Very Odd AAUP Study Of Affirmative Action

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports today about what sounds to be an odd study about to be published by the American Association of University Professors. (Link requires subscription; after Jan. 20, the study is to be published on the AAUP web site.)

The study purports to find that “[m]inority students have less access to college than they did before affirmaive action.”

The article acknowledges that larger numbers of black and Hispanic students are attending college than did so when affirmative action came into being in the late 1960s, and that the percentage of black and Hispanic students who attain college educations has risen as well. But, it says, the number and share of white people who attend college has risen at a much faster rate, widening the educational gaps between the races.

According to the author, K. Edward Renner, formerly a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, “[t]hirty years of affirmative action, largely as preferential admissions, has failed.” What he apparently means by failure, however, is that the minorities still lack parity. And unlike whites, minorities are much more likely to attend community or junior colleges near large urban areas.

Of the 30 non-historically-black colleges and universities that enrolled the largest numbers of black students, 23 were institutions that granted only associate degrees…. Twenty-seven of the 30 were located in, or adjacent to, large urban areas….

By contrast, of the 30 colleges and universities with the largest numbers of white students, only one offered only two-year degrees, and 26 were research universities. Just six were located in, or adjacent to, large urban areas.

Moreover, the study claims, “[s]imilar segregative patterns held true for Hispanic students.”

Given the logic and assumptions of its study of the failure of affirmaive action, perhaps we can look forward to the AAUP proposing busing of college students.