The University of Virginia Cavalier Daily reports today that next fall’s entering freshman class is “more diverse” than last year. By that it means next fall’s freshman class is 10% black, compared to 9% last fall. (Similarly, Hispanics increased from 3% to 5% and “Asian and Asian Americans” increased from 13% to 14%. A chart in the print edition showing last year’s numbers does not appear in the online version.)
The increase in minority acceptances at the University is contrary to results seen at peer institutions such as the University of Michigan and University of California at Berkeley, both of which experienced decreases in minority acceptances.
….
“This year there was more money available to do more traveling and reach out a little more,” [director of the Minority Outreach Office Valerie] Gregory said. “We made more high school visits and the money allowed us to visit New York, Philadelphia and some other areas that typically have high minority populations.”
UVa, I’m sure, has no idea how many Jews, Mormons, or Pentecostals there are in the entering class. But if, in the interest of “diversity,” it did track such numbers, I wonder if a director of “Outreach” would feel so free to say she got extra money to visit New York and Los Angeles, where many Jews are known to live, as well as to rural Alabama (or even some hollows in the nearby Blue Ridge) where born again Christians have been known to congregate.
But even without any concern for religious diversity, all is not well at Mr. Jefferson’s university: “Women comprise 54 percent of the class for the second year in a row….” Still, I doubt whether there are any plans to institute admissions preferences for the underrepresented males, to visit areas or schools that typically have high male populations, or to interview a disproportionate number of males in hopes of attracting more of them. I’m sure such behavior would be regarded as discriminatory.
Meanwhile, across the commonwealth in Fairfax County, the highly selective Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology continues to be the subject of intense debate over its unrepresentative student body. (See here and here for some background on this debate.)
TJ attracts around 3,000 applicants a year from Fairfax and surrounding counties. That number is winnowed down to 800 semi-finalists, from which a class of 400 or so is ultimately selected. The school used to “consider” race until lawyers told them to stop several years ago. As a result, the Washington Post reports today, “[l]ast year, the student body was about 1 percent black and 2 percent Hispanic.” You can predict the response:
A proposal to diversify the student body at the elite Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology by giving less weight to applicants’ test scores is on the Fairfax County School Board agenda for the first time tonight…
As usual, diversity is not what is at issue here. A correspondent cited in one of my posts above who is a recent graduate of TJ wrote that in his class of 400 there were 139 Asians. Severely limiting the number of Asians would allow TJ to provide much more “diversity” than putting a thumb on the admissions scales to admit a few more blacks and Hispanics. And since the Supremes have given the green light to discriminating to produce “diversity,” why don’t they do it?
I wonder if the quaint old principle that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong still lives on, even among some educators.
John: Please check out Barbara Ehrenreich’s column in the New York Times today. I think you could definitely have fun with it.
I hope Asian American parents pitch a fit.
This reminds me of the time my Thermodynamics professor looked around the room and said “I noticed that our class doesn’t have any diversity.” I looked around and noted that while there were plenty of whites, asians, arabs, and females, there were no blacks. Man, what an undiverse crowd.
I’m sick of UVA shoving this crap down our throats. The idea becoming entrenched is not just the need for a “critical mass” of black students, but that these black students are somehow more valuable or better simply by virtue of their skin color. This is the implicit conclusion enforced everyday that someone invokes the term “diversity” at UVA.
I like how the Outreach person got all sorts of new money. Money that might be better spent on…I don’t know…rehiring some of the professors they fired during the budget cuts. Or reinstating the cleaning of public bathrooms in the dorms. Or paying for better food (worst food in the entire state, possibly the nation.) Or a whole plethora of other things.
No. Instead we get more funding for the morning after pill and “diversity.”
It’s sad that to pay for all of this stuff the government swipes money right from our paychecks and then tells us to shut up and just take the abuse.
ADVENTURES IN LEARNING
Mike Adams, a conservative criminology professor at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington, keeps tabs on the Ivory Tower of Babel and has a new column on how one campus is waging a half-hearted campaign against pornography. Meanwhile, Ben…
Clearly most ‘coastal’ governments want to discriminate against Republicans, in other words, White Protestants.
Breaking out Whites into Jews, Catholics and Protestants would reveal the degree to which Protestants are abused, and so will not be done.
I am still waiting for the State of Virginia to offer perferences for white students at all black Virginia Union, Norfolk St, or Hampton Institute. If diversity is good for white students then why isn’t is important for black students at the “traditiionally black universities” to be exposed to white, asian, and hispanic students?
Didn’t you know — Asians are white now that they perform as well or better than everyone else.
My daughter was in the top 10% of her class.
captain of 2 varsity sports, 1400 Sat1 and 790 Writing Sat2 and 600 Math Sat2. National Honor Society, National Hispanic Honor Society ( Vice Pres.) Academic All American, AP Scholar with honors 32 ACT. Did not get into UVA. A girl in her tour group with a 3.4 and a 22 Act did. Go figure