“In what some now say is an unexpected erosion of affirmative action,” the Chicago Tribune reports, “colleges are interpreting the [Grutter] ruling to mean they can no longer offer race-exclusive programs designed specifically to help minority students.”
Across the country formerly racially exclusive programs are now being opened up to non-minorities, although the flow of whites and, on some campuses, Asians into these programs is certainly more of a trickle than a flood.
At Yale University, a weeklong orientation program that focused on racial and ethnic identity included non-minority students for the first time this summer, but only one of the 97 participants was white, said spokeswoman Gila Reinstein.
When Virginia desegregated at this pace it was called massive resistance.
Elise Boddie, education director for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, worries that by ending racially exclusive programs schools “may be sending unwelcoming signals to minority students.” I worry about a generation of students taught to believe that they are not welcome in any institution that treats them equally.
Why Whites & Asians Don’t Participate at “Diversity” Events
Discriminations notes that the Grutter decision has caused many colleges to integrate previously exclusionary events, such as separate minority orientations and themed events meant to attract minority students.