In writing about the new Colorado Civil Rights Initiative (here), I quoted (or quoted an article that quoted) Christine Yoshinaga-Itano, vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity at Colorado University, who said it has “no race- based admissions, no race- based employment and no race-based financial aid or scholarship.”
It turns out, however, that Ms. Yoshinago-Itano’s assertion was based on a misunderstanding (or perhaps purposeful misrepresentation) of the CCRI, and thus is of no value in understanding its relevance to CU policies. In attempting to explain to the Colorado Daily why CCRI would have no impact at CU she revealed the extent of either her misunderstanding or distortion:
According to Christine Wyoshimaga-Itamo [sic; the correct spelling is Yoshinago-Itano, and I have used it in subsequent quotes], vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity, there are no race-based programs or race-based quotas at CU.
“And we have not had those for many years here at the university and I don’t know if we ever did,” said the 22-year CU employee. “The reason for [an affirmative action ban] is to prevent universities from using race-based quotas, and that simply does not happen [here], so [a ban] would have no impact,” said Yoshinago-Itano.
For that reason, said Yoshinago-Itano, an affirmative action ban in Colorado would have no affect on CU’s current admission policies.
Ms. Yoshinago-Itano believes, or at least asserts to the public, that a ban on “discriminating against or granting preferences to” any individual based on race would bar only programs with fixed racial quotas. It would be interesting to see her response when (if?) some enterprising Colorado reporter asks her about her fundamental misreading of what, after all, is commendably clear text. In the letter to the Denver Post I posted here, I suggested that one Colorado higher education official should enroll immediately in a remedial reading class because he claimed the ban on racial preferences would bar preferences to athletes. Perhaps Ms. Yoshinago-Itano should join him.
Even though she believes CU would not be affected by the passage of CCRI, Ms. Yoshinago-Itano is still bothered by it.
“The thing that bothers me about this issue is that it is based on an assumption that students and employees of color on this campus are not as well-qualified as everyone else, and that’s just completely untrue,” said Yoshinago-Itano. “It is a sad thing that their abilities, their right to be on this campus, are being questioned in any way.”
Now, why would anyone suspect that “students and employees of color … are not as well-qualified as everyone else”? Could it be because the students do not have to meet the same standards as everyone else? Ms. Yoshinago-Itano either denies the existence of racial preferences (or denies that a ban on racial preferences would have any effect at CU), but other administrators freely acknowledge that they take race into account.
Kevin MacLennan, director of admissions at CU, said race can be a factor in the admissions process, but cannot be a primary or sole factor in which a student is offered admission.
“We currently consider between 11 and 13 different primary factors in the admission process, and race can be an additional consideration, but not a primary one,” said MacLennan….
That’s CU’s familiar story, and I assume they’re sticking to it. There is, however, a good deal of evidence that MacLennan’s gloss is as misleading as Yoshinago-Itano’s. For that evidence, as is frequently the case, we have the Center for Equal Opportunity to thank. It has published a thorough and detailed analysis of admissions preferences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and other Colorado colleges for the classes entering in Fall 1995, and the story that data tells about preferences, at Boulder especially, is considerably at variance with the university’s official line.
Among the findings of the CEO study:
- At the University of Colorado at Boulder … the average white student scored 205 points higher on the SAT (out of a possible 1600), and 4 points higher on the ACT (out of a possible 36), and nearly half a point higher on grades (on a 4-point scale) than the average black student…. “In other words, 50 percent of whites enrolled at the University of Colorado at Boulder score at least 205 points higher than 50 percent of blacks enrollees.”
- [At Boulder the] median SAT scores of white and Asian rejectees (940 and 920, respectively) are higher than the black admittee median (895) and 25th percentile Hispanic admittee score (880). This means that more than half of all white and Asian rejectees had higher SAT scores than half of all blacks and more than a quarter of all Hispanics who were offered admission.
- [At Boulder the] Asian and the white GPAs at the 25th percentile are greater than the black median…. [T]his means that 75 percent of all Asians and whites have higher GPAs than half of all blacks. The median GPAs of white and Asian rejectees (2.8 and 2.7, respectively) is roughly equal to the 25th percentile black admittee GPA (2.7). This means that about half of all white and Asians who were denied admission had higher GPAs than about a quarter of blacks who were accepted.
- [At Boulder an] average of 72 percent of whites finish after six years, compared to an average of 39 percent of blacks, 50 percent of Hispanics, and 64 percent of Asians. These findings on graduation rates parallel those on enrollee qualifications.
Diversity Dean Yoshinago-Itano is so busy asserting that CCRI would affect nothing at CU Boulder because it has no “racial quotas” and Admissions Dean MacLennan sticks so closely to the mantra that race is only “one factor among many” that neither mentioned, much less refuted, these dramatic CEO findings.
Linda Chavez, the chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a long-time Colorado resident who taught at Boulder, is the honorary-co-chairman of the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative. If the preferentialist establishment of higher education in Colorado believes CEO’s findings and similar data can be kept from citizens during the upcoming debate on preferences, they are sadly (or happily, for opponents of racial preference) mistaken. If they dispute the CEO’s findings, they should promptly release their evidence.
