Has Harvard Ceased Discriminating?

The Center for Equal Opportunity and American Civil Rights Institute strike again! According to an article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education (thanks to Erin O’Connor for tipping me off), “Harvard University’s business school has agreed to stop limiting participation in a summer program to members of particular minority groups in response to a complaint from two organizations critical of affirmative action” (CEO and ACRI).

But a look at the new enrollment criteria listed on the web site of the program at issue raises the question of just how much Harvard has changed.

Participants will be selected based on academic achievement, demonstrated leadership, and management potential. Academic studies in the field of business administration are not necessary for selection in this program. Participants are expected to participate in the entire program.

Consistent with the objective of promoting educational diversity and opportunity in business leadership, additional criteria to be considered among others, are whether the applicant is:

• from a family with little business education or experience;
• the first family member to attend college;
• from a school whose graduates do not typically attend a top-tier, urban university (e.g., attends a rural or predominantly minority college, or has attended a community college as part of a four-year degree); and /or
• a member of a group that is currently underrepresented in business schools and corporate America (e.g., African American, Latino, or Native American).

Take a hard look at the implications of that “and/or,” which I have put in bold. As I read this list of requirements, it seems to me to mean that Asians or whites or Arabs or whatevers must meet one of the first three bulleted requirements, but blacks, Latinos, or Native Americans need not. Thus a black or Latino or Native American son or daughter of a rich, prominent businessman, who is not the first member of his or her family to attend college, and who attends in fact an Ivy League school could meet the program’s requirements.

Harvard may have ceased altogether excluding whites, Asians, etc., from this program, but it certainly doesn’t seem to have stopped discriminating against them.

Here’s a thought experiment for you (or others): As we’ve seen here in several posts going back a while, a number of law schools have protested the presence of military recruiters because the military excludes gays (at least when it finds out about them). I wonder how many people who disapprove of this military discrimination would be satisfied if the Pentagon announced, in a manner similar to Harvard’s announcement, that it would henceforth cease excluding gays but would continue requiring them to meet all sorts of conditions to serve that do not apply to straights.