Wayne State University is a public university in Michigan that, according to this report, “takes great pains to make sure they [sic] maintain a diverse student body.”
Really? Great pains? Here is the result of Wayne State’s painstaking efforts:
As of last school year, undergraduate enrollment was:
48% White
32% African American
6% Middle Eastern
3.5% Hispanic
This distribution may well reflect someone’s vision of “diversity,” but it most certainly does not look like Michigan. According to these recent Michigan population numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau, Michigan is 81.4% white, 14.3% black, and 2.2% Asian. Note that Asians don’t even register on the Wayne State diversometer.
According to Wayne State Admissions director Susan Zweig,
Every week we look at ethnicity reports and gender reports of the students who have applied. And if we see that there is one segment, say we are losing white students, we will try as hard as we can to go out and recruit in areas where we think that’s important.
I assume this means that Wayne State does not regard the substantial underrepresentation of whites, overrepresentation of blacks, and apparent absence of Asians as important.
The report being quoted here is from WXYZ “Action News” (“On Your Side,” presumably whoever “you” are and whatever your “side” is). Take a look at the page cited above and you’ll see pictures at the top of what is no doubt the Action News team. Like many similar teams, it appears to consist of one white female, one black male, one black female, and one male who may or may not be Hispanic. Perhaps the Wayne State numbers raised no question at WXYZ “Action News” (“On Your Side”) because there, too, whites are substantially underrepresented and blacks are substantially overrepresented.
Finally, I should add that I do not believe universities or news teams (on my side or not) have any business trying to be “representative,” but people who do believe that, who do believe in regulating the racial and ethnic market in everything to get a politically correct result, should be embarrassed by such gross “disparities.”
When you look at the demographics for just for Wayne County, however, the White Non-Hispanics come in at 49.9% and the Blacks at 42.1%.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/26163.html
If you look at the city where it is located, Detroit, you find it is 81.6% Black. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/26/2622000.html
So, it doesn’t match the state demographics, but it may be closer to those of the area it serves.
I too don’t think that news teams should be racially representative but, since you brought the topic up, I will point out that WXYZ – according to the website – serves Detroit, a city that is overwhelmingly black. Presumably the station’s signal travels into areas surrounding the city that might be more diverse, but even still its coverage won’t extend to the entire state.
This raises a question to which I don’t have an answer: what type of school is Wayne State? If it is not terribly competitive, and also if it has many continuing or older students, I could see it disproportionately attracting local (Detroit) residents.
I don’t know whether Wayne State serves primarily Detroit or not, but I do know that it is a state school, supported by state and not city or county taxes. Do we really want to adopt a principle (if that’s what it is) that all institutions should mirror the racial and ethnic mix of their neighborhoods, and be fixed when they don’t? I would be willing to accept the sincerity of those who argue this position if and when they recognize that blacks or Hispanics are ever “overrepresented” anywhere.
Washtenaw County is 12% black and Ann Arbor is 8% black. Yet the racial quota system set up for the University of Michigan was to make the school 15% black which is the same as the State of Michigan.
Also, the argument under Grutter and Gratz was that white students needed minority students in the same university (but not exactly in the same classes or dorms) so that they would receive a better education and be better managers and leaders in the future. Using that argument, one should conclude that black students at Wayne State will be poor managers and leaders in the future since their university does not have the same level of diversity as the state as a whole and that the black students at Wayne State will only be confortable in their professional life in workplaces that are as black as their present classrooms.
Nels Nelson asked the really relevant question — is Wayne State “highly selective”? Are the reported demographics of WSU the result of uniformly applied standards or arbitrarily granted preferential treatment?
The FAQ on the WSU admissions website states that incoming freshmen must have a 2.75 GPA.
No big deal.
It further informs that if an applicant’s GPA is between a 2.0 and 2.74, then the applicant must have an ACT score of 21 or better or an SAT score of 970 or better.
Again, no big deal. WSU clearly is not Harvard or even the University of Michigan. In truth, its admissions standards are probably not much higher than the local community colleges. It appears that most any high school grad who wants to go to WSU can probably be admitted.
Discriminatorily applied preferences do not appear to be an issue in the demographics reported above.
These demographics illustrate most graphically one thing the pro-preference side would like to never discuss — the lower the academic standard (GPA and test score), the greater the race and ethinic “diversity”. Following the logic asserted in the Grutter case, it should follow then that this greater diversity makes a place like Wayne State a better place to go to school.
Agog writes:
>>>”These demographics illustrate most graphically one thing the pro-preference side would like to never discuss — the lower the academic standard (GPA and test score), the greater the race and ethinic “diversity”. Following the logic asserted in the Grutter case, it should follow then that this greater diversity makes a place like Wayne State a better place to go to school.”
As a pro-preference type, I don’t have a problem discussing this at all.
Another factor not being discussed is the COST of a Wayne State education. According to their website, a 15 credit load semester for a resident undergrad is a little over $3900, which equates to about $7800+ for a year, plus about $7000 more for room and board, if you decide to live on campus, but with 80% of those admitted living in the tri-county area surrounding the campus, you get a good picture why this school is an affordable option for high school seniors in the greater Detroit area.
–Cobra
Okay. Lowering both the academic thresholds AND the cost makes an institution more diverse. That only underscores the chief defect of the pro-preference argument. The institutions that most need to practice discrimination in the form of preferential treatment do so to address the demographics that result from the barriers to admission that they themselves have created.
If the University of Michigan or UCLA, etc., truly wanted more real diversity, then all it need do is lower the cost AND the threshhold GPA/SAT.
But UM cannot do that and still claim to be elite and highly selective. And if UM cannot continue to claim to be that, then God help them with the alumni.
Agog writes:
>>>”If the University of Michigan or UCLA, etc., truly wanted more real diversity, then all it need do is lower the cost AND the threshhold GPA/SAT.
But UM cannot do that and still claim to be elite and highly selective. And if UM cannot continue to claim to be that, then God help them with the alumni”
Actually, the above theory bolsters the PRO-Preference argument. Taking the OPPOSITE equation, people who would prefer the UM and UCLA to have LESS diversity should advocate RAISING the costs so dramatically, that only the very wealthy could attend. Then, just like “exclusive neighborhoods” during the recent housing boom, sheer economic demographics would “homogenize” the student population without fanfare.
And the white students who weren’t born into the desired tax bracket? Well…
I’m sure there are common beautitudes and conciliatory idioms normally leveled at disappointed minorities that would suffice, right?
–Cobra
You’re right, Cobra. That is what people who want UM and UCLA to have less diversity would do. Since no one is suggesting that they do it, perhaps this means that there isn’t really anyone whose goal is less diversity.
Laura writes:
>>>”You’re right, Cobra. That is what people who want UM and UCLA to have less diversity would do. Since no one is suggesting that they do it, perhaps this means that there isn’t really anyone whose goal is less diversity.”
Well, tuition costs ARE rising at an alarming rate at elite public schools. Just putting that reality out there.
I’m not THAT much of a conspiracy theorist on it, but just like plummeting gasoline prices in the face of a treacherous mid-term election, with no given reason save “we haven’t had a major hurricane yet”, it does make a fella ponder a few things.
–Cobra