Discriminations

The board of trustees of the University of Northern Colorado opposes treating its applicants and students without regard to their race or ethnicity, voting unanimously to urge defeat of Amendment 46, the Colorado Civil Rights Initiative.

"We really think that the amendment, if passed, would jeopardize the ability of the university and universities across the state to attract and foster diverse student populations,” said Jim Chavez, UNC trustee and director of the Latin American Education Foundation.

UNC offers several scholarships that provide preference to students on the basis of gender and ethnicity. Under the measure, Chavez said, those scholarships would be scrapped.

“It would dramatically affect the financial resources for many, many different student populations,” he said.

The University of Northern Colorado must be one of the few institutions in the country that attracts, funds, and fosters many, many different “populations” of diverse students.

How much money, I wonder, does it take to support these many, many different diverse populations? I also wonder if the taxpayers of Colorado are fully informed about the extent of this expense and whether they think the benefits that accrue to their non-diverse sons and daughters from being exposed to these “diverse student populations” is worth what it costs.