“A More Inclusive Approach To Diversity”?

The Washington Post has a front page article today on how colleges and universities are responding to the apparent victory they won in the Michigan affirmative action cases. I say “apparent” because many of them have concluded that even though they won the right to “diversify,” they are being told — by those mean conservatives at the Center for Equal Opportunity and other similar outfits, and even by their own lawyers — that they nevertheless must abandon, or at least disguise, their race-exclusive programs such as summer internships.

One of the most amusing parts of the article was its subhead: “After Rulings, Recruiters Take a More Inclusive Approach to Diversity.” This head at least seems to recognize what the body does not, which is that pre-ruling “diversity,” i.e., “diversity” left unregulated, had some exclusionary tendencies.

Much of the article focused on the competition among elite institutions for the disturbingly small number of high-scoring minorities. Although I’m very familiar with those numbers, I still find it shocking every time I see them in print.

According to the College Board, only 1,877 black students (about 1.5 percent of blacks who take the tests) scored higher than 1300 out of a possible 1600 on the SAT in 2003. Only 72 scored higher than 1500.

Among the overall student population, 148,024 (about 10 percent of test takers) scored higher than 1300, and 13,897 earned scores higher than 1500.

As usual, the Washington Post tried as hard as it could to soften the impact of these depressing numbers. The relevant comparison of black high scorers, for example, is not to “the overall student population” (since that number includes blacks) but to whites, Asians, and Hispanics. Using the numbers provided here, if one subtracts the total number of black test takers and the number of blacks who scored over 1500, the percentage of “the overall student population” who scored over 1500 goes from 10% to 10.8%. The percentage of white and Asian test takers scoring over 1500 is even higher, but that can’t be calculated from the numbers in the article.

To see why I say “as usual” the Post tries to disguise these numbers, see here and here.

Since there aren’t enough high-scoring minorities to go around, the selective schools are engaged in fierce competition to attract them, as the article relates.

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  1. Number 2 Pencil November 25, 2003 at 2:35 pm | | Reply

    More diversity with less exclusion?

    The Washington Post reports on the “affirmative reaction” of colleges to the dismantling of race-based AA and quota systems. The article, which describes the methods colleges are using to be more in line with the recent Supreme Court ruling, grabs…

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