Reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, May 20, 1998The UW System’s new diversity proposal, Plan 2008, received formal approval by the Board of Regent last week. A close reading reveals that the plan neglects one important issue that is central to diversity programs in higher education. Plan 2008 says nothing directly about the role of race/ethnic preferences in realizing the plan’s seven goals.
Ideally, the Board of Regents would have remedied this omission and avoided ambiguity by adding an additional goal: “Goal #8. Adhere to Wisconsin Statutes 36.12 which governs the UW System, and reads: “No student may be denied admission to, participation in or the benefits of, or be discriminated against in any service, program, course or facility of the system or its institutions or centers because of the student’s race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, disability, ancestry, age, sexual orientation, pregnancy, marital status or parental status.”
Why add this goal? To ensure that Plan 2008 is consistent with not only existing state law but also long-standing Regent policy that prohibits race/ethnic preferences.
The Plan glosses over this matter with several disarming statements: “All students will continue to meet established admissions standards.” (p. 3) ” Plan 2008 is complementary to, but not reliant on existing affirmative action law.” (p. 5) What Plan 2008 fails to make clear is how these statements square with state laws and Regent policy that prohibit race/ethnic discrimination.
Plan 2008 also fails to acknowledge that race/ethnic preferences are deeply embedded in long-standing campus efforts to promote diversity. Recently assembled data confirm what many people have long suspected. In admitting new freshmen, UW-Madison gives explicit preference in admissions to race/ethnic minorities, something it has done this for more than a decade. Indeed, the practice probably dates back to the beginning of affirmative action/diversity programs in the late 1960s.
Detailed data on admission rates for Fall 1997 applicants classified by their high school class rank reveal the extent of these preferences. For targeted minority applicants and nontargeted applicants in the top fifth of their high school class (80-99 percentile range), the percentages of applicants admitted are similarly high. Below that level, however, the gap in admission rates widens.
For applicants in the 50-59 percentile by high school class rank, the percent of targeted minority applicants admitted is more than four times greater than for nontargeted applicants (Whites and Asian Americans). Similarly large differential admission rates favor targeted minority applicants in the third quartile (25-49 percentile range) and the bottom quartile (0-24 percentile range).
The effects of these preferences for targeted minority applicants are readily apparent. Greater numbers of targeted minority applicants are admitted and enroll, including a greater percentage of targeted minority students who are less well prepared academically than are nontargeted students.
Partly for this reason, targeted minorities experience lower retention rates (i.e., continuing into the second and third years of study) and also have lower graduation rates.
The UW System needs to be reminded that it cannot continue to give preferences based on race and ethnicity even as it seeks to promote the laudable goal of diversity.
Almost half a century ago, the Board made an historic commitment to human rights and nondiscrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, or creed. That commitment has been compromised. Now is the time for the Board to reaffirm and enforce that commitment.