Princeton Ends A Preference Program; MIT Changes Its Spots

Princeton has just announced that it is ending an 18 year old program limited to minority undergraduates because it fears the program is illegal. (The Associated Press has also reported this in a widely published story, as has the Chronicle of Higher Education)

See Erin O’Connor’s post today for an excellent discussion, one so thorough that I needn’t say more about it here. One comment, though, does bear repeating. Robert Durkee, Princeton’s vice president for communications, is quoted in the article linked above making a priceless comment:

This program is race-exclusive in its admissions and most certainly could be challenged. It was not a good strategy to offer a program that is not defensible.

Yes. It is indeed a much better “strategy” to offer programs that are both legal and defensible.

Erin makes an interesting observation:

the pursuit of diversity is quickly becoming identified with defiance of the law…. The law, in turn, is increasingly cast as the enemy of fairness and inclusion instead of as the protector of equal rights and opportunity…. Princeton’s proactive compliance complicates–and possibly rejects–this stance. As such, it may mark the advent of a new rhetorical and procedural phase in the ongoing struggle to reconcile the pursuit of that chimera, “diversity,” with the principles of liberal democracy.

I hope she’s right, but I fear this may be too optimistic. I suspect the way MIT has apparently handled a similar program may provide a more predictive glance at the future than does Princeton’s “proactive compliance,” and Jessie and I actually have a bit of personal experience with it to share.

Take a look at the description of MIT’s MITES (Minority Introduction to Engineering, Entrepreneurship, and Science program. As described in a July 1999 article in The Tech, MIT’s primary student newspaper,

Mites is a six week residential summer program open to talented underrepresented minority high school juniors. The program focuses on introducing the students to careers in engineering, science, and entrepreneurship.

The program is fully scholarship-based; admitted students pay no tuition. This tuition-free system is possible through grants from a host of individuals and organizations including the following: 3M, Citicorp Foundation, Digital Equipment Corporation, DuPont Chemical Company, Hewlett-Packard Company, and the Eastman Kodak Company among others.

Summer before last, when Jessie was 14, she was fortunate enough to be accepted into the highly selective (and colorblind) Research Science Institute, a program at MIT for rising high school seniors (she was both younger and further along in school, but they took her anyway). Since we of course could not assume she would be accepted at RSI, she also looked at other summer programs, one of which was MITES. It was clear to us that MITES was aimed at minorities, but the description we saw at the time mentioned that it was seeking students from groups underrepresented at MIT. Well, we figured, women are underrepresented at MIT; maybe that would count. So we called, and were told in no uncertain terms that Jessie could apply only if she were black, Hispanic, or Native American, or perhaps some other racially or ethnically underrepresented group.

Checking the current description (linked above) of MITES, however, suggests that parts have been rewritten by a university lawyer to make the program appear to fit under the Bakke loophole.

Additional factors to be considered for selection as plus factors (not entry requirements) will include, without limitation, whether:

  • the individual would be the first in the family to attend college;
  • there is an absence in the individual’s family of science and engineering backgrounds;
  • the individual’s high school has historically sent less than 50% of its graduates to 4-year colleges;
  • the applicant attends a school that presents challenges for success at an urban elite university (e.g., rural or predominantly minority); and/or
  • the individual is a member of a group that is under-represented in the study and fields of science and engineering (African American, Latino or Native American).

Members of all races and ethnicities will be considered and we will be looking particularly for students who come from challenging backgrounds and must overcome significant odds to pursue their dreams of becoming an engineer or scientist.

Although I have no way of knowing, I strongly suspect that the actual nature of this program hasn’t changed since the summer of 2001 when Jessie was told that she could not apply. Perhaps if she were a high school student applying this summer they would take her application, but chances are this program is still in fact limited to minorities.

If that is so, I suspect it is a more accurate harbinger of what academic life will be like in a post-preferences legal environment than is Princeton’s forthright compliance.

There are many ways to stand in the schoolhouse door and practice massive resistance, and they were not all exhausted by the Southern segregationists.

Say What? (3)

  1. Kate Coe February 8, 2003 at 2:30 pm | | Reply

    ” there is an absence in the individual’s family of science and engineering backgrounds”

    Isn’t this sort of Stalinist?

    Repeat after me:

    “Acquired characteristics can’t be passed on.”

    What does this have to do with anything? Dad could be a pastry chef–that’s working with chemistry. Or a mechanic–that’s engineering of a sort.

  2. Cobb February 11, 2003 at 5:44 pm | | Reply

    my parents were sociologists, but i learned to program computers when i was 13 years old in 1974. i could explain nuclear fusion and fission in the 7th grade and independently figured out negative numbers when i was 9.

    as a national achievement finalist (and national merit semifinalist) i was invited to the mite program. i regularly scored in the high 80th percentiles on all standardized tests.

    but i was a junior in highschool before i ever even *heard* of MIT.

    the mite program had an extension at georgia tech (which i also never heard of) which was handled through the atlanta university center, and it was into that specific program i was invited.

    my college advisor had essentially no advice.

    i declined the program. i never met any engineers or scientists. my jesuit prep school had a lousy math program, and my math education essentially stopped. although i applied and was accepted to usc on early decision for their electrical engineering program, my interest was solely in computing, and software at that (i took early classes, the full curriculum and directed study in computers). there were only 5 kids in the student body of 1200 who understood anything about computers.

    at the age of 17 i took a summer job after highschool graduation running all the scientific computing programs for a chemical reprocessing facility. evidently, i had a knack for thermodynamics programming. my boss said that i had great potential to be a chemical engineer. but by this time it was obviously too late in my highschool career (i had already graduated) to take honors chemistry, which this practicing chemical engineer said i would have passed with flying colors.

    if i would have taken the mite invitation, i would have learned from real engineers at the university level which way my talent could have taken me. instead i muddled through highschool, uninspired and told in no uncertain terms that there are no such things as black engineers (or partners in accounting firms). since there were no computer engineers that i could have contact with, the entire area was a complete mystery.

    i have no doubt that such a program would have shown me exactly what i needed to know, as i have subsequently met many mite graduates, including one of my best friends who is now a research professor at georgia tech. despite the fact that by any standard, i have landed on my feet and have a rewarding career, there is no question that i could have done better had i taken advantage of that opportunity.

    most people who don’t make it their business have little idea of what it takes to discover and nurture the talent and hunger of kids who have racist and other presumptions against their undernourished ambitions. i’ve been that kid, and i’ve helped others who are that kid.

    the broad net cast by programs like the mite program is appropriate, and yet there are many fish, like me, that still get away.

    i can assure you that there is institutional patronage in programs like mite and that many black and latino folks who have come up through the system the hard way will continue to fight for it.

    i can also assure you that organizations like nsbe (of which i was a national officer) will continue their unique missions, and i can further assure you that despite the complete lack of racial restrictions or preferences in membership, whitefolks will continue to ignore them.

    i could argue for years that there is something very different about being black or latino and persuing arguably the most difficult of all undergraduate programs. it is a story that doesn’t translate well, especially in light of the tabula rasa of context-free colorblindness. what doesn’t go away, however is the sense of duty and purpose of those deeply involved in such programs.

    the fact remains that america wants engineers, scientists and technologists. furthermore it is undeniable that programs like mite and groups like nsbe and shpe have been very successful in their missions to recruit, retain and graduate black and latino engineers.

    i say more power to them.

  3. mazique April 22, 2004 at 4:23 am | | Reply

    Being an afican american in ammerican society is in itself a disadvantage and especially when attending minority schools. Afican ameicans are overlooked when it comes to holding school offices and being elected for honorary awards.Overcoming this challenge is tremendous especially when you are one of five AA in a hgh school of 200 nonminorities. AA students must prove themselves to be on equal footing espesially when instructors and administrative have lower expectations of the intelligence of such students. Often times AA are isolated in such high school setting by students and faculty. Those AA that can excell inspite of this diversity should be commended and opportunities for them to participate in such programs with other minorities such as inthe mites program should not exclude them. The program has the potential to enhance their self esteem by introducing to them that they can excell in programs that boost their self esteem and put them on an equal footing as other nonminority students. Studies have shown that AA children that can edure the discrimination of high school and elementary schools are succesful when given the opportunity

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