Educ. Reformer Says Many Schools Still Have Race-Based Admissions
by Jim Brown
March 30, 2004
(AgapePress) - A higher education reform group has launched a new project to stop America's universities from discriminating against applicants on the basis of their skin color or ancestry.The National Association of Scholars is sending letters to public institutions in 20 U.S. states, requesting information on how they use race and ethnicity in their student admissions programs. The NAS letters ask schools whether targets or quotas have been set for various groups, and how group membership is determined for individual applicants.
The project is an effort to get schools to comply with a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, which laid down new criteria as to when the use of race and ethnicity in student admissions is not permissible.
While the high court's landmark ruling upheld the consideration of race as a factor in the admissions process, it also limited the kinds of admissions procedures state-funded schools can use to implement race. For instance, colleges and universities can no longer automatically grant points to students based on their ethnicity, but must review the candidates on a more individual basis.
Still, according to NAS executive director Brad Wilson, it is not unusual for universities to make an "end run" around laws prohibiting affirmative action point systems and similar admissions processes the courts have defined as discriminatory. "I think that universities have gotten into the habit of doing things their own way and have lost any sense of accountability, either to the public or to the law of the land," Wilson says.
But the education reform advocate emphasizes that the Supreme Court's ruling did not give universities a blank check to discriminate, as some seem to think, if their policies are any indication.
While Wilson feels most people tend to look upon secondary education as a good thing -- "the more education, the better" -- he finds it astonishing that "it's the leadership in higher education that is now leading the charge in favor of discriminating on the basis of race. It's not just wrong; it is appalling," he says.
As the project garners responses to the letters, the NAS will be able to collect information about which public colleges and universities are following the Supreme Court guidelines. Wilson says schools found in noncompliance with the law could be subject to a lawsuit.
