Wisconsin State Journal :: OPINION :: A8
Monday, January 22, 2007
Chancellor John Wiley led a vigorous defense of UW-Madison’s admissions policy at last Thursday’s hearing by the Legislature’s committee on affirmative action.
Wiley stated that no applicant is admitted or denied admission based on race. If two applicants — a targeted minority and a non-minority — are equally well qualified, both are admitted.
What the chancellor failed to make clear is how application files of targeted minorities and non-minorities are handled. The complicated processing begins by attaching pink tabs to file folders of targeted minority applicants.
Coders then review files for completeness. If complete, coders apply the selective criteria for admitting highly qualified candidates. They apply other criteria for refusing admission to applicants with weak qualifications.
Applicant files that fall into neither category are referred to teams of admissions counselors for more careful review. Applying the current admissions criteria, they make decisions to admit or not admit.
But, targeted minority applicants not admitted get still another review. Their files are referred to two campus programs, TRIO and AAP, for minority and disadvantaged students. This referral assesses whether these applicants can succeed at UW-Madison with extra academic and other help these programs provide.
Chancellor Wiley is undoubtedly correct that minority and non-minority applicants who meet the selective criteria for admission are admitted without respect to minority status. But for less well-qualified applicants who otherwise would be refused admission, minority applicants get an extra chance at being admitted.
According to UW-Madison representatives, enrolling more minority students enhances the quality of undergraduate education. It does so by enabling minority and non-minority students to interact with one another and learn from each another. Though campus officials claim research supports that view, this same research has been critiqued as seriously flawed.
Not mentioned are some important negative effects. Most non-minority students are at least vaguely aware of the dual standard used. Knowing this leads them to wonder whether minorities in their classes earned their admission competitively — most of them did — or are there because race or ethnicity played a role in their admission. The resulting stigmatization is hardly conducive to enhancing diversity and improving campus climate.
UW-Madison should be more open and transparent about its admissions policy so that curious citizens do not have to attend legislative hearings or resort to open records requests to find out how it works. The UW should also be concerned that its special treatment of minority applicants under the pretext of increasing diversity has produced only limited results.
Is it not time for the UW Board of Regents to commission an independent, objective evaluation of its diversity program? That evaluation might well center on the question: What would be the benefits and costs of abandoning the use of race or ethnicity in its admissions decisions?