W. Lee Hansen | Biography, Commentary, and Published Works

Diversity Policies: Can They Overcome the Inadequate Preparation of Minority High School Graduates? (February, 1999)

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Summary

A major barrier to increasing the enrollment of targeted minority high school graduates is their weak academic preparation. It is true that Wisconsin minority high school graduates are widely viewed as underrepresented among entering freshmen from the state. But this underrepresentation fails to consider the number of minority high school graduates who are not only minimally qualified for admission to UW-Madison but also those who would be admitted competitively in the absence of admission preferences for minorities.This analysis demonstrates the importance of defining the pool of those eligible for admissions. It draws on Wisconsin data from the American College Testing program which shows how the pool of eligibles declines because higher proportions of minority high school graduates do not take the ACT, do not graduate in the upper half of their class, have not completed the core academic subjects in high school, and do not place high enough in class rank and ACT scores to be competitive admits to UW-Madison.

The results show that for Fall 1997 entering freshmen from Wisconsin high schools that minorities as a group are overrepresented rather than underrepresented. Depending on how the pool of eligibles is defined, Blacks are either proportionately represented or considerably overrepresented among entering freshmen. The results are accounted for principally by the weak academic preparation of Black high school graduates. However, the fact that preferences in admission are given to Blacks is another contributing factor.

Introduction

Without a dramatic increase in minority high school graduates who are academically qualified to attend the UW-Madison, the campus Madison Plan 2008 now being discussed will fail to achieve its goals of expanding educational opportunities for targeted minority students. Why this obvious fact has not been recognized and publicized is curious. One reason may be that the rationale for diversity programs would be undermined.The analysis focuses on the academic achievement of Wisconsin’s minority high school graduates. The first part examines the meaning of “underrepresentation” which underpins diversity policies and programs. The second demonstrates sharp differences in academic achievement by race/ethnicity among Wisconsin high school graduates. The third part notes the implications of these differences for the available pool of academically competitive minority applicants to the UW-Madison. The fourth part reexamines the extent of minority underrepresentation based on the pool of competitively admissible applicants.

Underrepresentation of Minorities

The lexicon of diversity makes generous use of the term underrepresentation. As applied to undergraduate enrollments, underrepresentation occurs at UW-Madison when the percentages of enrolled freshmen from Wisconsin minority groups fall short of their percentages among the state’s high school graduates.Race/ethnic composition of Wisconsin public high school graduates. Information on the number and percentage distribution of public high school graduates by race/ethnicity, collected each year by the State of Wisconsin’s Department of Public Instruction, is shown in Table 1 for Wisconsin’s 1996-97 public high school graduates. Of the 55,189 high school graduates that year, minorities represented 9.1 percent of total graduates, Blacks 4.1 percent, Hispanics 2.1 percent, Asians 1.9 percent, and Native Americans 0.9 percent.

Table 1: Number and Percent of Wisconsin Public High School Graduates, By Race/Ethnic Group, 1996-97

Race/ethnic composition of Entering Freshmen at UW-Madison. Information on the number and percentage distribution of entering freshman by race/ethnic group and residency status, collected by UW-Madison, is shown in Table 2 for Fall 1997-98 entering freshman who are Wisconsin residents. Of the 3,848 entering freshmen from Wisconsin, 7.9 percent were are minorities, divided as follows: Blacks 1.9 percent, Native Americans 0.4 percent, Hispanics 2.0 percent, and Asians 3.6 percent.

Table 2: Number and Percent of Wisconsin Resident Entering Freshmen at UW-Madison By Race/Ethnic Group, Fall 1997-98

Underrepresentation in Wisconsin Student Minority Enrollment. Are Wisconsin’s minority high school graduates underrepresented among entering freshmen from Wisconsin? Table 3, which combines Tables 1 and 2, answers that question.

Table 3: Underrepresentation of Wisconsin Resident Entering Freshman at UW-Madison By Race/Ethnic Group, 1997-98

Overall, the minority population is slightly “underrepresented,” by -1.2 percentage points, as shown by the heavily-shaded line. They account for 7.9 percent of new entering freshmen as compared to 9.1 percent of the previous year’s high school graduates. Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics are also underrepresented, as shown by the lightly-shaded first-three lines. The most serious underrepresentation occurs for Blacks who constitute 4.1 percent of Wisconsin high school graduates but only 1.9 percent of entering resident freshmen, thereby producing an enrollment gap of -2.2 percentage points. Asians, by contrast, are substantially overrepresented, with a +1.7 percentage point gap (3.6-1.9).Colleges and universities, including UW-Madison, have responded to historic underrepresentation of minorities by creating programs designed to attract more minority applicants (affirmative action) and to help ensure that those who do enroll receive the academic support they need to graduate (diversity). To increase minority enrollment, minority applicants are given special preference to admission decisions. This is also the case at UW-Madison.

What most colleges and universities, including UW-Madison, have not done is to examine why even with preferential admission the serious underrepresentation of Blacks and Native Americans continues. The next section tries to do this.

Gaps in Academic Preparation of Wisconsin High School Graduates

Why do minorities continue to be underrepresented among entering freshmen? Many reasons contribute to their underrepresentation but one has not received appropriate attention in discussions of UW-Madison diversity policies and programs. The answer is clear; it is the lack of adequate academic preparation in high school and, indeed, throughout the K-12 school system.The statistical comparisons just used to document underrepresentation fail to recognize the concept of the available “pool” of potentially admissible applicants. To be admissible, applicants must meet UW-Madison admissions standards which demands more than a high school diploma. This minimal standard requires that applicants must be in the upper half of their high school graduation class, complete the appropriate college preparatory courses, and supply their ACT scores. Many high school graduates, minority and majority alike, do not or cannot qualify for admission on any or all of these standards. Even then, not all minimally qualified applicants can be admitted because of limitations imposed on the size of the entering class by Enrollment Management Policy first implemented in the middle 1980s. As a consequence, to meet the new targets for entering freshmen, the Admissions Office must further narrow the number of applicants admitted. That it does so is clearly indicated by a statement contained in UW-Madison application materials: “Applicants with the strongest academic records of grades, represented by a grade-point average or class rank, courses taken (including senior year courses), and test scores will have the greatest chance of admission.” (Wisconsin 1998 Undergraduate Admissions Materials, p. 4) In other words, the UW-Madison defines the “pool” of admissible applicants more narrowly than that of all high school graduates and more narrowly than do most other UW System campuses.

Many people at UW-Madison are aware that the academic qualifications of targeted minority high school graduates are weaker than those of nontargeted students. For example, Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics are less likely to take the ACT exam. They are less likely to rank academically in the top half of their high school graduation class. They are less like to have taken the core college preparatory courses required for admission to UW System institutions. They are less likely to place in the top quarter of their high school class. Finally, they are to rank well up in the top quarter of their high school class and to have obtained high ACT scores. Since High School Percentile Rank, ACT scores,, and completion of the core curriculum are all key determinants of admissions, the underrepresentation of minorities, particularly Blacks and Native Americans, is not surprising.

Is there some way to narrow the pool of Wisconsin’s public high school graduates to more closely approximate the criteria used to admit applicants to UW-Madison? A previously unexploited source of data makes it possible to produce several estimates of the relevant pool of eligibles. These data are generated by the American College Testing program which administers the ACT test to high school seniors applying for admission to college.

Six pools of eligibles can be defined:

High school graduates. This is the weakest standard and in included for purposes of comparison.
ACT test takers who are high school graduates. Taking the test indicates some motivation for college and familiarity with college admission requirements.
ACT test takers who rank in the top half of their graduating classes. This is a necessary but not sufficient criterion for meeting the minimum admission requirement.
ACT test takers who complete the core academic courses and presumably rank in the top half of their graduating class. Completion of the core curriculum is another necessary condition for meeting the minimum admission requirement.
ACT test takers who rank in the top quarter of their graduating class and presumably have completed the core curriculum. Applicants meeting these standards can be regarded as moderately competitive with White applicants, based on actual admissions decisions at UW-Madison.
ACT test takers who rank in the top quarter of their graduating class (and presumably have completed the core curriculum) and are estimated to have ACT scores of 21+. Applicants meeting this higher standard can be regarded as fully competitive with White applicants at UW-Madison.

The analysis here focuses on the admission standards defined above to determine how they affect the number of Wisconsin high school graduates who might be considered eligible for admission to UW-Madison. Because of widespread concerns about the underrepresentation of Blacks, their situation is highlighted.

Figure 1 shows how the relative size of the pools of Black and White high school graduates is reduced as successively more stringent admissions standards are constructed with the available data. The contrast between Blacks and Whites is most dramatic. It begins with differences in the percentages of high school graduates who take the ACT exam, place in the top half of their high school class, and complete the core curriculum. If the standard applied to nontargeted applicants is equivalent to admitting graduates in the top quarter of their high school class, then the pool of admissible Black high school graduates drops to 14 percent of the total, while for whites it holds at 32 percent. Limiting admission to those in the top quarter of the class who also have ACT scores of 21 or above, cuts the pool of Black eligibles to 5-8 percent of the 2,264 high school graduates, as contrasted to 25 percent for Whites. As noted earlier, this stringent standard most closely approximates nontargeted applicants admitted to and enrolling at UW-Madison. Though no data are available to directly verify this statement, UW-Madison’s 1998-99 entering freshmen have been described as follows: almost half the class ranks in the top tenth of their high school class, their average ACT score is 26.8 as contrasted to a national average of 21.0, and their average high school grade point average is 3.62.5 Both this year’s and last year’s entering freshmen are clearly talented young people.

Figure 2 shows how the absolute size of the various pools of eligibles change as more stringent criteria are brought to bear in defining these pools. Of the 2,264 Black high school graduates from 1996-97, it appears that no more than 321 would be admitted on a competitive basis if the standard required graduating in the top quarter of their high school class. But, if the standard were more stringent, requiring them to have ACT scores of 21 and above, as well as being in the top quarter of their class, the number of Wisconsin’s Black high school graduates who would be admitted competitively about 160. This is a very small number. It means that the competition for these talented minority graduates is especially intense. Is it any wonder UW-Madison has difficulty getting these talents Blacks to apply and enroll when many other institutions, especially private colleges and universities, are eager to recruit these students and can provide them with generous financial aid offers?

Figure 1: Percentage of 1996-97 Wisconsin High School Graduates in Pools of Eligible Applicants, Blacks and Whites
(* = Based on author estimates)
Data Source: ACT High School Profile Report: High School Graduating Class of 1997, State Composite for Wisconsin
Figure 2: Number of 1996-97 Black High School Graduates in Pools of Eligible Applicants
(* = Based on author estimates)
Data Source: ACT High School Profile Report: High School Graduating Class of 1997, State Composite for Wisconsin

Comparable information for each of the targeted and nontargeted groups is shown in Table 4. The situation for Native Americans and Hispanics is less desperate than that for Blacks. But, again, the small numbers of them who remain eligible means that they will continue to be underrepresented for some time to come.

Table 4: Estimated Numbers and Percentages of 1996-97 Wisconsin High School Graduates by Race/Ethnic Group Who Are in Variously Defined Pools of Those Eligible for Admission to UW-Madison, Based on ACT Data

Another Look at Underrepresentation

Table 5 assists in determining the extent of underrepresentation using the standards that most closely approximate the UW-Madison admission standard applied to nontargeted applicants. Again, the benchmark is the percentage distribution of entering freshmen by race/ethnicity from Wisconsin. This means that underrepresentation occurs when the percentage figures in each of the first three columns exceed the figures in the fourth column. The lightly shaded boxes indicate underrepresentation and the more heavily shaded boxes indicate overrepresentation.

Table 5: Changes in the Race/Ethnic Composition of Potential Applicants Using Alternative Definitions of the Pool of Potentially Admissible Applicants

When the eligible pool is defined to include all high school graduates, as shown in the first column, Blacks, Native Americans, and Minorities as a group are underrepresented, whereas Asians are heavily overrepresented and Hispanics are slightly overrepresented. Whites, of course, are overrepresented.If the eligible pool is restricting to those in the top quarter of their graduation class (the second column), the underrepresentation of Blacks and Native Americans disappears, the overrepresentation of Hispanics, Asians, and Minorities increases, and Whites become underrepresented. When the most stringent standard is used, i.e., top quarter of the class and an ACT score of 21 or above (the third column), Blacks become substantially overrepresented. Hispanics, Asians, and Minorities as a group increase their overrepresentation. And, Whites continue to be underrepresented.

To sum up, the rather substantial underrepresentation of Blacks and Native Americans that shows up in the traditional measures of underrepresentation is grossly misleading. These measures assume implicitly that all high school graduates are potentially admissible. Yet, any familiarity with admissions requirements at UW System institutions, including UW-Madison, makes it clear that high school class rank and ACT scores are key factors in admissions decisions.

Additional support for this view comes from ACT data which are available for several of the eligible pools defined earlier. The average ACT scores for those taking the ACT are shown in the first column of Table 6 while scores for those ranking in the top quarter are shown in the second column. The average ACT scores of those Blacks who took the test are by far the lowest for any race/ethnic group. Even when the pool is restricted to the top quarter of the class, the average ACT score of 19.5 is well below the score of 21 which is viewed at some UW System institutions as indicative of college academic performance. The third column reports the average ACT scores of entering UW-Madison freshmen in Fall 1997. The average of 22.3 for Blacks is again the lowest, meaning that Blacks are likely to be disadvantaged in competing academically with students from the all other race/ethnic groups.

Table 6: Average ACT Scores by Race/Ethnicity in Alternative Pools of Potentially Admissible Applicants

The lower ACT scores for Blacks reported here are consistent with the rapid falloff in the numbers of Blacks in the pools of eligibles. What is not apparent is the extent to which preferential admission for Blacks, and also of course for Native Americans, and Hispanics, holds down the average ACT score of entering freshmen. Were the same standard applied to Blacks as to Whites, the average score would undoubtedly be higher; of course, the number of entering freshmen would also be lower.

Conclusion

The remedy for this deplorable situation lies not in giving preferences in admissions to underrepresented minority groups. Instead, minorities should be admitted on the same basis as other students to ensure that they can compete academically with their fellow students. As already noted, this would no doubt reduce the number of entering freshmen from minority groups. The question that arises is this: what are the costs and benefits of fewer but better academically prepared minorities as against more but more poorly prepared minorities?At the same time, every effort must be made to find out what accounts for the lagging academic achievement of Blacks and Native Americans and to devise remedies that will overcome these deficiencies.

Posted in Preferrential Admissions, Uncovering the Facts: Affirmative Action/Diversity Poli | Comments Off on Diversity Policies: Can They Overcome the Inadequate Preparation of Minority High School Graduates? (February, 1999)

Diversity Programs: Have They Achieved Their Goals for Minority Students? (February, 1999)

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Summary

Gaps in enrollment, retention, and graduation rates among targeted minority students and particularly between Black and White students have remained virtually unchanged over the past two decades. During this same period a succession of affirmative action/diversity programs has sought to reduce these gaps. Countless deadlines for meeting various numerical goals have been set but have never been met. The most fundamental reason why these gaps remain is that the various affirmative action/diversity plans have failed to confront the key obstacle, the lack of adequate academic preparation by so many members of targeted minority groups. The UW-Madison can and should take action to publicize the nature of this obstacle. It should also help provide leadership to ensure that two decades from now this obstacle has been substantially reduced if not eliminated. Only then will UW-Madison have any chance of succeeding in its quest for a more diverse student body.

Introduction

Three widely-accepted benchmarks for gauging the success of affirmative action/diversity programs indicate that UW-Madison is making little or no progress toward the goal of a more diverse student body. Despite three decades of effort to eliminate gaps in minority freshmen enrollment rates, second-year retention rates, and six-year graduation rates, wide gaps persist. Meanwhile, the campus is about to launch Madison Plan 208, a “more of the same” 10-year program to increase the presence of minorities. Three conclusions are inescapable. One, past programs have failed. Two, campus leaders seem unable to accept these failures and move on to search for new solutions. Three, the proposed Madison Plan 2008 is also doomed to fail. This study assesses UW-Madison’s quest for diversity. It begins by examining the evidence on “underrepresentation” of minorities, and moves on to examine recent trends in UW-Madison enrollment, retention, and graduation rates for minorities. It then contrasts these trends with the goals laid out in a succession of campus diversity plans. Finally, it points to the fundamental problem that campus diversity plans continue to ignore, namely, the inadequate academic preparation of minority students graduating from Wisconsin high schools. Throughout this analysis, particular attention is given to the situation for Blacks.

Minority Underrepresentation

The concept of underrepresentation describes gaps among race and ethnic groups between the percentage distributions of newly enrolled freshmen and recent high school graduates. Thus, if Blacks represent 3.8 percent of Wisconsin high school graduates, as they did in 1997-98, they are viewed as underrepresented at UW-Madison if less than 3.8 percent of entering freshmen in Fall 1998 are Black. In fact, only 2.1 percent of all Fall 1998 entering freshmen from Wisconsin were Blacks. Thus, underrepresentation for Wisconsin Blacks is -1.7 percentage points. This underrepresentation means that UW-Madison “should have” enrolled more Black students. Translated into absolute numbers, instead of the 75 Black freshman who entered in Fall 1998, this campus should have enrolled 139 Wisconsin Black freshmen, or 64 more than it did. The implication of such underrepresentation is that UW-Madison must increase the effectiveness of its recruitment efforts. When the concept of underrepresentation is applied to retention and graduation, it refers to differences in retention and graduation rates between race and ethnic groups. Thus, if in Fall 1996 the second-year retention rate of White students is 91 percent (meaning that 91 percent of entering freshman from Fall 1995 enrolled again in Fall 1996) and the Black retention rate is 78 percent, then Blacks are underrepresented by 13 percentage points. The implication of this differences is that more academic assistance must be provided to Black freshmen in order to boost their retention rate. The six-year graduation rate is viewed in the same fashion, but it involves comparing the number of graduates in, say, 1996-97, with the number of entering freshmen in Fall 1991. The six-year graduation rate for Whites entering as freshmen in Fall 1991 is 74 percent as compared to 38 percent for Blacks. The 36 percentage point gap for Blacks implies that more academic support must be provided to Black students over the entire college career. The implicit assumption underlying this approach to underrepresentation is that Black students and White students are equally well qualified academically when they are admitted and therefore have equal prospects of a successful undergraduate experience. Unfortunately, that assumption is not correct, as elaborated in a related study. To make any sense, underrepresentation in enrollment must focus on pools of high school graduates by race/ethnicity who are comparably qualified for admission rather than on all high school graduates, many of whom do not meet this standard. Similarly, underrepresentation in retention and graduation rates must take into account differences in prior academic achievement by race and ethnicity.

Trends in Minority Underrepresentation:

Enrollment Gaps for Entering Freshmen. The percentage of all Wisconsin high school graduates who are Black and the percentage of entering Wisconsin freshmen who are Blacks from 1984-85 to the present are displayed in Figure 1. Two conclusions emerge. First, the percentage of Black high school graduates has remained relatively constant over most of the past decde but is subject to erratic fluctuations from year to year. Second, the percentage of Black freshmen shows some evidence of increasing but again there are substantial year-to-year fluctuations. As a consequence, the enrollment rate gap, shown in Appendix Table 1, has remained virtually unchanged since the early 1990s. Nevertheless, the enrollment rate gap continues to be a wide one for Blacks. Changes in the gaps for other race and ethnic groups are also difficult to summarize because the gaps fluctuate from year to year, as shown in Appendix Table 1. Wisconsin minorities as a group remained underrepresented throughout the period. The gaps for Native Americans and Hispanics remained essentially unchanged. The gap for Asians, however, is positive rather than negative, reflecting their overrepresentation, which increased somewhat in the 1990s. Of course, Whites have been overrepresented, at least until 1998-99. Gaps in Second-Year Retention Rates. Long-standing diversity goals also call for eliminating gaps in retention rates between minority students and the rest of the student body. For purposes of this analysis, these gaps are defined as the differences in second-year retention rates (the percentage of entrants from the fall semester one year who reenroll in the fall of the following year) between White students and minority students. As shown in Figure 2, the retention rate for Whites has risen while that for Blacks has remained roughly constant. Thus, the retention rate gap has increased somewhat. Because the gaps show considerable year-to-year variation, making generalizations about trends remains hazardous. Still, gaps in second-year retention rates from 1974 to the present, as shown in Appendix Table 2, indicate that Native Americans experienced the widest gaps, followed by Hispanics and then Blacks; the gap for Asians has been negligible. The recent three-year drop in Black retention may be reason for some concern. Indeed, in four of the last six years the Black gap has been at the double-digit level. Whether any relationship exists between the falloff in retention rate and the rise in enrollment rate requires further examination. Gaps in Six-Year Graduation Rates. Similar comparisons can be made for six-year graduation rates going back to the middle 1970s. The White graduation rate has continued to rise while the Black rate which rose sharply in the early 1980s, plateaued thereafter, and then dropped slightly in the most recent year. (See Figure 3) What might account for this drop is impossible to say. It is clear, however, that a wide gap remains. As shown in Appendix Table 3, the gaps for Native Americans and Hispanics are narrower. Only Asians have graduation rates that approach those of Whites, but even they show a -5 percentage point gap in 1991. Throughout the period, the gap for Asians remained small and roughly constant. The gaps for Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics are roughly comparable overall, with the gap for Native Americans somewhat larger in recent years and that for Hispanics somewhat smaller. Unfortunately, the graduation rates for all three targeted minority groups, Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, all remain well below the 50 percent mark.

Figure 1: Under-representation of Entering Black Freshmen Who are Wisconsin Residents
Data Source: Department of Public Instruction and UW-Madison Registrar’s Office

Figure 2: Gap in Second-Year Retention Rates Between Black and White Students
Data Source: UW System Data

Figure 3: Gap in Six-Year Graduation Rates Vetween Black and White Students
Data Source: UW System Data

Appendix Table 1: Percentage Point Gaps in Enrollment Rates of Entering Freshman from Wisconsin Compared to Wisconsin Public High School Graduates, by Race/Ethnicity

Appendix Table 2: Percentage Point Gaps in Second-Year Retention Rates Between White Students and Targeted Minority Students For All Freshmen Who Stayed at the Institution They Enrolled In As Freshman, Fall 1974-96

Appendix Table 3: Percentage Point Gaps in Six-Year Graduation Rates Between White Students and Targeted Minority Students For All Freshmen Who Stayed at the Institution They Enrolled In As Freshman, UW-Madison, Fall 1974-92

Appendix Table A1: Percentage Distribution of Wisconsin Public High School Graduates, By Race/Ethnic Group, 1984-85 to 1996-97

Appendix Table A2: Percentage Distribution of Wisconsin Resident Entering Freshman by Race/Ethnic Group, Fall 1983-84 to Fall 1998-99

The Gaps — A Summary. On three key indicators of diversity — entering freshmen enrollment rates, second-year retention rates, and six-year graduation rates — the gaps between the rates for three minority groups of most concern, namely, Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics, are sizeable. Moreover, they show remarkably little evidence of any significant narrowing. Thus, the underrepresentation of targeted minorities continues.

Efforts to Reduce These Gaps

That the enrollment gap remained essentially unchanged may be surprising to many readers unfamiliar with the data. It might have been expected that while gaps remain, they would have narrowed over the years. That proved not to be the case despite a succession of well-publicized affirmative action/diversity plans and programs. In particular, the accelerated push for diversity, under former UW-Madison Chancellor Shalala’s 1988 Madison Plan and under former UW System President Shaw’s 1988 Design for Diversity program, might have been expected to decrease underrepresentation of Native American, Hispanic, and especially Black undergraduates. These plans all included the standard components: expanded recruitment programs to increase the percentage of entering freshmen students; academic support programs, including mentoring, to increase the numbers of entering students who would be retained and eventually graduate; and attempts to change the campus “culture” so that majority students would be more accepting of minority students and more minority students would feel more comfortable in the campus environment. In addition, all of these plans relied on a publicly-unacknowledged policy of preferential admissions for targeted minority applicants. Even with this help, these plans failed to succeed. Still another component of these and even earlier affirmative action/diversity plans was explicit numerical goals and timetables for reaching proportional representation. Although currently the official position of the campus and the UW System is to avoid numerical goals and targets, they inevitably slip into the language of diversity plans. To illustrate, the February 1998 UW System draft of its Plan 2008 in its Goal #1 called on campuses to “increase the number of well-prepared high school graduates of color who apply to the UW System in order to bring enrollment, retention, and graduation rates for underrepresented students of color into alignment with those of the student body as a whole.” [Emphasis added] Because the enrollment goal was criticized as too ambitious, the final version of Plan 2008 approved by the Board of Regents in May 1998 modified its Goal #1 to read: “Increase the number of Wisconsin high school graduates of color who apply, are accepted, and who enroll at UW System institutions.” This goal is meaningless. With such vague language, the campus can take credit for enrollment increases that may occur for other reasons, including increases that occur in spite of diversity programs. The final version of Plan 2008 also included a new Goal #3 which was to “Close the gap in educational achievement, by bringing retention and graduation rates for students of color in line with those of the student body as a whole [by 2008].” This is clearly a numerical goal, as the earlier discussion of trends in retention and graduation rates indicated. Moreover, this goal is very unlikely to be reached for reasons already made clear in my April 1998 An Alternative to the UW System Diversity Plan. It seems reasonable to believe that the UW System Plan 2008 and also the Madison Plan 2008 now under discussion would reflect what lessons might have been learned from past experience. That, however, is not evident. A brief review of goals and timetables from earlier UW-Madison and UW System diversity plans illustrates this point. Indeed, the history of both the UW System and UW-Madison in meeting their affirmative action/diversity goals for undergraduates is not a happy one.1970. The UW-Madison established a goal of proportional representation of minority students, stated as follows: “The University of Wisconsin-Madison should strive to achieve, in its undergraduate student body, a level of minority group representation that is at least proportional to the population served.” (UW-Madison, Faculty Document 20, December 1970)

1972. The new UW System Board of Regents established a long-run diversity goal of equalizing undergraduate enrollment, retention, and graduation rates (UW System, AP 7.2, 1972). 1976. The UW-Madison Faculty Senate reaffirmed its 1970 and 1971 commitments to the goal that minority recruitment be proportional to the population served, i.e., the minority proportion of new freshman should equal the minority proportion of recent Wisconsin high school graduates. It proceeded to set 1979 as the target date for achieving proportional representation in freshman minority enrollment and 1981 as the target date for equalizing retention rates. (UW-Madison, Faculty Document 267, December 6, 1976).

By Fall 1979 the enrollment of new minority freshmen, up from 192 in Fall 1976, reached 248, well below the goal of 387. (UW-Madison Faculty Document 371, December 3, 1979, Table 4, p. 9)

By Fall 1981 the second-year retention rate for minorities, which for Fall 1975 entrants stood at 78.4 percent as compared to 81.7 percent for non-minorities, had dropped for Fall 1980 entrants to 73.2 percent for minorities as compared to 82.3 percent for non-minorities. UW-Madison Faculty Document 632, February 3, 1986, Table 4). In other words, the gap widened.

1976. The UW System Board of Regents established a System-wide goal of enrolling 9,000 minority students and awarding 800 baccalaureate degrees to minority students by 1981 (UW System, AP 7.2 Revised, January 1976, p. 31).

By Fall 1981 UW System fell well short of its target for enrolling new freshmen minority students and in 1980-81 it fell well short in awarding undergraduate degrees to minorities.

1984. The UW System Board of Regents established minority goals of proportional representation among entering freshmen as well as equal retention and graduation rates. It set 1988 as a target for reaching the minority freshman enrollment goal and 1993 as a target for reaching the minority graduation goal. (UW System, Annual Report on 1985-86 Progress and Achievement of Goals for American Racial and Ethnic Minority Students, November 1987, “Summary” — unnumbered).

This effort’s lack of success for UW-Madison is evident from the trend data discussed earlier in this paper (Appendix Tables 1-3).

1988. The UW-Madison Campus set out The Madison Plan which called for doubling entering freshman enrollment within five years, raising the total from 185 in Fall 1987 or from 232 in Fall 1988 (the language is unclear about the base year) to 400 by Fall 1993 (Madison Plan, 1988, p. 8).

By Fall 1993 Madison campus minority enrollment of Blacks, Native Americans, and Hispanics reached 201, well short of the goal of 400 students. (UW-Madison, Office of the Registrar, Enrollment Reports for First Semester, 1993-94).

1988. The UW System established its 10-year Design for Diversity Plan which called for a 50 percent increase in the number of entering minority freshman (and transfer students) by Fall 1993 and a 100 percent increase by Fall 1998 (Design for Diversity, April 1988, p. 1).

By Fall 1993 the UW System enrollment of entering freshmen minority students had increased from Fall 1987 by 33 percent, and by Fall 1997 (the most recent available data) by 40 percent.

This long, painful record should have had some impact on the thinking of campus administrators and faculty, UW System officials, and the Board of Regents. Nonetheless, the UW System Plan 2008 received unanimous endorsement by the Board of Regents in Spring 1998. The Madison Plan 2008 now being prepared for submission to the Board of Regents accepts without question the goals set out in UW System Plan 2008, including the goal of equalizing minority retention and graduation rates. Campus leaders seem unaware of past efforts that were expected to achieve this goal 20 years ago. One other numerical commitment to undergraduate diversity deserves mention. In Spring 1996, UW-Madison Chancellor Ward endorsed as UW-Madison policy the enrollment goal advocated by the Civil Rights Defense Coalition. That goal called for eliminating by the year 2000 the underrepresentation of minority groups among entering UW-Madison freshman. While it is impossible to predict how many minority freshmen, particularly Black freshmen, will enroll in Fall 2000, the likelihood this goal can be reached, without compromising the academic quality of minority applicants, appears slim. To summarize, the UW-Madison’s record in delivering on its promises deserves a grade of F. The campus is long on ambitious and reassuring rhetoric. It is woefully deficient in following through on its promises.

Why Haven’t UW-Madison Diversity Efforts Been More Successful?

The reason why the UW-Madison consistently failed to achieve its minority enrollment, retention, and graduation goals is rarely recognized in the many faculty reports and plans dealing with diversity, most notably UW System Plan 2008 and Madison Plan 2008. The typical explanations for failing to meet their goals include insufficient funding, lack of effort, deficient leadership, a “hostile” climate, and so on. The barriers, however, are much more complex. First, many promising Wisconsin high school graduates want to attend colleges and universities that, for whatever reasons, appear more attractive to them than UW-Madison. Among the considerations they take into account are size, location, and academic environment. There may be little that can be done to attract these students to Madison. Second, it is abundantly apparent that wealthy private colleges and universities are always able to outbid UW-Madison in attracting promising college-bound high school graduates from Wisconsin, particularly minority students. This institution’s financial aid resources are not abundant enough to meet this kind of competition. Third, attracting out-of-state minority high school graduates may be problematic for two reasons: first, offering financial aid that includes out of state tuition proves to be enormously costly, and second, enrolling non resident state students may impose additional pressures on them because of their inability to maintain home and community contacts due to travel costs and travel time. The most fundamental problem is the small relatively small numbers of minority high school graduates who can compete academically with UW-Madison’s highly talented student body. The caliber of the competition is formidable. Comparative data for new freshmen in Fall 12997 shows an average high school class rank of 73.8 for targeted minorities as contrasted to 86.2 for nontargeted students. Similar differences occur in ACT scores, with an average ACT score of 23.5 for targeted minorities and 26.6 for White students and 26.7 for Asian students. An analysis of the academic qualifications of Wisconsin Black high school graduates indicates that perhaps no more than 5-8 percent, as compared to 25 percent of White high school graduates, can be viewed as competitive applicants to UW-Madison. The problem goes much deeper, however. Based on 1997-98 data from the Wisconsin Student Assessment System for all 70,000 tenth graders in the state, about 25 percent of them read at the “advanced” level. Among the just over 5,000 Black tenth graders, however, only 192 read at the “advanced” level. Similar disparities appear in the math and science scores. These numbers illustrate the tremendous job that needs to be done to improve the academic achievement of Wisconsin’s Black youth population and thereby expand the pipeline of potential college students. The UW-Madison can never hope, either through its currently structured diversity programs or Madison Plan 2008, to achieve proportional representation for each of its targeted minority groups within the time frame of Madison Plan 2008. For this reason, it must try to look beyond the year 2008 to a time when a substantially larger proportion of the state’s minority high school graduates can compete academically with UW-Madison’s traditionally talented student body.

What to Do?

What UW-Madison and the UW System must now do is take the lead in alerting the state to the serious problem it faces, that of vastly increasing the number of the state’s high performing high school graduates who come from minority groups. This calls for mobilizing parents, teachers, school officials, legislators, the governor, and influential leaders from the private sector to search for more successful ways of increasing the academic achievement of minority kids. Waiting until they reach college age is much too late. Trying to reach them in their early high school or even middle school years is also too late, particularly if they haven’t taken or plan to take key academic courses, such as algebra. Interventions at the lower grades may already be too late. It would appear that only with improved parenting, more pre-school opportunities, and increased academic help during the early school years is there much hope of raising the academic achievement of minority kids. As such a system takes hold, the now-clogged pipeline of minorities can be opened up and pave the way for later admission to college.

Posted in Preferrential Admissions, Uncovering the Facts: Affirmative Action/Diversity Poli | Comments Off on Diversity Programs: Have They Achieved Their Goals for Minority Students? (February, 1999)

UW’s Diversity Plan Ignores Discrimination

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

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.

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on UW’s Diversity Plan Ignores Discrimination

Let UW System Work Against All Bias

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Reprint from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 12, 1998The UW System’s new 10-year diversity plan, approved Friday by the Board of Regents, ignores one issue central to diversity programs in higher education.

It says nothing about the role of race/ethnic preferences in furthering the plan’s seven goals.

This omission is curious. Board of Regent policies and state law (Wisconsin Statutes 36.12) explicitly prohibit discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity in UW campus admissions, programs, services, courses, and facilities.

Many people have suspected that UW affirmative action/diversity plans give preference to targeted minorities in freshman admissions. Recently assembled evidence for UW-Madison confirms this suspicion.

For students in the top fifth of their high school class, targeted minority applicants are admitted at about the same rate as nontargeted applicants. But, for applicants in the lower three-fifths of their class, the percent of targeted minority applicants admitted is more than four times greater than the percent of nontargeted applicants admitted.

These differences show the impact of race/ethnic-based preferences in the UW-Madison admissions procedures. The result is to be expected. Larger numbers of targeted minorities are enrolled, but greater proportions of them fail to graduate.

Let us hope the Board of Regents soon reaffirms its almost half-century-old commitment to human rights and nondiscrimination on the basis of race, color, sex, or creed.

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on Let UW System Work Against All Bias

The UW System Diversity Plan: Wishful Thinking?

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Reprint from the Badger Herald, March 4, 1998Can the UW System’s new diversity plan achieve its goal by the year 2008 “to erase the gap in educational attainment . . . for underrepresented people of color in the UW System? A close reading of the recently-released draft report “Quality Through Diversity” offers little reason for optimism.

Why this pessimism? For the most part, the new plan differs little from a succession of earlier plans, dating back to 1972. Each plan set forth the same goal, that of eliminating the underrepresentation of minorities.

Each plan failed. The persistence of failure is not for lack of commitment, insufficient effort, or inadequate financial resources.

Rather, the UW System and Board of Regents have been unwilling to recognize that drastic action is required to increase the academic performance of all students in elementary and secondary schools. Only then can greater numbers of both minority and nonminority students qualify for the available postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities.

“Quality Through Diversity” does admit the inadequacy of academic preparation for minorities. It indicates that K-12 students must begin earlier to prepare themselves academically for entry into UW System institutions. It proposes that the UW System should become a active partner in these efforts. Whether these small actions can substantially reduce the educational attainment gap is unlikely—-unless and until there is substantial improvement in K-12 schooling and academic achievement.

The focus of the new plan remains on the UW System, without much regard for the rest of the state’s variety of education, training, and employment opportunities. The dangers of this approach are apparent.

Conceivably, the UW-Madison, for example, might through more aggressive precollege, outreach, and recruitment programs increase its minority enrollment. But, until the numbers of academically qualified minority high school graduates increase substantially, institutions will find themselves competing with each other for the same limited number of students. As this occurs, there is an inevitable tendency to relax academic standards and in the process undercut the effectiveness of public funds invested in both K-12 and higher education.

What is needed is a larger, state-wide strategy that goes well beyond the UW System. Such a strategy must take a “systems approach” to the challenge of educating all students to higher levels while at the same time offering them a wide range of choices as they plan for their lives after high school graduation. This strategy has four elements:

Major emphasis must be given to improving the academic performance of all students through the K-12 grades. Only then can larger numbers of minority students and larger numbers of students from lower income families, whether minority or nonminority, be equipped to take advantage of postsecondary opportunities in Wisconsin. Particular attention must be given to the Milwaukee area where the academic performance of the large minority population lags seriously. Minority students as early as the 3rd and 4th grades are already well behind nonminority students in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. They fall even further behind as they move to the upper grades.

The challenge of raising academic achievement is heightened by growing attention to national content standards in K-12 subjects, which call for higher levels of student performance. Producing these gains will require preparing teachers to teach to these new standards.
Eventually, as more high school graduate meet these standards, colleges and universities will have to raise their own standards. Implementing these standards and realigning what is taught as students move into postsecondary education is a task few people have thought much about.

Needed gains in academic achievement cannot occur until K-12 schooling is viewed as part of a larger human investment strategy that links compulsory schooling more closely to postsecondary opportunities.
The reasons should be clear. Some high school graduates may want to enter an independent college or a public technical college. Others may want to go immediately into the labor force, perhaps after some brief training offered in a technical college or by an employer. Still others may want to enter a UW System campus.

Providing information on the array of opportunities, and what is required to take advantage of these opportunities, is a first step in helping students prepare themselves and in making wise choices.

The Board of Regents and the UW System have an unparalleled opportunity to lead efforts that can improve student learning and enhance the ability of more students to take advantage of postsecondary educational opportunities.
They must join in making clear to everyone the serious problems associated with the underachievement of so many young people in the K-12 schools, especially in schools with large minority and low-income student populations.

They must send a message that the UW System by itself can do little to increase minority enrollment until the number of well-prepared minority graduates increases substantially.

They must urge that the full resources of the state be mobilized to deal with the state’s most serious problem, the serious academic underachievement of its most precious resource, its school age kids.

To conclude, the most fundamental shortcoming of the “Quality Through Diversity” plan is its failure to understand the fundamental problem, namely, inadequate academic preparation for college and for increasingly demanding technical jobs. Colleges and universities are incapable of making up for what students fail to learn in their K-12 schooling.

The small measures proposed, well-intentioned though they may be, are inadequate. Thus, the UW System’s goal of equal representation is unlikely to be realized.

If so, why wait for the year 2008 to confirm this inescapable prediction?

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on The UW System Diversity Plan: Wishful Thinking?

An Alternative Diversity Plan

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Presented to the UW System Board of Regents, March, 1998

Assessing the UW System’s New Diversity Plan (Part Two)

Can the UW System, by the year 2008, achieve its stated goal for diversity? Can the System “erase the gap in educational attainment by bringing participation and graduation rates for underrepresented people of color in the UW System to the levels of the student body as a whole”? A close reading of its (02/02/98) draft plan, “Quality Through Diversity — Plan 2008: Educational Quality Through Racial and Ethnic Diversity,” offers little reason for optimism.

Why this pessimism? For the most part, the new diversity plan differs little from a depressingly long line of earlier plans dating back to 1972. Each successive plan set forth the same goal: to eliminate the underrepresentation of minorities in the undergraduate student body. Each plan fell short. The same is true of the current “Design for Diversity” plan that expires this summer.

This persistent failure is not for lack of commitment, insufficient effort, reliance on untested initiatives, or even inadequate financial resources. Rather, the problem has been and continues to be the woefully small number of the state’s minority high school graduates who are now, and are likely to be in the near future, competitive applicants to UW System institutions.

The long-run solution to this vexing problem lies in finding ways to increase the academic performance of all students, throughout the elementary and secondary school grades. Only then can greater numbers of both minority and nonminority students compete with equal success for the wide range of available postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The new draft plan does make a major advance by acknowledging more forthrightly the inadequate academic preparation of minorities. It indicates that K-12 students must begin earlier to prepare themselves academically for entry into UW System institutions. To assist, new programs would try to reach students earlier in their pre-college schooling. This shift in focus is commendable. It does not go far enough, however, to address the pervasive and long-standing problem of inadequate academic achievement among minority students.

The new draft plan remains focused, however, on the UW System and its goals. It pays little attention to the rest of the state’s array of education, training, and employing organizations. The dangers of this approach are apparent. Conceivably, the UW-Madison, for example, might increase its representation of minorities through more aggressive precollege, outreach, and recruitment programs. But, until the academic achievement of minority high school graduates within the state increases substantially, UW System institutions face a zero-sum game. They must compete with each other for the same limited number of qualified high school graduates. As this competition intensifies, there is an inevitable tendency to relax standards for minorities and thereby reduce the effectiveness of public funds invested in higher education and in K-12 schooling.

What is needed is a strategy based on a broader vision of the problem. Such a strategy must take a “systems approach” to the challenge of educating all students, from elementary and secondary schools to colleges and universities, to high academic standards. At the same time, it must prepare graduates for a range of choices as they plan their lives after high school graduation.

Before outlining this strategy, several questions about the plan must be raised.

Are Educational Quality and Diversity Linked?
The links between educational quality and racial/ethnic diversity developed in the new plan are difficult to understand. The plan takes the position that educational quality requires racial/ethnic diversity. Thus, vigorous efforts must be made to increase diversity to enhance educational quality.I would argue the exact opposite position. Without improved educational quality, racial/ethnic diversity will be impossible to achieve. What I am saying is that racial/ethnic diversity in higher education cannot be achieved until the educational quality of K-12 education is greatly improved. Only then can minorities have an equal chance of not only meeting college and university admissions standards but also competing on an equal basis with nonminority students.

The current view, that diversity is required to produce improved quality, puts the cart before the horse. As a result, it creates pressures to loosen admission standards for minorities. The effect undercuts much needed efforts at the pre-college level to improve educational quality and student learning for all students, including both minority students and economically disadvantaged students. The persistence of a dual admissions policy sends a signal to elementary/secondary schools and to their teachers and students. The message is that while improved educational quality is important for them and their students, it is not required for university admission and high level academic performance in college, and is not required for all applicants.

Is the Plan’s Goal Attainable?
How can the UW System reach its goal of proportional representation for minorities as a group and for each particular minority group by the year 2008? Various programs are mentioned but how they are linked to the goal remains unstated. Behind any plan such as this one, there should be a tough-minded analysis of the feasibility of reaching the program’s goal and a detailed plan for reaching the goal. Understandably, proponents of earlier plans might be forgiven for neglecting these important tasks.To break new ground, this new plan should offer much greater assurance that the goal of erasing the achievement gap for minority students can be realized. In view of the importance of education and learning, and the need to preserve the intellectual integrity of the UW System, it would be tragic if the plan promises more than it can possibly produce.

The likelihood that such assurances can be offered is open to doubt. Though Wisconsin’s K-12 school system is generally credited as strong, too many of its students fail to meet the course content standards currently required at the various grade levels, much less the higher standards that will be required in coming years. Until academic performance is increased throughout grades K-12, many minority students and economically disadvantaged students will not be equipped to benefit from the wide range of postsecondary opportunities available within this state.

The seriousness of the problem is revealed by the Milwaukee Public Schools report, 1996-97 Accountability Report (November 1997). This report shows that the academic performance of the large minority population lags seriously behind that of nonminority students at all grade levels. For example, the test scores of 3rd grade minority students who in the year 2008 are potential UW System college freshman are already well below average. Similar test scores for older students indicates that gap will widen as these students advance through the grade levels and to high school.

What does this evidence mean for the ability of these students to enroll in higher education in the years between now and 2008? How many of these students will have graduated from high school? How many will have met UW System admissions standards? How many will be able to compete academically with nonminority students? Unless the trends shown by data such as these can be reversed quickly and permanently, there is little likelihood of erasing the gap in educational achievement for minority students. Something drastic must be done to improve the K-12 schools and increase student learning if many of these students are expected to be admitted college in the year 2008. Unfortunately, it is already too late to help some of them.

Increasing the number of minorities who apply for and enroll in UW System institutions is too parochial a goal for the UW System to adopt. The challenge is not to ensure that the UW System meets whatever goal it establishes, particularly when its goal ignores the limited possibilities for substantially increased the number of minority high school graduates. The UW System, for example, could possibly succeed in reaching its goal of proportional representation, but doing so might cause the Technical College System or the private independent colleges to fall short of their equally ambitious goals. Or, the reverse could occur!

Equally important, not every high school graduate should necessarily aspire to enroll at a UW System institution. Some high school graduates may have good reasons for wanting to attend a private college within the state. Others may want to attend colleges and universities outside the state. Still others may prefer occupational training of the kind offered through the Technical College System. Insisting on proportional representation ignores two important considerations. One is differences in the missions of the various postsecondary institutions and their academic requirements. The other is differences in the preferences and choices of prospective students.

For students to make appropriate choices, they need to have more and better information about the full array of postsecondary opportunities. They must understand, early in high school, what courses and programs will qualify them for these various opportunities. This type of information can only be assembled through cooperation among the state’s several postsecondary education systems. It will also require cooperating with employers who seek to hire not only high school graduates but also those high school graduates who complete one and two year degree programs and those who complete their college degrees.

What Does Diversity Mean?
The draft plan never explains exactly what “diversity” means. Whatever its meaning, the concept must be explained more clearly. To the casual reader, diversity appears to mean proportional representation, i.e., that college enrollment and graduation rates for minorities should equal those for nonminorities. Elsewhere, however, the term seems to have a broader and more elusive meaning, what might be called the ability of all students to function in a color-blind society.Achieving proportional representation will not automatically ensure a color-blind society. The key question is whether and by how much, and at what cost, the color-conscious orientation of the Quality Through Diversity plan accelerates the move toward both proportional representation and a color-blind society.

What Is the Target Population?
The draft plan confuses readers with its wide-ranging terminology in defining the plan’s target population. Its first two pages alone refer to “race/ethnic groups,” “students of color,” “historically underrepresented race/ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups,” and “underserved race/ethnic groups.”Matters are further confused because existing Regent Policy Documents also refer to the “disadvantaged”, “educationally disadvantaged”, “students who have been disadvantaged as a result of substandard education, family income level, or ethnic background,” and “members of specific groups; for example, students in programs because of . . . minority status or because of substandard income level.” Reading further in the draft plan, it finally becomes apparent that the focus is on the traditional, targeted minority groups (African American; Hispanic/Latino; American Indian; Southeast Asian; and Other Asian American). Whether all these groups can be described as “historically underrepresented” is open to question.

Why Not Target the Economically Disadvantaged?
The plan ignores the prevalence of low family income and the serious barrier this poses to high academic achievement in the public schools, and to gaining admission and completing postsecondary education. Because the categories of race/ethnicity and economically disadvantaged are so frequently placed together, why not consider the possibilities of a family income-based diversity plan? Despite some discussion nationally about a socio-economic, class-based approach to diversity, the details have never been spelled out. The likely impact of such an approach can be illustrated using national data on college enrollment rates for dependent high school graduates age 18-24.That the 43 percent college enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates falls short of the 53 percent rate for all dependent high school graduates is not surprising. Indeed, this shortfall provides the quantitative underpinning for diversity programs. What readers may be surprised to learn is that the 39 percent college enrollment rate for dependent high school graduates from “economically disadvantaged” families, defined here as those with 1995 family incomes below $25,000, is lower than the enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates.

These results suggest there may be merit in shifting to a diversity program targeted on the economically disadvantaged. Such a program would certainly deal directly with what might be called, with considerable justification, the “historically underrepresented,” economically disadvantaged population, i.e., those applicants from lower income families.

The shift from a race/ethnicity to an economically disadvantaged definition of the target population would not eliminate dependent minority high school graduates from the benefits of diversity programs. In fact, about about 60 percent of the eligible economically disadvantaged population would still be minorities. But, based on this approach, only about half the minority population qualifying under the race/ethnic definition would fit the economically disadvantaged definition. The remaining minorities who now qualify under the race/ethnicity definition would no longer do so because they could not be classified as economically disadvantaged.

One wonders whether a diversity plan based on economic disadvantage might be as important as one based on race/ethnicity? Would not an economic disadvantaged approach produce a useful kind of diversity across economic and social class lines? Would not such an approach allay Supreme Court Justice Lewis E. Powell’s concern in the 1978 Bakke case — his concern about protecting the interests of colleges and universities in selecting “those students who will contribute the most to the ‘robust exchange of ideas'”? Are not economic and class differences an important dimension of diversity?

Can the Plan’s Success Be Measured?
The draft plan says little about how the plan will be monitored over the coming decade, how its success will be measured by the year 2008, or how accountability will be treated. This is surprising because educational institutions have the capacity and should be leading the way in evaluating the success of the many programs they implement.To the best of my knowledge, no systematic evaluation has been undertaken of the now 10-year-old Design for Diversity program. The absence of such evaluations casts doubt on all diversity programs operating within UW System, as well as newly proposed programs. In view of the strong evaluation capabilities of faculty members within the UW System, it is surprising that more, well-designed studies evaluating the impact of diversity programs have not yet been reported.

Do Current Diversity Programs Discriminate in Admissions?
The new draft plan says nothing about prohibiting discrimination. Nor did the previous Design for Diversity plan. Yet, one wonders whether diversity programs by their very nature require, in admissions and the provision of programs and services, deliberate discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, and ancestry. Does the attempt to equalize opportunity and enroll a diverse student body require discrimination on the basis of skin color and ethnicity? Is such discrimination now practiced?

Answers to these questions need to be brought forward. It would appear that discrimination within the UW System is illegal, as evidenced by the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment, Chapter 36.12 of the Wisconsin Statutes governing the UW System, and several Regent Policy Documents. If forbidden types of discrimination are practiced, these practices must be identified and eliminated.It would appear that the desire of the UW System and the pressures on System campuses to become more diverse may have contributed to creating an unfavorable academic environment for minority students. If any considerable numbers of minority students lack the academic preparation and achievement required to compete on an equal basis with the vast majority of nonminority students, they are not going to thrive. To the extent they become discouraged and drop out, both retention and graduation rates will be lower for minorities than for nonminorities. Thus, efforts to become more diverse by focusing on the numerical representation of minorities in enrollment are at odds with efforts to increase minority retention and graduation.

The root of this problem is found in campus admissions policies and practices. For example, the UW-Madison feared that implementing the late 1980s policy of enrollment management — reducing the admission of new students — would diminish the number of minority students. To counter this possibility, it altered its admissions standards for minority applicants. Essentially, it decided that minority applicants meeting the minimum admissions standards, would normally be admitted, even though similarly qualified nonminority applicants were being denied admission, thus putting many minority students at greater risk of not being able to compete with their fellow nonminority students.

A more fundamental shortcoming of the new plan, as already noted, is the limited scope of its strategy. A broader and more comprehensive, four-part strategy is advocated here. It calls for:

Improving Academic Performance of All Students in K-12 Schools.
Major emphasis must be given to improving the academic performance of all students throughout grades K-12. Only then can larger numbers of minority and economically disadvantaged students become academically equipped to take advantage of the wide range of available postsecondary opportunities in Wisconsin. Much needs to be done. In addition to the Milwaukee situation already mentioned, a recent study for Madison indicates that more than 40 percent of 11th grade minority students have not yet taken algebra, the first of three year-long mathematics courses required for admission to the UW System. This means that without additional coursework, they will not be academically qualified to enroll in any UW System institution. Finally, when the nation’s best high school seniors rank near the bottom internationally in mathematics and science achievement, it is clear that much remains to be done to improve the schooling of all students, including both low and high achieving students.

Achieving Higher Standards of Academic Performance.
Substantial additional effort will be required to help K-12 students, majority and minority alike, meet the higher levels of academic achievement set out in the state’s new, more demanding, assessment program. Teachers themselves will need to augment their knowledge to teach to these higher standards. Students will have to work harder and more effectively to meet these standards.As these standards go up, postsecondary learning and training opportunities must also be strengthened and enriched. In particular, as high school graduates come to college with ever stronger academic preparation, it is imperative that postsecondary institutions modify their curricula and upgrade the level of their course offerings accordingly. These adaptations are essential if the state’s population of young people is to be adequately prepared for the labor market demands of the 21st century.

Pursuing a “Systems Approach” to Change.
Elementary and secondary schooling must be viewed as part of a larger, state-wide approach to investing in developing the knowledge and skills of students. Such an approach will forge more effective links between K-12 compulsory schooling and postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities. As a result, high school graduates will be better prepared, whether they want to complete baccalaureate degrees by attending four year public or private colleges and universities, complete oneor two-year occupational degree and certificate programs in the state’s technical college system, or go immediately into the labor force, perhaps to an employer who offers valuable job-related training. Providing more and better information about this array of postsecondary opportunities, and emphasizing how students must prepare themselves is essential if high school graduates are to make informed choices among these opportunities.

Exerting Board and System Leadership to Promote Change.
The Board of Regents and the UW System have a unique opportunity to lead. The challenges are to improve student learning throughout the state’s education and training system, and to enhance the postsecondary opportunities of high school graduates — minority and nonminority alike. A new kind of collaborative effort is required to leverage the substantial investment already made so as to produce improved learning.The Board and UW System can take the initiative in demonstrating to citizens, parents, the educational establishment, the business community, and public officials the serious, long-term, problems — -educational, economic, and social — associated with persistent underachievement by so many of the state’s children and youth. Such action can help bring together the major players — school people, community leaders, private sector representatives, and public officials — to devise a “systems approach” for improving student learning throughout the state’s network of educational organizations.

Only by taking a new, radically different approach can the UW System describe itself, as the draft plan’s opening sentence does, as “a pioneer in the pursuit of educational excellence through the expansion of educational opportunity and diversity.” A new approach is needed that can break through the barriers and constraints of what has become the conventional wisdom of diversity.

The critical challenge remains, to find effective ways of improving the quality of education for all students, including minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The time has come to provide the help that will make a real difference. The time has come to stop the erosion of academic standards by trying to achieve a narrowly-defined, numerical concept of “diversity.” The time has come for the Board of Regents and the University of Wisconsin System to pursue a different kind of diversity, one that leads to higher academic achievement for all students.

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on An Alternative Diversity Plan

An Alternative Diversity Plan

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Presented to the UW System Board of Regents, March, 1998The alternative diversity plan offered here (Part One) is intended to help rethink the UW System’s more than 25-year commitment to race/ethnic diversity in undergraduate enrollment. Its author argues for shifting the targeting of diversity programs from the minority population to the “economically disadvantaged” population. Such a shift would help ensure that more, low achieving, economically disadvantaged students, who include many minorities, are academically prepared for postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities. This approach assumes that achieving diversity in the UW System depends on educational quality, not the reverse, as the title of the UW System plan suggests. The solution is a much-needed statewide effort to improve the K-12 educational system for all students. Finally, the author also argues that applicants to postsecondary education should be admitted on the basis of their academic achievement, without regard to race/ethnicity. In short, discrimination in admissions on the basis of race/ethnicity is not only unfair but also illegal, and this practice, where used, should cease.

The commentary (Part Two) on the UW System’s new diversity plan begins by discussing a series of questions about the nature of the plan. Are educational quality and diversity linked? Is the plan’s goal attainable? What does diversity mean? What is the target population? Why not target the economically disadvantaged? Can the plan’s success be measured? Will the plan permit discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, and ancestry? The second part of the paper proposes an alternate, four-part strategy that calls for (1) improving the academic performance of all students in K-12 schools, (2) achieving even higher levels of academic performance through the educational system, (3) adopting a “systems approach” to change, and (4) exerting UW Regent and System leadership to promote systematic change.

Refocusing the Diversity Plan (Part One)

Toward Educational Excellence — Diversity Through Improved Quality

The University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents faces an important challenge in crafting a renewal of its 10-year-old Design for Diversity program. It recently released a draft of its new plan, called “Quality Through Diversity — Plan 2008: Educational Quality Through Racial and Ethnic Diversity” (02/02/98). This draft plan is now being refined and in May will be considered for approval by the Board.The proposed plan departs from the UW System’s earlier affirmative action/diversity plans in several constructive ways. It is based on extensive consultation with the UW System’s many constituencies. It avoids detailed goals for minority enrollment. It places responsibility on the campuses to develop programs that will help realize the plan’s goal. It puts more emphasis on increasing the number of high school graduates who are academically equipped to enter the UW System. These are all improvements but they do not go far enough.

After studying this plan, I believe it needs to be refocused in the following ways:

The Board of Regents and the UW System should provide bold leadership to help improve student learning, for minorities and nonminorities alike in the K-12 schools, improvements that will lead to smoother transitions from K-12 education to postsecondary education, training, and job opportunities for all students.

The Board of Regents and the UW System should reaffirm its historic commitment to human rights and equal treatment for all, regardless of race or ethnic background, at a time when diversity programs in the nation’s colleges and universities are being questioned for failing to achieve their goals, practicing discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, and producing more divisiveness than unity among race/ethnic groups.

What Needs to be Changed?

Diversity policies and programs must be redefined and reshaped to contribute more effectively to the educational excellence not only of the University of Wisconsin System but also the rest of the state’s educational enterprise, from K-12 to postsecondary education and job training opportunities. To realize this goal, a new plan should focus on five objectives:

To enhance the academic performance of all K-12 students, particularly those students from minority populations and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

To increase the number of Wisconsin high school students who graduate and are qualified to pursue postsecondary education opportunities, with particular attention to students from minority populations and economically disadvantaged backgrounds.

To increase the number of qualified high school graduates who enroll at the postsecondary institutions where their likelihood of academic success is greatest.

To lower the financial barriers that prevent academically talented, economically disadvantaged students from attending postsecondary institutions.

To develop evaluation strategies and then careful evaluations of diversity policies and programs.

What is Wrong?

A major concern arises from the very title of the draft plan which stresses that educational quality results from diversity. Yet, the plan itself suggests, though not forcefully enough, that to achieve diversity, educational quality in the K-12 grades must improve. Until that occurs, attempts to reach numerical race/ethnic diversity are unlikely to be realized.Like all earlier plans, the new proposal promises more than it can deliver. Its goal for the year 2008 — to “erase the gap in educational attainment by bringing participation and graduation rates for underrepresented people of color in the UW System to the levels of the student body as a whole” — is highly unrealistic.

In fact, current and past affirmative action/diversity policies and programs for undergraduate students have fallen well short of their enrollment objectives. Though some gains have been made, the results are disappointing. The policies and programs have failed to produce their promised increases in minority enrollments. They have failed to produce their promised increases in minority retention rates and minority graduation rates. Finally, they seem to have failed to improve race/ethnic relations or create campus environments that are more tolerant and accepting of individual and group differences.

These persistent failures are not for lack of commitment, insufficient effort, reliance on untested initiatives, or even inadequate funding. Rather, the problem stems from the woefully small numbers of the state’s minority high school graduates who are now, and are likely to be in the near future, competitive applicants to UW System institutions and to other postsecondary institutions in the state. Despite a quarter century of substantial expenditures on diversity programs, it is hard to see any visible benefits.

A key criticism of diversity programs is their failure to identify the root cause of the lower academic achievement of minorities. The problem, which first appears in the early elementary grades, is not the result of race/ethnicity but rather a reflection of social, cultural, and economic disadvantages. This conclusion is justified by the abundant research on the causes and consequences of poverty — including the importance of education. By continuing to emphasize race/ethnicity alone, diversity programs deflect attention from the need to raise the academic achievement of economically disadvantaged K-12 students, many but not all of whom are minorities. Thus, the difficulties experienced in attracting to college more minorities and more of the economically disadvantaged is simply another reflection of the academic achievement deficit that begins so early in the lives of too many children.

Current diversity programs also do not square with the University of Wisconsin’s historic commitment to human rights. This commitment requires that individuals be given equal opportunities, without regard to their race and ethnicity, to take advantage of opportunities the University of Wisconsin offers — to learn, to increase their understanding of others, and to advance themselves as individuals.

For these reasons and more, a new direction must be charted. [For a more detailed critique of the plan and a preliminary discussion of new directions, please see the following document: “Assessing the UW System’s New Diversity Plan: A Commentary on Quality Through Diversity.”]

What Must Be Done?

The UW System should join forces with the rest of the postsecondary education sector, employers, state officials, and the public schools, and with students, parents, and community organizations, to launch a state-wide campaign to improve the quality of K-12 education. The purpose is to make certain that student academic achievement increases, especially for the minority population and economically disadvantaged students, so that ever-greater proportions of these high school graduates can take advantage of postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities, and so that more of them will meet UW System admission standards and be academically competitive with nonminority college and university students. This formidable task requires viewing the UW System as an interrelated part of the state’s entire K-16 educational system. Exactly what must be done to improve student learning is difficult for me to say. It is clear, however, that the UW Board of Regents and the UW System must forcefully indicate their concern and join with others in finding solutions.

The UW System should collaborate with Wisconsin’s Technical College System, its private independent colleges and universities, and its many employers to develop more accessible and improved information describing the array of postsecondary education, training, and work opportunities available. The new information should also explain the prerequisites, so that students can better prepare themselves to take advantage of the opportunities that are most appropriate to their preparation and interests.

The UW System should mount efforts to interest and enroll more of the state’s academically talented high school graduates, (e.g., National Merit scholars, valedictorians, etc.), a group which may include minority students and economically disadvantaged students, who may not be aware of their opportunities, do not believe these opportunities are options for them, or are prevented from attending college because they and their parents cannot afford the costs of college.

The UW System should strengthen admission processes by applying the same admissions criteria to all applicants, without respect to their race/ethnicity, ancestry, or national origin. The different criteria now applied to minority applications do increase the number of minority students. However, they also appear to have an adverse effect on minority student retention and graduation rates, which are the ultimate measures of a diversity program’s success.

The UW System should maintain the academic quality and integrity of its various campuses by requiring that members of “special outreach groups” (e.g., veterans, older returning students, minorities, the physically disabled, and others) who receive “special consideration” in the admissions process meet a standard that exceeds the “reasonable probability of success” (retention and graduation) criterion that is now applied. This change will help to ensure that all applicants admitted are matched more closely to the educational opportunities appropriate to their academic preparation and achievement.

The UW System should join the state’s other postsecondary institutions in seeking additional state funding that will provide increased financial aid to help new high school graduates from economically disadvantaged backgrounds overcome the financial barriers to attending college. The intent is to stimulate the academic achievement of K-12 students by providing assurances of of financial aid for academically able, new high school graduates.

How to Measure Accomplishments?

The Board of Regents should review its own Regent Policy Documents pertaining to diversity and related matters (e.g., admissions policy) to ensure their consistency in language and meaning. They documents should give campuses appropriate guidance in structuring their diversity programs, and indicate more clearly the Board’s need for measures of performance and accountability. In this review, the Board should give particular attention to possible discrimination, based on race/ethnicity and related characteristics, in admissions decisions and in programs, and services offered by UW System institutions. These revisions should be ready for consideration by the Board in October 1998.

The UW System should immediately initiate studies that will rigorously evaluate the array of policies and programs employed under the soon-to-be-concluded, 10 year-old Design for Diversity plan. Evidence on what worked and how well it worked is essential in accurately evaluating the academic effectiveness and the cost-effectiveness of diversity policies and programs. The UW System, which prides itself on its approach to diversity, should be leading the way in research on this subject. Proposals for these studies should be formulated by September 1998 so that such research can commence shortly thereafter. Completion should be scheduled for April 1999. The results of these studies should be widely distributed.

The UW System should undertake more systematic efforts to implement recommendations 1-6 listed above and evaluate their outcomes so that it can learn more about the effectiveness of these initiatives as they unfold and, in the process, build the evidence needed to evaluate the relative effectiveness of these initiatives. It should develop immediately an agenda to implement each recommendation, indicating a time line, the individuals responsible, specific measures of accomplishment, and plans for evaluating the effectiveness of both these initiatives and those individuals responsible for planning, implementing, and assessing them. To initiate this process, the UW System should report back to the Board of Regents in December on its progress in responding to the full range of recommendations. Fuller reports should be scheduled for the June 1999 meeting of the Board, and regularly thereafter as appropriate.

The UW System should make a greater effort to enlist the expert knowledge and skills of individual UW System faculty members in formulating diversity policies and programs and in evaluating these policies and programs. A plan for doing so should be developed by the end of the year and reported to the Board of Regents.

What Next?

Can the UW System breathe new life into the Wisconsin Idea, that the boundaries of the campus are the boundaries of the state? This unique concept has produced enormous benefits for Wisconsin and its people, while at the same time it has strengthened the university. Can the UW System revive this idea, by offering appropriate leadership? Such leadership would help ensure improvements in the quality of K-12 education. This challenge calls for improving the learning of all students. It includes not only students from both minority populations and economically disadvantaged backgrounds, but also the state’s very brightest high school students. Only if learning improves across the board will more high school graduates, regardless of their personal characteristics or circumstances, be adequately prepared academically to benefit from the available postsecondary education opportunities.This is the time for the UW System and the Board of Regents to join with others in crafting a meaningful and well-coordinated strategy to help improve the foundation of the state’s education, training, and employment system, grades K-12.

Can the UW System launch a dialogue with faculty, teachers, students, parents, and citizens on race relations, human rights, and academic excellence in Wisconsin’s educational system? In the K-12 schools, how can the focus of attention be shifted from concerns about race to concerns about raising academic achievement? In higher education, what can be done to dispel suspicions voiced by many students, faculty, and other citizens that diversity policies and programs practice discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity? How long will it be before specific explanations are offered about how the admissions system works and whether it involves discrimination that favors minority applicants? Discrimination is clearly illegal, as specified in Board of Regents Policy Documents and also in Wisconsin Statutes Ch. 36.12, enacted in 1989:

“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.”

The UW Board of Regents has a unique opportunity to explain more openly and honestly the extent to which discriminatory practices are a part of its diversity program and how these practices are justified.Can the UW System reaffirm its long-term commitment to safeguarding fundamental human rights? That commitment goes back more than 46 years. Interestingly, it preceding by two years the awakening of national concern about human rights, prompted by the historic 1954 school desegregation decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education. Though few may remember it, the UW Board of Regents made the following pronouncement in 1952:

The Regents are unanimous in their beliefs that the faculty and officers of the University of Wisconsin, throughout the long years of its history, have made an outstanding record in the safeguarding of human rights. Our University has historically served, regardless of race or creed, all who have sought its instruction. Its students now include members of all groups and segments of society, accepting each other and learning together. The Regents are proud of the ability of any student on our campus to gain recognition upon his or her individual merits, and are pleased with the growth of understanding on our campus — an understanding so sorely needed in America and the world. Therefore, be it resolved: that the University of Wisconsin shall in all its branches and activities maintain the fullest respect and protection of the Constitutional rights of all citizens and students regardless of race, color, sect, or creed; and any violation thereof shall immediately be reported to the administration and the Regents for appropriate action to the end that any such violation of Constitutional rights shall be promptly and fully corrected, and future violation prevented.

— From University of Wisconsin Regent Document 1041, May 19, 1952, approved at the Regent’s Regular Board Meeting August 9, 1952.

Concluding Comments

The time has come for the Board of Regents to rethink and refocus the UW System’s 25 year-old commitment to diversity policies and programs. The UW System’s goal, shared by the people of the State of Wisconsin, remains that of opening up effective and appropriate educational opportunities for all students. A new beginning is required to help realize this important goal.

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on An Alternative Diversity Plan

Assessing the UW System’s New Diversity Plan (February, 1998)

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Can the UW System, by the year 2008, achieve its stated goal for diversity? Can the System “erase the gap in educational attainment by bringing participation and graduation rates for underrepresented people of color in the UW System to the levels of the student body as a whole”? A close reading of its (02/02/98) draft plan, QUALITY THROUGH DIVERSITY — Plan 2008: Educational Quality Through Racial and Ethnic Diversity, offers little reason for optimism.Why this pessimism? For the most part, the new diversity plan differs little from a depressingly long line of earlier plans dating back to 1972. Each successive plan set forth the same goal: to eliminate the underrepresentation of minorities in the undergraduate student body. Each plan fell short. The same is true of the current “Design for Diversity” plan that expires this summer.

This persistent failure is not for lack of commitment, insufficient effort, reliance on untested initiatives, or even inadequate financial resources. Rather, the problem has been and continues to be the woefully small number of the state’s minority high school graduates who are now, and are likely to be in the near future, competitive applicants to UW System institutions.

The long-run solution to this vexing problem lies in finding ways to increase the academic performance of all students, throughout the elementary and secondary school grades. Only then can greater numbers of both minority and nonminority students compete with equal success for the wide range of available postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities in Wisconsin and elsewhere.

The new draft plan makes a major advance by acknowledging more forthrightly the inadequate academic preparation of minorities. It indicates that K-12 students must begin earlier to prepare themselves academically for entry into UW System institutions. To assist, new programs would try to reach students earlier in their pre-college schooling. This shift in focus is commendable. It does not go far enough, however, to address the pervasive and long-standing problem of inadequate academic achievement among minority students.

The new draft plan remains focused on the UW System and its goals. It pays little attention to the rest of the state’s array of education, training, and employment opportunities. The dangers of this approach are apparent. Conceivably, the UW-Madison, for example, might increase its representation of minorities through more aggressive precollege, outreach, and recruitment programs. But, until the academic achievement of minority high school graduates within the state increases substantially, UW System institutions face a zero-sum game. They must compete with each other for the same limited number of qualified high school graduates. As this competition intensifies, there is an inevitable tendency to relax standards for minorities and thereby reduce the effectiveness of public funds invested in higher education and in K-12 schooling.

What is needed is a strategy based on a broader vision of the problem. Such a strategy must take a “systems approach” to the challenge of educating all students, from elementary and secondary schools to colleges and universities, to even higher academic standards. At the same time, it must prepare graduates for a range of choices as they plan their lives after high school graduation.

Before outlining this strategy, several questions about the plan must be raised.

Are Educational Quality and Diversity Linked?The links between educational quality and racial/ethnic diversity developed in the new plan are difficult to understand. The plan takes the position that educational quality requires racial/ethnic diversity. Thus, vigorous efforts must be made to increase diversity to enhance educational quality.
I would argue the exact opposite position. Without improved educational quality, racial/ethnic diversity will be impossible to achieve. What I am saying is that racial/ethnic diversity in higher education cannot be achieved until the educational quality of K-12 education is greatly improved. Only then can minorities have an equal chance of not only meeting college and university admissions standards but also competing on an equal basis with nonminority students.

The current view, that diversity is required to produce improved quality, puts the cart before the horse. As a result, it creates pressures to loosen admission standards for minorities. The effect undercuts much needed efforts at the pre-college level to improve educational quality and student learning for all students, including both minority students and economically disadvantaged students. The persistence of preferential admissions sends a signal to elementary/secondary schools and to their teachers and students. The message is that while improved educational quality is important for them and their students, it is not required for university admission and high level academic performance in college.

Is the Plan’s Goal Attainable?How can the UW System reach its goal of proportional representation for minorities as a group and for each particular minority group by the year 2008? Many programs are proposed but how they are linked to the goal remains unstated. Behind any plan such as this one, there should be a tough-minded analysis of the feasibility of reaching the program’s goal and a detailed plan for reaching the goal. Understandably, proponents of earlier plans might be forgiven for neglecting these important tasks.
To break new ground, this new plan should offer much greater assurance that the goal of erasing the achievement gap for minority students can be realized. In view of the importance of education and learning, and the need to preserve the intellectual integrity of the UW System, it would be tragic if the plan promises more than it can possibly produce.

What Does Diversity Mean?The draft plan never explains exactly what “diversity” means. Whatever its meaning, the concept must be explained more clearly. To the casual reader, diversity appears to mean proportional representation, i.e., that college enrollment and graduation rates for minorities should equal those for nonminorities. Elsewhere, however, the term seems to have a broader and more elusive meaning, what might be called the ability of all students to function in a color-blind society.
Achieving proportional representation will not automatically ensure a color-blind society. The key question is whether and by how much, and at what cost, the color-conscious orientation of the Quality Through Diversity plan accelerates the move toward both proportional representation and a color-blind society.

What Is the Target Population?The draft plan confuses readers with its wide-ranging terminology in defining the plan’s target population. Its first two pages alone refer to “race/ethnic groups,” “students of color,” “historically underrepresented race/ethnic and economically disadvantaged groups,” and “underserved race/ethnic groups.”
Matters are further confused because existing Regent Policy Statements also refer to the “disadvantaged”, “educationally disadvantaged”, “students who have been disadvantaged as a result of substandard education, family income level, or ethnic background,” and “members of specific groups; for example, students in programs because of . . . minority status or because of substandard income level.” Reading further in the draft plan, it finally becomes apparent that the focus is on the traditional, targeted minority groups (African American; Hispanic/Latino; American Indian; Southeast Asian; and Other Asian American).

Why Not Target the Economically Disadvantaged?The plan ignores the prevalence of low family income and the serious barrier this poses to high academic achievement in the public schools, and to gaining admission and completing postsecondary education. Because the categories of race/ethnicity and economically disadvantaged are so frequently placed together, why not consider the possibilities of a family income-based diversity plan? Despite some discussion nationally about a socio-economic, class-based approach to diversity, the details have never been spelled out. The likely impact of such an approach can be estimated using national data on college enrollment rates for dependent high school graduates age 18-24.
That the 43 percent college enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates falls short of the 53 percent rate for all dependent high school graduates is not surprising. Indeed, this shortfall provides the quantitative underpinning for diversity programs. What readers may be surprised to learn is that the 39 percent college enrollment rate for dependent high school graduates from “economically disadvantaged” families, defined here as those with 1995 family incomes below $25,000, is lower than the enrollment rate for dependent minority high school graduates.

These results suggest there may be some merit in shifting to an economically disadvantaged diversity program. It would certainly deal directly with what might be called, with considerable justification, the “historically underrepresented,” economically disadvantaged population, i.e., those from lower income families.

The shift from a race/ethnicity to an economically disadvantaged definition of the target population would not eliminate dependent minority high school graduates from the benefits of diversity programs. In fact, about 75 percent of the eligible lower income population would be minorities. The other 25 percent of minorities qualifying under a race/ethnicity definition would no longer qualify as a result of their higher income levels.

One wonders whether a diversity program based on economic disadvantage might be as important, perhaps more so, as one based on race/ethnicity? Would not an economic disadvantaged approach produce a useful kind of diversity across economic and social class lines? Would not such an approach allay Supreme Court Justice Lewis E. Powell’s concern in the 1978 Bakke case — his concern about protecting the interests of colleges and universities in selecting “those students who will contribute the most to the ‘robust exchange of ideas'”?

Can the Plan’s Success Be Measured?The draft plan says little about how the plan will be monitored over the coming decade, how its success will be measured by the year 2008, or how accountability will be treated. Educational institutions should be leading the way in evaluating the success of the many programs they implement.
To the best of my knowledge, no systematic evaluation of the now 10-year-old Design for Diversity program has been undertaken. This casts doubt on all diversity programs operating within UW System as well as newly proposed programs. In view of the strong evaluation capabilities of faculty members within the UW System, it is surprising that more, well-designed studies evaluating the impact of diversity programs have not yet been reported.

Do Current Diversity Programs Discriminate in Admissions?The new draft plan says nothing about prohibiting discrimination. Nor did the previous Design for Diversity plan. Yet, one wonders whether diversity programs by their very nature require, in admissions and the provision of services, deliberate discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, and ancestry. Is such discrimination now practiced? Does the attempt to equalize opportunity and enroll a diverse student body justify discrimination on the basis of skin color or ethnicity?
Answers to these questions need to be brought forward. It would appear that discrimination within the UW System is illegal, as evidenced by the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment, Chapter 36.12 of the Wisconsin Statutes governing the UW System, and several Board of Regents Policy Documents. If forbidden types of discrimination are practiced, these practices must be identified and eliminated.

A more fundamental shortcoming of the new plan, as already noted, is the limited scope of its strategy. A broader and more comprehensive, four-part strategy is advocated here. It calls for:

Improving Academic Performance of All Students in K-12 Schools. Major emphasis must be given to improving the academic performance of all students throughout grades K-12. Only then can larger numbers of minority students and low income students become academically equipped to take advantage of the wide range of available postsecondary opportunities in Wisconsin.
Particular attention must be given to the Milwaukee area where the academic performance of its heavily minority population lags seriously behind most other areas of the state at all grade levels. For example, the test scores of minority third graders in Milwaukee are already below average. This severely limits the number of these third graders who will later graduate from high school and be able to compete in the UW System as entering freshmen in the year 2008. Another example; in Madison more than 40 percent of 11th grade minority students have not yet taken algebra, the first of three year-long math courses required for admission to the UW System. This means that without additonal coursework, they will not be academically qualified to enroll in any UW System institution. Finally, when the nation’s best high school seniors rank near the bottom internationally in mathematics and science achievement, it is clear that much remains to be done to improve the schooling of all students, including both low and high achieving students.

Achieving Even Higher Standards of Academic Performance.Substantial additional effort will be required to help K-12 students, majority and minority alike, meet the higher levels of academic achievement set out in the state’s new, more demanding, assessment program. Teachers themselves will need to augment their knowledge to teach to these higher standards. Students will have to work harder and more effectively to meet these standards.
As these standards go up, postsecondary learning and training opportunities must also be strengthened and enriched. In particular, as high school graduates come to college with ever stronger academic preparation, it is imperative that postsecondary institutions modify their curricula and upgrade the level of their course offerings accordingly. These adaptations are essential if the state’s population of young people is to be adequately prepared for the labor market demands of the 21st century.

Pursuing a “Systems Approach” to Change.Elementary and secondary schooling must be viewed as part of a larger, state-wide approach to investing in developing the knowledge and skills of students. Such an approach will forge more effective links between K-12 compulsory schooling and postsecondary education, training, and employment opportunities. As a result, high school graduates will be better prepared, whether they want to complete baccalaureate degrees by attending four year public or private college and universities, complete one- or two-year occupational degree and certificate programs in the state’s technical college system, or go immediately into the labor force, perhaps to an employer who offers valuable job-related training. Providing more and better information about this array of postsecondary opportunities, and emphasizing how students must prepare themselves is essential if high school graduates are to make informed choices among these opportunities.

Exerting Board and System Leadership to Promote ChangeThe Board of Regents and the UW System have a unique opportunity to lead. The challenges are to improve student learning throughout the state’s education and training system, and to enhance the postsecondary opportunities of high school graduates — minority and nonminority alike. A new kind of collaborative effort is required to leverage the substantial investment already made so as to produce more and better student learning.
The Board and UW System can take the initiative in demonstrating to citizens, parents, the educational establishment, the business community, and public officials the serious, long-term, problems — educational, economic, and social problems — associated with persistent underachievement by so many of the state’s children and youth.They can help bring together the major players — school people, community leaders, private sector representatives, and public officials — to devise a “systems approach” for improving student learning throughout the state’s network of educational organizations.

Only by taking a new, radically different approach can the UW System describe itself, as the draft plan’s opening sentence does, as “a pioneer in the pursuit of educational excellence through the expansion of educational opportunity and diversity.”

A new approach is needed that seeks to produce across-the-board improvement in academic achievement for all students, an approach that can break through the barriers and constraints of what has become the conventional wisdom of diversity.

In conclusion, it must be emphasized that the new diversity plan, “Quality Through Diversity — Plan 2008: Educational Quality Through Racial and Ethnic Diversity,” differs only slightly from past plans in its recommendations for increasing undergraduate minority enrollment. Whether the small differences introduced in the new plan are enough to ensure its success in erasing the gap in educational achievement for minorities is in serious doubt.The critical challenge remains, to find effective ways of improving the quality of education for all students, including minorities and the economically disadvantaged. The time has come to provide the help that will make a real difference. The time has come to stop the erosion of academic standards by trying to achieve a narrowly-defined, arithmetic concept of “diversity.” The time has come for the Board of Regents and the University of Wisconsin System to pursue a different kind of diversity, one that leads to higher academic achievement for all students.

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Leave a comment

On Diversity Policy and Undergraduate Admissions: Unanswered Questions (January, 1998)

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Discussion of University of Wisconsin-Madison’s diversity policy over the last year, and the University of Wisconsin System’s hearings on diversity policy in the fall preparatory to this year’s reconsideration of the University of Wisconsin System’s Design for Diversity program, raise many questions. Over the past several months I have compiled a list of questions about the goal of student diversity and how to achieve it. Some of these questions are difficult to answer. Others can be answered but have not been answered. Until we have answers to more of these questions, the university community will not be adequately informed to make intelligent decisions about how to reshape its diversity policy.I am circulating these questions in the hope they will stimulate discussion about how diversity policy affects undergraduate admissions and will activate attempts to answer them. The results, I hope, will inform UW System and the Board of Regents as they decide upon a diversity policy for the coming decade.

My questions are grouped into seven clusters:

What aspects of Design for Diversity have been successful? Unsuccessful? Why?

What accountability is exercised by UW System and by the Board of Regents?

What evidence shows that the UW System discriminates against minorities?

What is the rationale for preferential admissions for minorities?

What is the rationale for preferential treatment for particular groups?

How do preferential admissions operate at UW-Madison?

What are the benefits and costs of the UW System diversity policy?

The last cluster of questions (now slightly revised) was presented at the University of Wisconsin System Hearing on Diversity for UW-Madison faculty and staff, November 25, 1997

The last cluster of questions (now slightly revised) was presented at the University of Wisconsin System Hearing on Diversity for UW-Madison faculty and staff, November 25, 1997.

What aspects of Design for Diversity have been successful? Unsuccessful? Why?

How well has UW System and its individual campuses done in reaching the quantitative goals set out in the November 1988 Design for Diversity report and in the March 1994 report, Design for Diversity: A Midpoint Review?

What accounts for the gaps between the quantitative goals set in 1988, and the updated goals set in 1994, and the results actually achieved in 1998?

How well has the UW System and its individual campuses done as of 1998 in achieving the long run goal of proportional representation of minorities? How big are the remaining gaps?

What accounts for the continuing gap between proportional representation and actual enrollment levels attained in 1998? How much of this gap is due to the inadequate academic preparation of minority high school graduates? How much is due to continuing discrimination by UW institutions against minorities? How much bigger would the gap be in the absence of preferential admissions for minorities?

What individual components of the Design for Diversity program have been successful, and why?

What individual components of the Design for Diversity program have been successful, and why?

What lessons for the redesign of Design for Diversity can be distilled from the assessments described in questions 1-6?

What acccountability is exercised by UW System and by the Board of Regents?

What accountability did the Board of Regents apply when the UW System’s agreed-upon goals established in 1988 were not met in 1994?

What accountability did the UW System apply when the agreed-upon goals established by the individual campuses in 1988 were not met in 1994?

What accountability will be exercised by the Board of Regents if the modified goals for diversity established by the UW System 1994 are not met in 1998?

What kinds of accountability will be exercised by the UW System if the modified goals for diversity established by the individual campuses are not met in 1998?

What kind of critical scrutiny will be given to whatever new goals and timetables are proposed by UW System before a new Design for Diversity program is brought to a vote by the Board of Regents?

What binding assurances can and will be given, by the UW System and the UW Board of Regents, that the goals established in the new Design for Diversity program can be attained? What specific kinds of accountability will be exercised by the Board of Regents and by the UW System if these new goals are not realized?

What evidence shows that the UW System discriminates against minorities?

What is the meaning of the statement (Design for Diversity: A Midpoint Review, March 11, 1994) that its “comprehensive plan especially targets institutional racism as a pernicious phenomenon and seeks to eradicate the negative impact it has on all students, faculty, and staff members”? What is the meaning of “institutional racism” in this context? How does “institutional racism” manifest itself in the UW System and at the UW-Madison? How extensive is this “institutional racism” within the UW System and at the UW-Madison? How does this “racism” harm (have a “negative impact” on) all students, faculty, and staff members?

How is institutional racism defined? Does the underrepresentation of minorities by itself signify the existence of “institutional racism”? If so, what is the meaning of the term “institutional racism”?

What is the relationship between racism and discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity? How does discrimination that favors minorities diminish racism?

What is the rationale for preferential admissions for minorities?

Why does diversity policy in the UW System, as described in the Design for Diversity program, require preferential admissions for minorities? Though a preferential admissions policy for minorities is not mentioned explicitly, does the program expect or require that minority applicants be given preferential admissions status?

What is the meaning of the goal of addressing the “underrepresentation of minorities in higher education and the need for all segments of our society to better understand and work together to resolve that concern,” as stated in the UW System report, Design for Diversity, April 7, 1988? What is the exact nature of the “concern”? Is this concern being met effectively by the program?

What is the educational basis for placing so much importance on the concept of “underrepresentation”? What educational benefits will accrue from eliminating underrepresentation?

How do preferential admissions for minorities square with UW System and Board of Regents policy statements concerning “Equal Opportunity” and “Regent Policy on Nondiscrimination,” which appear both in The University of Wisconsin System: Introduction 1996-97 (p. 49), and on the University of Wisconsin System “Application for Undergraduate Admission” (p. 6)? The Equal Opportunity statement reads:

The University of Wisconsin System is committed to equal opportunity for all persons, regardless of race, color, sex, creed, age, ancestry, national origins, handicap, sexual orientation, political affiliation, marital status, developmental disability, or arrest of conviction record in its education programs, activities, and employment policies.

The Regent Policy on Nondiscrimination statement reads:

It is the policy of the Board of Regents that racist and discriminatory conduct will not be tolerated within the University of Wisconsin System. Discrimination, discriminatory attitudes, and expressions that reflect discrimination are inconsistent with the efforts of the University of Wisconsin System to foster an environment of respect for the dignity and worth of all members of the university community and to eliminate all manifestations of discrimination within the university system.

Does not the first statement on “Equal Opportunity” bar the University itself from discriminating in admissions, either for or against persons whose characteristics are identified explicitly in the “Equal Opportunity” statement? Does not the second statement, “Regent Policy on Nondiscrimination,” reinforce the prohibition of the Equal Opportunity statement, by indicating that any discrimination undercuts efforts to “foster an environment of respect for the dignity and worth of all members of the university community”?

What is the rationale for giving preferential admissions to minorities in view of the University of Wisconsin’s long tradition of nondiscrimination, which grew out of the University’s efforts in the late 1940s and early 1950s to prevent Jewish students from being denied off-campus housing on the basis of their religion, and to force campus fraternities and sororities to eliminate from their national charters restrictive membership clauses that prevented students on the basis of their race or religion from joining these organizations?

What is the rationale for preferential treatment for particular groups?A. Racial-ethnic groups

What is the meaning of the phrase “historically underrepresented”? Does this term refer only to Blacks/African Americans, and also to American Indians who, it is often argued, suffered longer and more systematically from past discrimination than any other targeted racial/ethnic groups?

What is the justification for the UW System giving preference in admission to “Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese admitted to the U.S. after 12/31/75”? In what sense are they “historically underrepresented” and thus appropriate targets of diversity policy?

What is the justification for the UW System and for UW-Madison giving preference in admissions to “Other Asian/Pacific Islanders”? In what sense are they “historically underrepresented” and thus appropriate targets of diversity policy?

Why are not applicants who describe their “Racial/Ethnic Heritage” as “Asian” but who are not included among “Cambodian, Laotian, Vietnamese” or the “Other Asian/Pacific Islanders” groups given the same preferential treatment in admissions accorded to other racial/ethnic groups? To what extent have these Asians also been historically underrepresented?

What is the justification for the UW System and for UW-Madison giving preference in admissions to “Hispanics/Latinos” applicants? In what sense are they “historically underrepresented” and thus appropriate targets of diversity policy?

Why were females, who until recently could be described as “historically underrepresented,” never designated as a targeted group in the Design for Diversity program?

B. Educationally Disadvantaged Groups

How do applicants who are “disadvantaged”, “educationally disadvantaged”, “disadvantaged as a result of substandard education, family income, or ethnic background”, or those who are members of “specific groups . . . because of substandard income level” identify themselves in their application forms? Inasmuch as there is no provision for such categories, how can diversity programs take proper account of those applicants who fall into these categories? And, exactly how are these categories defined?

Does their identification of applicants described by these terms rest on information applicants voluntarily include in their application? If so, how complete is the identification of applicants who fite these categories?

Because the terms “minority”, “minority and disadvantaged students” and “minority and educationally disadvantaged students” are used frequently and seemingly interchangeably, what is the distinction among these terms? Does, for example, the term “minority and disadvantaged” refer to individual students who fit both categories or who fall into one category or the other? Is it likely that because of this language, nonminorities are less likely to be identified in these categories than minorities?

How Do Preferential Admissions Operate at UW-Madison?

Why are applicants from minority groups and other special outreach groups (veterans, people out of school for two years or more years, etc.) who meet the minimum qualifications for admission “normally admitted,” whereas other similarly qualified entrants not members of these groups may or may not be admitted, depending upon the number of applicants who are admitted and estimates of likely acceptances from applicants already admitted?

Why are applicants from minority groups and other special outreach groups who fail to meet the “minimum qualifications” for admission given “particular consideration” in the admissions process, meaning that they “may be considered” for admission “if, on the basis of other factors, they appear to have a reasonable probability of success,” whereas all other applicants (those who are not members of these groups) lacking these minimum qualifications are not admitted?

What do we know about the quantitative impact of preferential admissions at UW-Madison? To be specific, how many minority and other special outreach applicants are admitted and enroll, by whether they meet the regular admissions standard or because of their special outreach status they are “normally admitted” or receive “particular consideration” for admission?

What are the benefits and costs of UW System diversity policy?

How much being spent this year and how much has been spent during the Design for Diversity program?

Does diversity mean anything more than increasing the number and proportion of targeted minorities who are admitted, enroll, and graduate from the various UW System campuses?

How does increasing the number and proportion of enrolled minorities succeed in realizing the goal stated in Design for Diversity, one that “creates an environment in which we can appreciate our differences while increasing our common goals and values”? (Design for Diversity: A Midpoint Review, p.1) Is there any evidence this effect is being achieved?

To what extent does diversity, as it is practiced, contribute to the stated goal: “we must prepare our students through education and by experience to live and work effectively in a far more multicultural society and economy than any of us experienced in our lifetimes.” (Design for Diversity: A Midpoint Review, p.1) Is there any evidence this effect is being achieved?

To be specific about UW-Madison, how has its participation in the Design for Diversity program, combined with the Madison Plan, the ethnic studies requirement, and the faculty and student speech codes, contributed to the realization of the above mentioned goals of diversity? What progress over the past decade can be attributed to these efforts?

How does diversity policy in admissions affect instruction, learning, faculty-student interaction, and campus climate?

To what extent do the benefits of diversity hinge on the number of minorities who enroll as contrasted to the academic preparation of those minorities who enroll? Would diversity be promoted more effectively if a uniform standard of academic preparation were applied to all applicants, without regard to their minority status?

What do research studies show about the favorable and unfavorable effects of diversity policy with respect to minority enrollments in higher education, and particularly at research universities? What are the effects of diversity on both minority students and nonminority students in research universities? To what degree do these effects differ between minority and nonminority students?

What research has been completed by UW System Administration and by the various campuses to answer the above questions about the educational effects of diversity? For example, System Administration has on its staff a number of PhDs who are equipped to conduct institutional research of the kind suggested. So also do individual campuses. Exactly what have these people learned about the effects of diversity through their research? Are any staff seeking answers to any of the above questions?

Finally, is there sufficient new knowledge — and new knowledge is what research universities are all about — for the UW System and the Board of Regents to devise a successful new Design for Diversity plan, one that can meet whatever diversity goals the System and the Board propose and ultimately adopt?

Or will the System and the Board continue to keep in place a costly but largely unevaluated Design for Diversity plan?

Posted in Forging a New Diversity Policy (1997-98), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on On Diversity Policy and Undergraduate Admissions: Unanswered Questions (January, 1998)

Adopting Policy For Diversity Sacrifices Quality

Posted on July 2, 2006 by W. Lee Hansen

Reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, April 14, 1997This afternoon the UW-Madison Faculty Senate will be asked to pass a resolution reaffirming its commitment to racial and ethnic diversity in minority enrollment and retention.

What does passing such a resolution mean? Will the UW-Madison suddenly become successful in recruiting and retaining minorities? Or will these efforts to increase minority access lead to an erosion of quality?

Proponents of diversity will undoubtedly emphasize the resolution’s symbolic importance in the quest to expand educational opportunities for targeted minority groups. They will probably also argue that continued admission of small numbers of underqualified applicants, based on preferential standards for minority groups, can hardly compromise the UW-Madison’s high quality. But, the truth is that it can, it has, and it will continue to compromise that quality.

Diversity will compromise quality because the UW-Madison faces a critical time of diminishing resources. State budget resources are essentially stable. Gaining more revenue through increased tuition will be difficult. Federal funding is becoming increasingly scarce. These developments require a careful reappraisal of how UW-Madison allocates its fiscal and human resources.

The need for additional resources is quite apparent to those who know the UW-Madison. Of particular importance is the inadequate number of faculty to teach its large student body. Consider these two immediate needs.

First, added faculty are needed to implement the new general education requirements that took effect this year after unanimous endorsement by the Faculty Senate several years ago. The rhetoric/composition requirement, for example, calls for small writing courses designed to help second semester freshmen sharpen their writing skills and enhance their learning by working more closely with senior faculty. With more than 5,000 new freshmen enrolling each year, this will mean scheduling an additional 250 writing classes. The new requirement also calls for offering small, faculty-taught writing intensive courses in each undergraduate major. More faculty are desperately needed to make these two components of the new rhetoric/composition requirement effective.

Second, over the past 10 years the number of new young faculty has fallen sharply. This poses a even more serious threat to the future quality of UW-Madison. Because of tight budgets, overall faculty size dropped from just under 2,400 in 1986 to about 2,200 last year as faculty retired

or departed for other jobs. Virtually all the decline occurred in the 30-34 and 35-39 age categories. The reason—so few new young faculty were hired as replacements. Not only has average class size increased, but the institution and its future students are deprived of new young scholars who will become the backbone of the future faculty.

What is the connection between the quality and diversity? UW-Madison’s diversity program now costs approximately $5 million dollars annually. This program pays the salaries of minority recruiters and advisers, special programs for minority students, other special programs for pre-college minorities, substantial amounts of financial aid, multicultural activities, and the like. Strong pressures to increase spending beyond this amount are coming from the Civil Rights Defense Coalition, an activist student group, and from the faculty Committee on Academic Affairs of Minority/Disadvantaged Students which is proactive on diversity issues.

But, what if the funds now devoted to diversity programs could be reallocated to hire more new young faculty? Consider the possibilities. Suppose the average salary for newly hired junior faculty members is $50,000, which is a bit on the high side. Hiring 100 young faculty members, thereby cutting in half the 200-person shortfall of younger faculty, would cost $5 million. This is exactly the amount currently spent on diversity programs.

The effect of this reallocation would be dramatic. The newly hired, bright, talented new PhDs would bring to the campus new energy and ideas. They would augment the depleted instructional staff. And, they would stimulate path-breaking scholarship and cutting-edge research.

To capitalize on such an opportunity, every effort must be made to search out and hire the very best people available. The faculty must not allow itself to be constrained by assurances, already given to the Civil Rights Defense Coalition, that some predetermined racial/ethnic/gender mix of new faculty will be hired. If newly hired faculty end up being a diverse group, that is fine. Diversity, however, must be secondary to hiring the most talented people available.

Rather than simply passing a diversity resolution tomorrow, UW-Madison’s Faculty Senate has an opportunity to debate how best to allocate its seriously limited budget resources. Should it continue spending $5 million on a diversity program with a 25-year record of failure. Should it spend this same sum to strengthen the institutions’s core activities, namely, instruction, research, and public service, by hiring more faculty? Or should it seek some balance between these two choices? If so, what should that balance be?

My own preference is to hire more faculty and help reinvigorate UW-Madison’s central mission, that of creating, integrating, transferring, and applying knowledge.

The Faculty Senate has an opportunity to demonstrate the courage of its convictions. But, what are its convictions? We shall see.

Posted in Opening a Campus Dialogue on Diversity (1996-97), Preferrential Admissions | Comments Off on Adopting Policy For Diversity Sacrifices Quality

← Older posts

Newer posts →

Search for:

Recent Articles

On UW-Madison’s 2015 Diversity Implementation Plan

Why Act 55’s changes don’t make sense for UW

Lest We Forget—Memorial Day Reflections: May 2015

Enlist Scott Walker in the ‘Right-on-Crime’ movement

Letter to the editor: Current diversity plan just another dead-end

Understanding the effects of Governor Walker’s UW System budget cut on the cost of instruction and tuition

UW students stuck with cost that taxpayers used to cover

Letter to the Editor: UW should use all available means to create a better campus climate

Wisconsin won’t admit it, but its new egalitarian policy leads to grading quotas

Creating a “Teaching/Learning” Evaluation Instrument For Proficiencies-Based Economics Courses

Madness in Madison: The University of Wisconsin’s latest diversity plan calls for “equity” in high-demand majors and the distribution of grades

Memorial Day Reflections: May 2014

Why the Rush to Endorse the New Diversity Plan?

Letter to the editor: New campus Diversity Plan is deeply flawed

W. Lee Hansen: Broader definition of diversity won’t help UW

Categories
Categories

Meta

Log in

Entries feed

Comments feed

WordPress.org