Proposition I-200, modeled on California’s Proposition 209, ended racial preferences in Washington state (unless and until the legislature passes two bills that would circumvent that constitutional amendment, and if those laws are then upheld in court).
Doug Chen is chairman of an Asian-American group that supports racial preferences — his group believes “that the student bodies of our colleges and university should closely mirror the racial and ethnic composition of the population they are intended to serve” — and yet a recent column of his is honest enough to cite numbers suggesting that the demographic sky did not fall on Washington universities as a result of I-200, as predicted. Referring to critics of I-200-avoiding bills now in the legislature, Chen writes that they argue
that, at the least, I-200 has had no impact on the racial mix of the student body at the University of Washington and, at best, resulted in the most diverse class in the history of that institution. Comparing the population percentages of each of the major racial groups in 2000 with the incoming UW freshmen class for 2004, they suggest that:
–There is adequate representation of African Americans (3 percent) and Native Americans (1.3 percent), the same as their respective percentage of the total population in the state in 2000;
–An underrepresentation of Hispanics (4.6 percent compared to 7.5 percent of the total population;
–A substantial over-representation of Asian Americans (28.5 percent compared to 5.4 percent of the total population in 2000); and
–A substantial underrepresentation of white students (53.9 percent compared to 78.9 of the state population).
Chen does not dispute these numbers, but nevertheless opposes I=200 because he ” believe[s] in equal opportunity, fairness, and inclusion.”
I also believe in equal opportunity, fairness, and inclusion, but to me equal opportunity and fairness both require non-discrimination and thus preclude engineered proportional representation, and “inclusion” results from, and in fact requires, barring exclusion based on race or ethnicity.
Ah, the typical Asian-American attitude towards racial preferences:
1. Admit blacks/Hispanics on a minimum quota
2. Admit Asians based on qualifications, with NO maximum quotas
3. If there are any spots left for qualified white kids, let a small, token number in – WELL below their % of high school grads and WELL below the # of qualified students.
I guess that’s what they think when they voted against I-200 and Prop-209, that the system will be rigged against white kids, not their kids. Conservatives that think that Asians will be on their side on the issue of racial preferences are seriously deluded, from my own personal observations, and from the exit polls (like this racist Chen guy says, about 61% voted against the anti-preference propositions in Washington & California.)
So THIS is what Washington University means by “race neutral” admissions:
link:http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/about/news_info/cbsenior/yr2004/WA_2004.pdf
White average SAT: 534/533 – total 1067
Asian average SAT: 495/541 – total 1037
Black average SAT: 449/441 – total 890
Hispanic average: 493/485 – total 978
And yet, at the flagship public university in the state, the University of Washington:
blacks are represented at about equal to their % of the population,
Hispanics are represented at 61% of their % of the population, whites at about 68% of their population…
Asians are represented at 527% of their % of the population – even with LOWER average SAT scores than white students. I guess that having a racist Asian-American governor to discriminate against white people really pays off!
From now on, on every application that I ever fill out, I’ll be a “Hispanic” (or “poor” or whatever they want me to be), a lot of white people I know already do that. White Americans must be the most spineless, timid, cowardly, self-hating masochists in the world to put up with all this blatant, institutional discrimination. It’s almost embarrassing to be a white person.
Or maybe it’s just the old, rich, powerful white people – like the politicians, judges, lawyers, college chancellors and teachers – who are responsible. These people never suffer from racial preferences(i.e., college teachers have tenure, judges appointed for life, nearly 100% of politicians get re-elected, lawyers make $$$ from lawsuits). And if ANY white people SHOULD sarifice to help black people, it’s these sort of white people (rich, old, powerful). But instead, they ease their (real or imagined) guilt by ruining the life of poor white kids trying to get an education. If the liberal radicals like Actus and Cobra want to bring down the rich, old, white power structure in America (Democrats AND Republicans), they’ve got my 100% support.
Will, don’t you think that you’re missing some data to extrapolate from statewide average scores to University of Washington admissions? The diversity of scores on both sections is higher for Asians than for any other group. I think we can agree that a greater percentage of Asians than whites are immigrants with poor English skills, and that these students would drag down the average verbal scores. It doesn’t seem unreasonable to therefore expect that Asians are disproportionately represented in the subgroup of high-achieving students that can academically qualify for the state universities. Whether it’s enough to account for 527% (or 365%, if you consider only the school-age population) I don’t know. Don’t forget too that more than just this single test, notably GPA, is considered in admissions. What would be best would be data on applicants and admissions to the University of Washington.
Also, just a thought: if a large number of whites are checking other boxes as you suggest, and presumably those who would do so are primarily low achievers who believe they need the racial preferences, I wonder how much that contributes to the low test scores and admission rates of “minorities.”
Nels,
I don’t think a lot of white people are checking other boxes, at least in college admissions. The people I’m talking about are 30-something white people in the workforce. I don’t think a lot of white teenage kids are even told how the admission system is rigged against them. Also, deliberately listing another race on an application requires a level of cynicism and racial identity that I don’t think a lot of white 17-year olds have.
I realize that GPA is not listed, and that it is a valid academic factor, but is enough of a factor to account for 1. The highest scoring SAT group being vastly underrepresented, and 2. Another group being represented at 400-500 percent of their population? Considering the track record of the admisssions officers in the USA in their publicly stated goal to (even in violation of the law and the constitution) deliberately minimumize the number of non-hispanic white students, I CANNOT give them the benefit of the doubt, and say that they aren’t discriminating, unless they release the GPA info, and asians and other non-whites are so much better in terms of GPA that it would cause such skewed admissions numbers.
In reading this thread some alarm bells went off in my mind. First was the comment that including the SAT scores of those who mis-state their race or ethnicity would lower the average SAT score for that group. On the contrary, it seems to me that those most likely to appreciate that the system is set up to discriminate against them based on their race would tend to RAISE the SAT score level of their adopted group. Second bell: those who would mis-state their race are cynical. The
Notherbob2,
Actually, the groups listed as “no response” had by far the highest verbal SAT and math SAT. If people are incorrectly stating their race, it’s probably really smart people of any race who don’t trust the system to be fair to them. “no response” was 2,965 of 12,139 SAT takers, nearly 1/4 of the total!!
So , it looks like smart people who distrust the university are not sure which group has the advantage, and checking the “no response” box, rather than choosing another race.
And yes, I agree completely that white people who misstate their race ARE very intellegent. Despising the corrupt, racist admissions proccess (and the hiring proccess of governments and Fortune 500 companies who use racial preferences) is not just cynical, it’s also the logical, smart thing to do. If colleges, government, businesses want to admit/hire (black,hispanic, etc) then be what they want you to be.
Will, I did some digging and here is what I meant by the greater diversity of Asian scores, using California as an example as data is more readily available for that state and its university system.
The average SAT score for whites was 1077 and for Asians it was 1048, only a single point off from the difference in Washington. Notice that the standard deviation for Asian scores is much greater than that for white scores, as this will be relevant in a moment. Asians represent approximately 11% of the state population and about 45% of the admissions to UC Berkeley, a 409% disparity. This is essentially all the data that you have for Washington. It certainly smells fishy, until you look back at the numbers you posted several days ago, showing that Asians admitted to Berkeley on average have SAT scores of 33 points higher than whites who were admitted.
In short, state scores for whites are more clustered around the average while Asians are disproportionately represented at the extremes, and the schools in question primarily admit students with above-average SAT scores.
(link):http://www.calstate.edu/as/stat%5Freports/2004%2D2005/feth05.htm
So, whites have the highest SATs in California, at the “top end” – the UC colleges overall – they’re 42% of high shcool grads, and 35% of total students. At the “bottom end” – the Cal State (CSU) colleges, they’re 38% of total students.
So overall, considering EVERY single 4-year public college in California – not just the “top” or “bottom” ones, the white % is between 35-38%, whites are 42% of total high school grads, and whites get the highest SAT scores, and they’re NOT being discriminated against?
Will, I am not following something at that link. I see white students at 45% of the CSU undergraduate population and 46% of the CSU overall population. The numbers may even be higher if, as you suggested earlier, it is primarily whites who choose not to identify their race. Perhaps I’m misreading the tables.
110,273/290,023=38% (including all groups)
If you don’t include the “unknown”, it’s
110,273/(242,255+*11,175)= 43%
*I’m not including “non-resident aliens” as white since about 90-95% of immigrants to California are non-white. (and I’m not assuming that whites are more likely to call themselves “unknown”. The % of “unknown” by race is, by definition, unknown.
)
So at all the lower levels combined (CSU), whites are about 38-43%, and at the top level (UCs), they’re about 35% of the total. So if whites have the highest SAT scores, but are clustered in the middle, then whites should be at least 42% overall, and vastly overrepresented at the worst UCs, and the best CSUs. And that’s obviously not the case. Personally, I went to San Jose State, and Asians far outnumber whites there.
Of course we can’t include the “unknowns” (whites could be anywhere from 38% to 50% depending on the breakdown), so for argument’s sake, assuming that all non-resident aliens are non-white, let’s say that the white undergraduate student population in the CSU system is 43%. The admissions rate for whites at the lesser UC’s – all but Berkeley, UCLA, and San Diego, the three schools that accept fewer than half their applicants – was 41.7% in 2003. Across all UC’s whites accounted for 40.6% of the admissions. (Whites don’t need to be vastly overrepresented at the worst UC’s, as you suggested, because the worst UC’s are together much larger than the best.) As a “for entertainment purposes only” calculation, between the CSU undergraduate population and 2003 UC admissions whites are represented at 42.2%. If you have some better data, or another take on this, I’d certainly like to hear it, as so far I’m still not recognizing the large disparity that you are between these numbers and the percentage of whites amongst high school grads.
Just a clarification of something in the post above: I meant to write that 41.7% of those admitted in 2003 to the non-elite UC schools were white, not that this was their admissions rate.
When all you dueling actuaries are done obsessing over the numbers, does anyone believe that anyone who wants a college degree can’t get one, regardless of race, etc.? They just may not be able to get one at their school of choice if their skin color is wrong, just like the University of Mississippi in 1937, say.
notherbob, I can agree with that, and I agree with what Will wrote several threads down: the top UC schools appear to be discriminating against Asians, through higher academic standards, in favor of Hispanics, blacks, and whites. At other schools, particularly in other parts of the country with different demographics, it is whites or perhaps even some other racial group that is in this position.
I apologize for all the numbers. Googling data and messing with a calculator is hardly my idea of fun, but I felt that Will was in particular misapplying or misunderstanding averages.