Q: Race? A: None

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous referred me to this recent article in Inside Higher Ed, and to this similar one from a year ago. (I like to think I would have seen these without the referral, but liking to think and actually thinking (and especially actually seeing) are quite different things. So keep those referrals coming.)

Both articles reflect what can only be described as a growing dismay in the ranks of the race managers in higher education caused by the increasing numbers of applicants who refuse to identify themselves by race. “Between 1991 and 2001,” last year’s article reports,

the number of such students increased by just over 100 percent, to 938,000, according to the latest “Minorities in Higher Education” report, released Monday by the American Council on Education. The numbers indicate that there are more college students whose race or ethnicity is unknown than there are Asian American students (937,000).

College officials are not only dismayed by what they regard as this revoltin’ development (for those of you old enough to remember “The Life of Riley”); they are also mystified. “Who are these students?” the recent article asks,

and why are they declining to identify themselves? The answers have implications for college officials and policy makers on a wide range of issues, including affirmative action and student life.

When academics ask questions, answers (whether accurate or not) are sure to follow. Sure enough:

A new study by the James Irvine Foundation’s Campus Diversity Initiative takes a first step at answering the “who they are” question. The report, ” ‘Unknown’ Students on College Campuses: An Exploratory Analysis,” examines undergraduates at three private colleges in California and finds that a “sizable” number of those who declined to identify their race were white. That means that on the three campuses, the study found, the proportion of enrolled students who were white rose by anywhere from 10 to nearly 30 percent.

“As many campuses report progress toward compositional diversity by touting the presence of either underrepresented minority students or students of color generally, our findings suggest that the racial/ethnic composition can be distorted when there is a large unknown population,” the authors write. “Even if a relatively small portion of this group is white, it will change the demographic diversity of a campus and have repercussions in terms of the handling of this category in data reporting.”

Oh, my. No wonder they’re so worried. Too many of those unwanted, diversity-reducing “whites” on campus, and sneaky ones to boot. Must do something about that.

Finally, the predictably chilling lesson:

The report calls for better and more accurate data collection about the racial makeup of students, both to “eliminate our reliance on assumptions about unknown students and establish a way of collecting more accurate official enrollment data on all students. With this more accurate data, we will have not only a better sense of the true racial/ethnic composition of our colleges and universities, but also a better gauge of the access various students have to, and the success they have through, higher education.”

By all means let’s develop some more rigorous methods of racial identification, since self-identification is becoming so unreliable. Maybe government issued racial ID cards. If I’m not mistaken South Africa abandoned them when they dropped apartheid, but surely there are some former officials over there who could teach us a thing or two about how to manage this problem.

The article can be skimmed quickly, but the extensive comments are fascinating. They’re quite interesting, and worth the time.

Say What? (12)

  1. Sandy P January 6, 2006 at 8:48 pm | | Reply

    And what happens if 1 is bi/tri/multi-racial?

    Are we going back to the 1/8(?) rule?

  2. particledude January 6, 2006 at 11:01 pm | | Reply

    These students have chosen, presumably as conscientious objectors, not to identify themselves by race. Their refusal to self-identify is met with “calls for better and more accurate data collection about the racial makeup of students”. If students are refusing voluntary self-identification, what methods could possibly be available? Would offices of diversity request ‘voluntary’ reports or even estimates from heads of student organizations about the composition of their groups, circumventing the objections of individuals? (That’s also a good way to hold diversity audits). Conscientious objection and boycott are time-honored expressions of civil discourse and civil rights. What gives anyone the right to intrude?

    By the way, you mentioned South African policies and I happen to be reading about a similar situation in Rwanda. The Organization of African Unity’s report on the 1994 Rwandan genocide describes the Belgian institutionalization of ‘race’ (Hutu vs. Tutsi) as one of the single most important root causes of the radical violence a century or more later. It was terribly important to the Belgians and then to the Rwandans themselves to know who was what and to collect “better and more accurate data”.

  3. K January 7, 2006 at 12:07 am | | Reply

    Avoid the tendency to over-analyze. If students, or acrobats, or mice, for that matter, choose not to answer it is because they think answering is not in their best interest.

    These students don’t foresee any benefit, or perhaps some penalty, from answering. So they don’t. Period.

    Many college administrations feel their duty is to have a student population that will lead to a “better” society. This is publicly proclaimed and considered a worthwhile objective.

    But the student merely wants to be admitted, continue education, and proceed into adult life.

    The goals are not the same. Neither is wrong.

  4. mikem January 7, 2006 at 5:19 am | | Reply

    “Avoid the tendency to over-analyze.”

    Outstanding thought. Please talk to the “discrimination is anti-discrimination” crowd.

  5. scott January 7, 2006 at 7:59 am | | Reply

    i am a college student, and a part of the ‘sizeable demographic mentioned in the article. i would place myself in the group of conscientious objector, as i have always marked my race as either multi-racial, other, or unknown. i do this because i don not support the concept of race, and thus do not support the collection of such data for matters of college enrollment, residency, employment, etc.

    as far as the comment,

    “it is because they think answering is not in their best interest,”

    i must mention that, ironically, by signifying myself as “other” and “multi-racial” i was able to qualify for special diversity scholarships, however, this was not in anyway my intention.

  6. Stephen January 7, 2006 at 9:00 am | | Reply

    Reading the article at Inside Higher Ed made me wonder: “What will be the trigger that brings down this house of cards?” And I mean the racial and sexual quota system.

    Without getting too involved in the story, I’ll assert this: In the absence of eligible black men, gay white men became the stars of the quota system. So many black men are in jail or have dropped out of high school that it’s just about impossible to recruit them to college.

    I’ve seen this over and over. In order to pat themselves on the backs, liberals have congratulated themselves on their tolerance of gays. Thus, the real poster child of the quota system is a rich gay white boy from a virtually all white community. You get the thrill of feeling virtuous while doing nothing.

    This has become so obvious. In NYC, I meet young men who are pretending to be gay for the perks.

  7. ParticleMan January 7, 2006 at 9:57 am | | Reply

    I realize that the reasons for not supplying information about race will range from self-interest to principled objection. The post above from scott and my own experience though, bear out the need to ask about what happens after admissions when the university still insists on placing intense emphasis on race data collection about students who previously opted out.

    The students who opted out to increase their chances of admission won’t care if data is collected afterwards, the conscientious objectors (which exist) will. That, I think, will bear a little analysis about just how compelling an interest there is in collecting these data as people object in greater numbers.

  8. Richard Nieporent January 7, 2006 at 10:18 am | | Reply

    I usually leave blank the answer to the question of race. Sometimes when I am feeling really annoyed that I am being asked this question, I have filled in the answer for race with the word human. However, I wouldn’t advise you to do this if you are sent a notice for jury duty from the Federal Court. The form requires you to give them information about yourself. It states that it is mandatory (punishable by fine or imprisonment if you refuse to do so) that you answer the question of what is your race. To state the obvious, bureaucrats from the former German and South African regimes would have felt at home working for the US government. The irony of this is lost on Liberals.

  9. Michelle Dulak Thomson January 7, 2006 at 11:41 am | | Reply

    John,

    Yes, how dare students not provide their racial data? Not that the admissions folks would necessarily take it seriously even if they had it. Tiger Woods, for example, has a Thai mother and a father of mixed black/white/Native American ancestry. That is, the single largest chunk of his genome is Asian. Chances that an admissions committee acting on its own would see Tiger Woods as an Asian student in consequence — well, zero is a nice round number.

    I agree with a couple of posters above that universities ought to be able to define races before they start racially classifying their students. Give me actual criteria by which you determine who’s black and who’s white and who’s Hispanic and who’s Asian-American and who’s so mixed-race that even you cannot put a name to it. And then, please, tell me why in the name of sanity we need to know this.

  10. superdestroyer January 7, 2006 at 3:27 pm | | Reply

    Image is the progressives got their way and students were asked their sexual orientation in addition to their “race” during the admission process.

    I wonder what percentage of students would refuse to answer when schools begin using the data to ensure orientation diversity or would claim to be bisexual if it meant increasing the chance of admission or the receipt of a scholarship.

    Would there be historically hetero universities such as historically black universities that would not have to bother with asking about race or about orientation “diversity’?

  11. K January 8, 2006 at 2:53 am | | Reply

    Perhaps the first calm discussion I ever saw about race.

    Scott mentioned that he rejected race but had answered the question. I couldn’t tell exactly why he referred back to my comment.

    Others mentioned principled objection as a reason not to answer. Isn’t principled objection a form of self interest – the person thinks he will feel better by doing the right thing.

    I can’t totally agree with Particleman’s last paragraph. How do we know the first group won’t be just as wary after admission as before?

    About government or authority. School officals might ponder this: to students the school is, in a way, their government and authority. So those most suspicious of same will regard school administrators as cops w/o uniforms. Best avoided, told little, and up to no good. (Instructors sure do..joke)

    I walked away from the first job where I was asked about race. Nearly forty years ago. Did other work. And fortunately it lasted so I didn’t have to care again. Taught in college for a decade in the evenings – I had got in that door before such questions were asked.

    Affirmative action and similar programs did a lot of good. I saw plenty.

    But like many government programs the employed never want it to end or change much. So the problem the program was to solve can never be said to be solved.

    And there will be great resistance to changing even methods that seem not to work. The recommendation will always be “more”.

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