surprised by the results. How can diversity improve the quality of education when (in order to meet the criteria of “diversity”) certain academic standards must be lowered?”
I mistakenly deleted a big chunk of my concluding paragraph which makes it look as though the U of M diatribe was part of the same thought! Not so…my bad :o
What I was trying to say was this:
Personally, I’m not too surprised by the results of the study. With regards to the four survey questions, it becomes evident that (all other things being equal) the lower ratings are most likely due to increased incidents of inter-racial conflict that would naturally result from increased diversity. As to why this statistic is only valid for higher enrollments of black students (as opposed to hispanic or asians) the study gives no explanation.
Based on my own experience as a white male student at a majority black university (UDC) I can say that this statistic does not surprise me at all. Few would deny that blacks have historically suffered from discrimination to a much higher degree, intensity and duration than other minorities. This sad legacy of racism has understandably created a strong sense of suspicion and mistrust towards whites in some segments of the african-american community. Consequently, as black enrollment increases so too does the likelihood that some of the black students will harbor feelings of veiled hositility towards whites.
In schools where black enrollment is significantly high enough to approach/meet majority status (or where whites are the minority) the fringe elements become emboldened and their hostility towards whites becomes uncomfortably palpable. This hostility manifests itself in different ways–some real life examples: radical leftist blacks angrily denouncing me as “racist” for dismissing the proposition that because I am white I should pay for “slavery reparations”; some of my close friends at school (who happen to be black) have been accused of “trying to be white” simply because we are friends. I could go on–but I won’t–because I think it would be a great disservice to the vast majority of black students who treat me with dignity and respect. It is important to stress that these negative experiences are not the norm and for the most part I am satisfied with the quality of my education. However, all things being equal, I am probably less satisfied than someone who experiences these issues to a lesser degree or not at all.
Whew…that was long, but it was important to explain why I agree with the results of the survey and why I disagree with former U of M president, Lee Bollinger, who said that diversity is “as essential as the study of the Middle Ages, of international politics and of Shakespeare” to defend his school’s policy of minority preference. I do not see how any of the school’s hand-picked minority students will offer anything so profound during the occassional discussions of race relations on campus as to justify Mr. Bollinger’s claim. Also, even if racial diversity is increased it doesn’t necessarily mean that the minority students will want to associate with the white students or vice versa. Students who are seriously interested in being exposed to racial diversity would have better luck living in my apartment building than applying to a highly selective school known for its engineering and business programs.
Kimstu, you brought up some valid points regarding the admissions process and I want to address those. First, you mention that the U of M policy is not racist because it doesn’t explicitly exclude whites. I disagree with you on this because of the fact that certain races are favored over others and this easily fits the definition of racism.
There are many other equally offensive factors that determine who will make the cut at U of M which you mentioned. I feel exactly the same way about other factors that have nothing to do with general academic or athletic standards. So cronyism and racism are equally repulsive to me, same goes for classism, sexism, and ageism. The only group that should get first choice are Michigan residents since their tax dollars built and subsidize the school. Other than that, applicants should not be scored based on group membership but on individual ability, past accomplishments, future potential, etc. I only feel this way about public schools since they get their money from taxpayers who have no say in the matter. Whatever privately funded schools do is their business because I have no interest in them (financial or otherwise).
Now to answer your question about how U of M can be so phenomenally popular when student diversity should decrease the quality of education and thus decrease its desirability. There are several reasons: U of M Ann Arbor is a public school (cheap) that is considered one of the best schools in the nation. They have superior engineering and business programs. In addition, the survey (and my own experience) indicates that a higher level of diversity only makes the overall experience slightly less satisfactory. This would only be relevent in a school that had real diversity in real numbers, I suspect that U of M doesn’t even come close to the level of diversity at many of the colleges in large urban areas.