W. Lee Hansen

Presented to Education Committee of the Board of Regents, UW-Madison, April  10,  1997I have been granted 5 minutes to make a presentation on diversity. I must be brief — 575 words is all I can squeeze in.

My urgent recommendation is that the Board of Regents act quickly to establish an independent-minded group to undertake a thorough reexamination of diversity policy and programs in the University of Wisconsin System. The reasons for urgency should be apparent.

• The Design for Diversity program, now in the 9th year of operation, must be reviewed and reconsidered during its 10th year.
• The UW-Madison is poised to begin an accelerated minority recruitment/retention program, recommended by a coalition of minority groups pushing its own special-interest agenda. It calls for reaching proportional representation of freshman minority students by the year 2000.
• Faculty, administrators, staff, and even students avoid open public discussion of diversity for fear of being called insensitive, racist, disruptive, in of all places, a university setting.
• And, perhaps I should add, the legal implications of the Hopwood case in Texas over race-based admissions practices in its Law School.

But five minutes is not enough time to flesh out this proposal. Five minutes affords no time to analyze the intellectual underpinnings of the University of Wisconsin System’s quarter-century diversity policy, appraise its success, and point up the new problems it has created. Five minutes offers no possibility to present illuminating new data to inform us about the effects of diversity policy and its prospects. Five minutes gives no chance to begin a reflective discussion of diversity and alternatives to it. Five minutes gives no opportunity to sketch the pervasive fear surrounding public discussion of diversity among both its opponents and its proponents. And, five minutes provides no time to explain how diversity policy stigmatizes many minority students through a lower admission standard for minority applicants..

This issue is much too complex to be reduced to a 5-minute summary. There must be time for statements and counter statements, to hear all sides, to analyze what went wrong and why, to explore new possibilities, to fashion a new consensus. And, we clearly need more reason and less passion. Indeed, diversity is truly the most sensitive and polarizing topic I have encountered during my more than 40 years of teaching. Requiring anyone to speak in a 5-minute sound bite only heightens these sensitivities and impedes fruitful discussion of this complex topic.

Can much be learned about diversity from this year’s Design for Diversity report which is before you? The answer, I am afraid, is no. What should we make of the small reported increase in minority freshman enrollment? Do the many programs mentioned in the report succeed in enlarging the pool of applicants? Does the Design for Diversity’s record justify last year’s spending of $18.6 million? By how much has a decade of Design for Diversity expenditures — totaling about $130 million since its inception — boosted enrollment of qualified minority students? And, where is the much discussed accountability for diversity programs? Who have been accountable? In what ways?

More questions. Might Design for Diversity funds be spent more effectively? I would say yes, certainly at UW-Madison. Why not augment the budget of our desperately underfunded library system? Why not hire more faculty to help implement the new general education writing requirements approved with much fanfare several years ago? Why not accelerate efforts to equip classrooms with new instructional technology to enhance student learning?

My five minutes is up. There is no more time. Nevertheless, I do look forward to another day when there will be more time to discuss higher education’s most vexing issue — diversity.

Reprint from the Badger Herald, April 4, 1997“If you are critical of diversity policy and believe it doesn’t work, don’t you think you have an obligation to suggest how to improve it.” This frequent question to me reflects annoyance with my criticisms of UW-Madison’s near-sacred commitment to the elusive goal of racial/ethnic diversity.

How should I respond to this challenge? If the problem of increasing minority enrollment could be solved easily, somebody would surely have found the answer long ago. There are any number of stubborn problems we just don’t know how to fix, and this may be one of them. Despite 25 years of trying, minority enrollment growth has kept pace but not increased relative to the growing pool of minority high school graduates. This is not for lack of effort. Over the years countless reports to the Faculty Senate have grappled with this issue and offered recommendations for new and more vigorous action.

What emerges from these reports and news articles is a distinctive and repeated cycle that goes like this. Previously established goals and timetables are not met. Student groups mobilize to push for increased University action. Recruitment/retention policies and procedures are reexamined by faculty committees. Strong minority group pressures shape the development of more and “better” programs. New appointments are made to invigorate implementation of these programs.

In the aftermath, faculty members, administrators, and minority student groups all feel good. Time passes. No gains occur. The cycle repeats itself.

The latest cycle began last spring. The Civil Rights Defense Coalition, a special interest group of student minority organizations, detailed the failure of UW-Madison’s latest effort, the 1994 Madison Commitment. It also pushed a new goal and a timetable for reaching that goal — the year 2000. Under pressure, the Chancellor agreed to the CRDC’s goal and timetable. Then, last fall, the CRDC offered a 17-point plan to improve minority recruitment/retention programs. The Chancellor and various faculty committees subsequently endorsed this plan. Now, with almost certain passage of the University Committee’s Resolution on Diversity at next Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, the UW-Madison will find itself committed to a renewed quest for diversity, this one framed by the CRDC.

What is the likelihood of success? Proponents of diversity are optimistic. They contend that this time the UW-Madison can and will achieve its goals. Not only has it learned from past mistakes, but new strategies are in place and new programs are being mounted. This, of course, has been said before — many times. If the best predictor of the future is past experience, nobody should be optimistic. The record of the past, unfortunately, is a record of failure: disappointing outcomes and resources squandered in an attempt to reach unreachable goals.

Are the goal and timetable attainable? Evidence shows that the CRDC goal of overall proportional minority representation among new freshmen by the year 2000 has already been met — thus, it constitutes no challenge at all. Yet, the CRDC’s real but unstated goal of proportional representation for African Americans is clearly unreachable by the year 2000 — thus, it constitutes an impossible challenge.

But rather than belabor these matters, let me offer a constructive proposal. Suppose we retain the diversity program but make one key change. Let us require, henceforth, that minority applicants meet the same admission standard required of all other applicants. This change is not inconsistent with the concept of diversity. It is, however, at odds with the prevalent view of diversity which demands a double admissions standard, with a lower standard for minorities, as the only way to meet arbitrary diversity goals and targets.

Suppose we move to a single admission standard for everyone. This modification, if widely announced, would immediately eliminate the erroneous suspicions among most nonminority students that most minority students are enrolled here only because they qualify under a lower admission standard. Nonminority students would come to realize that the admissions process is once again fair, that everyone is admitted on academic merit. Even more important, this change would remove for minorities the terrible stigma of inferiority created by lower admissions standards.

Redefining diversity in this way would also go a long way toward eliminating the much-discussed “hostile climate” for minority students at UW-Madison. Minority students who enroll would be able to compete on an equal basis with nonminority students. Efforts to assist minorities academically should be continued, along with efforts to assist disadvantaged students whatever their racial/ethnic background. The goal would be to help ensure that both well-qualified minority and nonminority entrants succeed academically.

Under this plan, UW-Madison should quickly be able to create a highly successful diversity program. It would produce talented, well-educated minority graduates at the same rate as nonminority graduates. This plan would accomplish more in attracting other well-qualified minority students than anything else we could do.

Rather than merely hoping for better performance on the diversity front, why not, for once, stack the cards in favor of a successful diversity program? Three steps are all that is required. Eliminate goals and timetables. Implement a single, uniform admission standard. Help all students who need academic help. Period.

Making such a bold change requires open debate and collective intellectual courage. Are we up to the challenge?

Reprint from Wisconsin Week, April 2, 1997At the 3 March 1997 Faculty Senate meeting, the Chancellor criticized me directly for failing to show respect for the processes of faculty governance. Because the March 12, 1997 Wisconsin Week report failed to report both sides of the story, I am compelled to reply. I do respect the processes of faculty governance which is why I spoke out. I share even greater respect for freedom of speech, a right I can and will continue to exercise in both the public arena and university affairs.

The Chancellor’s comments were seemingly provoked by my questioning, at the 3 February 1997 Faculty Senate meeting, the Chancellor’s decision last April to agree to a specific minority enrollment goal as well as a specific timetable for reaching that goal, both proposed by a student group, the Civil Rights Defense Coalition. To the best of my knowledge, that decision was made without consulting either the Committee on Academic Affairs for Minority/Disadvantaged Students, which is designated to consider such matters, or the University Committee which is the Senate’s Executive Committee. Moreover, the Chancellor’s agreement was never brought to the Faculty Senate for its consideration or even announced to it. In my view, the Faculty Senate sets goals and timetables.

Whatever views members of the university community may express elsewhere, personal attacks should have no place in the Faculty Senate. Coming from the Chancellor, they exert an especially chilling effect on the free speech rights of every faculty member. This effect is pernicious because shared faculty governance requires the free and open exchange of ideas on both substantive issues and procedural matters. Shared faculty governance includes questioning whether governance processes are being followed not only by individual faculty members and faculty committees but also by the University Committee and the Chancellor. In the absence of an open atmosphere, we can neither learn nor test our views in this marketplace of ideas.

Universities are fragile institutions that must constantly demonstrate, both to themselves and to the public which supports them, a commitment to open inquiry. Our own guide is emblazoned on the bronze plaque at the front of Bascom Hall: “Whatever may be the limitations which trammel inquiry elsewhere, we believe that the Great State University of Wisconsin should ever encourage that continual and fearless sifting and winnowing by which alone the truth can be found.”

Reprint from the Wisconsin State Journal, March 2, 1997During the question period at the UW-Madison’s widely-reported Faculty Senate monthly meeting on February 3, problems of policy and governance emerged concerning the taboo subject of racial/ethnic diversity.

It began with questions I posed. It ended with a law professor questioning my motives and with the Dean of the College of Letters and Science expressing his shame at the discussion taking place and concluding, “This is not the right kind of discussion to be held in a public forum.” Ironically, the Dean’s statement implies that some university education policies should not be discussed in the very forum, the Faculty Senate, where they must be discussed.

What prompted my raising the diversity issue?

The immediate cause is the apparent failure of the Chancellor and the University Committee to safeguard the faculty’s role in shared governance. More than two years ago, Chancellor Ward, in unveiling a remodeled version of former Chancellor Shalala”s “Madison Plan,” described the new “Madison Commitment” as a faculty-driven plan that would solve the minority enrollment problem. The administration stated explicitly that no goals or timetables were implied.

But subsequently, the Chancellor, without attempting to secure faculty concurrence yielded to the demand by the student Civil Rights Defense Coalition . He unilaterally agreed that the campus would reach proportional representation of minorities by the year 2000. This action, taken last spring, and the University Committee’s failure to challenge it suggest a significant erosion of faculty power.

More fundamental is the continuing commitment by the Chancellor and the UW-Madison to a diversity policy which was framed in the early 1970s. In 25 years, the program has produced no identifiable increases in minority enrollment. Faculty committees regularly decry minority underrepresentation but never probe its root causes. Instead, they urge greater effort, more staff, and increased university funding for diversity efforts. Yet, the promised results never materialize.

Recently, I checked the representation of minorities. The percentage of new freshmen minority students has exceeded the percentage of minorities among the prior year’s Wisconsin high school graduates in 9 of the last 12 years. Moreover, Asian Americans among the minority groups are overrepresented. Paradoxically, White Americans are underrepresented. Rather than the serious underrepresentation implied by the Chancellor’s action, minorities as a group have been consistently overrepresented.

The plain truth is that campus concern about diversity is not really about minorities in general but rather about African Americans. As a group, they appear to be seriously underrepresented. But is the traditional method of defining diversity representation flawed? What should count is not the percentage of minorities among last year’s high school graduating class but the percentage of minorities among last year’s high school graduates who qualify for admission at UW-Madison.

The UW-Madison admission standard is by far the toughest in the UW System. Yet, individual minority applicants unable to meet that standard can still be admitted under the lower standard that applies to minority groups. Director of Admissions Millard Storey indicated publicly in 1994 that the enrollment of African Americans would be only half as great if they were subject to the same admission standard as nonminorities.

Whereas African American high school graduates last year made up 3.8 percent of all high school graduates, they constituted perhaps no more than 1.5 percent of all applicants who meet the UW-Madison admission standard. With African Americans representing 1.7 percent of new freshmen enrollees this year, they cannot be described as underrepresented if the yardstick used is the percentage of Wisconsin high school graduates who meet the UW-Madison admission standard.

I raise the diversity issue because I care passionately about this University and its future. To succeed at what UW-Madison does best, it must recruit well qualified students, those whose past academic records indicate highly probable academic success. To maintain the University’s high standing, merit must permeate all decisions, from deciding whom to admit and how to evaluate student academic performance, to whom to hire and how to evaluate faculty for promotion. We must strive to bring the state’s ablest high school graduates to their highest level of intellectual development. We must unify our efforts to promote academic excellence.

The time has come to reexamine the effects of our diversity policy. Do we want to continue bringing to campus sizeable numbers of minority students who are unlikely to succeed academically? Do we want to continue stigmatizing qualified minority students by virtue of special admissions standards that benefit minority groups? Do we want to continue frustrating faculty, administrators, and staff by seeking to attain the unreachable goal of minority representation for each and every racial/ethnic group without regard for prior academic achievement and future promise? Do we want to continue undermining the public’s confidence in our ability to spend taxpayer funds wisely and well by pursuing the flawed targets of our current diversity policy?

These questions need to be answered before a new set of diversity proposals described by the Chancellor in yet another letter to the Civil Rights Defense Coalition are implemented. These proposals should be presented to the faculty and to the Faculty Senate so that they can be discussed openly and thoroughly. Thus, I urge the University Committee at the very least to schedule an opportunity to assess the pros and cons of both these proposals and the UW-Madison’s policy of racial/ethnic diversity. I look forward eagerly to participating.

Reprint from the Badger Herald, December 5, 1996UW-Madison’s failure, after more than two decades of organized effort to increase its enrollment of African Americans, continues to perplex faculty, students, administrators, and the public. Rather than continuing past policies and practices, the UW-Madison community needs to rethink, in a fundamental way, its minority recruitment goals and strategies.

The simple “arithmetic” of diversity indicates the impossibility by the year 2000 of bringing African American enrollment up to the proportion of African Americans graduating from Wisconsin high schools. Compared to White Americans and the other three racial/ethnic groups, only African Americans are seriously underrepresented and will continue to be so.

But, once attention is turned to academically qualified applicants, the underrepresentation of African Americans disappears. Instead, they may well be overrepresented rather than underrepresented, as an earlier analysis demonstrated. If that analysis is correct, it is essential to rethink our diversity policy.

What reasons are customarily given for the underrepresentation of African Americans at UW-Madison? Many are offered: an unwelcoming campus atmosphere, insufficient financial aid support, inadequate administrative coordination and teamwork, lack of a visible campus commitment to diversity, an uninformed and apathetic student body, insufficient special student services, and so on. Similar reasons are offered for their much higher dropout rates.

Overcoming these barriers so as to increase enrollment and decrease dropout rates for African Americans is a daunting task. A faculty senate committee on minority issues recently admitted it had discovered no magic solution to black enrollment-retention problems. Nor did the committee’s documentation provide much insight into the causes of these problems.

A student organization, the Civil Rights Defense Coalition, has been at the forefront in seeking to increase the enrollment and retention rates of minorities. Last spring it called for lowering admission standards and for increasing remedial and other special services for minority students. Their latter proposal has resurfaced again in its latest effort. Yet, both proposals are seriously flawed. The first would widen differences in college qualifications and undoubtedly increase the already high college dropout rate for African Americans. The second would divert some of UW-Madison’s already limited budget resources to help students whose academic qualifications are weak and to bolster remedial programs of questionable effectiveness. Sadly, the low academic achievement of blacks remains a stubborn social problem that goes beyond what UW-Madison can do as an institution. This is particularly true because the UW-Madison’s mission and expertise are in teaching the best students to their highest level of achievement. So, what can be done?

The first task is to focus attention on the difficult challenge of encouraging stronger academic achievement by African Americans in their homes, in the elementary and middle school grades, and especially in the critical years of high school. The Wisconsin State Journal’s Schools of Hope Project in Madison, as well as other groups elsewhere in the state and across the nation, are now trying to do this. Carefully designed research and experimentation by scholars and practitioners are also essential if we are to learn more about raising achievement among underperforming students. Research in education schools here and elsewhere focuses on this question.

The next and more immediate task is to counsel high school graduates, regardless of their racial/ethnic background and who do not have strong academic records, to enroll at institutions whose admission standards more nearly match their academic capabilities. These institutions include other UW System campuses as well as the numerous schools which are part of the Wisconsin Technical College System. The latter offers college preparatory courses, associate degree programs, and a variety of postsecondary vocational diplomas. For many minority students, attending a campus near home rather than UW-Madison may provide a more supportive environment, reduce attendance costs, and offer better access to part-time jobs. Students who are successful at these institutions always have the option of transferring to another institution as they take on more specialized study and more advanced coursework in their junior and senior years.

The third and most critical task is for the UW-Madison to rethink its minority recruitment goals and strategies. If we believe the interests of students should be given first priority, in lieu of focusing on the campus record in minority recruitment, then we need to engage in an open and honest discussion of the following options:

1. Abolish the UW-Madison goal of proportional representation which continues to hold out false hopes to many African American high school graduates who are not academically prepared to succeed at this institution.
2. Eliminate UW-Madison’s preferential admissions policy for minorities and thereby reduce the high dropout rate for minorities, especially African Americans, who fail to meet the regular admissions standard.
3. Shift current funding for minority scholarships and special services to provide greater help to disadvantaged students without regard to their racial/ethnic background and thereby ensure greater equality of educational opportunity for all academically able students who face financial barriers to college attendance.

These proposals are advanced to begin a discussion that faculty, students, administrators, and the public have carefully avoided for much too long. In that discussion we must weigh the implications of continuing to espouse seemingly commendable but unrealistic goals for minority recruitment and retention. We must explore the effects of having in the past admitted many underqualified minority students who have found it difficult to profit from the kind of education the UW-Madison is best equipped to provide. We must also decide what this institution can best do if anything to expand equality of educational opportunity for disadvantaged applicants whatever their racial/ethnic background.

The great challenge facing American society and particularly the African American community is discovering how to raise the level of academic achievement of minority students at all grade levels. Only then will larger numbers of minority and particularly African American high school graduates be able to enter the UW-Madison based on their academic merit. Only then will they be able to compete on an equal basis with all other students and graduate.

Reprint from the Badger Herald, December 4, 1996Intense concern among UW-Madison students, faculty, and administrators continues, as I am sure it should, about the low enrollment and low retention rates of African Americans. Yet, the likelihood of soon achieving substantial improvements in either of these measures is remote. To understand this statement we must go beyond notions of diversity and look at the larger problem of academic preparation.

What are the possibilities of reaching the UW-Madison’s minority enrollment goal for the year 2000, established last spring by Chancellor Ward under pressure from the Civil Rights Coalition, an activist student organization? One answer, shown in my earlier piece on “The Arithmetic of Diversity,” and made by the Chancellor himself, is that this goal has already been reached. But, another answer, or another perspective, calls for examining what would happen if all students, including minorities, were admitted on the basis of the standard admissions criteria. Those criteria include submitting ACT scores, graduating in the top half of their high school class, and completing the core academic subjects in high school.

With the available data, we can show how the application of the first two of these criteria changes the racial/ethnic pool of potential applicants. Two cases are considered. Both involve taking the ACT but one requires being ranked in the top half while the other requires being in the top quarter of the high school graduating class. The first case represents a minimum standard. The second case represents a more stringent standard that reflects more closely the characteristics of students who subsequently enroll as UW-Madison freshmen.

The impact of applying the same merit-based admission standard to all applicants, including minorities, is dramatic. For African Americans, their proportion of eligibles for admission falls from the 3.9 percent of the state’s 1994-95 high school graduates to the 2.5 percent who that same year took the ACT and ranked in the upper half of their high school class. Their proportion drops to 1.6 percent for those who took the ACT and ranked in the upper quarter of their high school class. Based on a minimum standard of being ranked in the top half of the class, African Americans are still underrepresented, with 1.7 percent of new freshmen in Fall 1995 compared to the 2.5 percent eligible for admission. Based on the more stringent standard of the top quarter of the high school, they are slightly overrepresented, with the 1.7 percent of new freshman compared to the 1.6 percent eligible for admission. Thus, applying a standard that emphasizes academic merit produces a quite different picture of the freshmen enrollment prospects for African Americans.

Thus far, little has been said about how ACT scores enter into the UW-Madison admissions process. ACT scores are employed to estimate a predicted freshman GPA for each student. This predicted value is then used with other criteria in making admission decisions. The differences in average ACT scores among the racial/ethnic groups prove to be revealing. No matter how the pool of potential applicants is defined, the average ACT score for African Americans is roughly three points below those of the other racial/ethnic groups. This difference persists among newly enrolled freshmen, with average ACT scores of 21.3 for African Americans, 23.7 for Hispanic Americans, 24.0 for American Indians, 25.6 for Asian Americans, and 26.0 for White Americans.

If the ACT scores could be used here as they are in deciding whom to admit, the percentages of eligibles among the state’s African American high school graduates would be lower. For those taking the ACT and in the top quarter of their class, the 1.6 percent figure would fall but by exactly how much we cannot say. Even if the fall were modest, to say 1.2 percent, new African Americans freshmen would be still be overrepresented.

The lower average ACT score for new African American freshmen clearly signals that for them the admission process is less selective. Indeed, minorities do benefit from preferential admissions. According to UW-Madison admissions policies, those minorities who fail to meet the standard qualifications (graduation in the upper half of their high school class and completion of core academic courses in high school) may be still considered for admission. They can be admitted “if, on the basis of other factors, they appear to have a reasonable probability of success.” Exactly what these “other factors” might be is not clearly specified.

In fact, little is known about the impact of preferential admissions. The only hint comes from a statement by the UW-Madison Director of Undergraduate Admissions as reported in The Chronicle of Higher Education (7 September 1994). That statement, made in the context of recruiting African Americans, is: “He [Millard Storey] said that without Madison’s current policy, minority enrollment could fall by as much as half.” The implications of this statement are clear. The percentage of new UW-Madison freshman African Americans who would qualify based on the standard admission criteria which emphasize academic merit could be roughly half, or 0.8 to 0.9 percent, which is below their 1.7 percent share of new freshmen enrolled in Fall 1995.

The current minority enrollment goal of proportional representation and the preferential admission standards for minorities fail to recognize the importance of academic preparation. If minority students are to perform well and subsequently graduate from this highly selective teaching-research university, they must meet the same admissions standards as do all other racial/ethnic groups. Students who are admitted under a lower standard will experience greater academic difficulty and be more likely to drop out for academic reasons. As this situation persists, the campus will continue to be criticized for not doing enough to both recruit and retain minorities. Proposals such as those by the Civil Rights Coalition calling for the campus to invest additional resources to attract and retain additional marginally qualified minority students are unlikely to produce significant results, as the experience of the last two decades demonstrates so well.

Reprint from the Badger Herald, November 21, 1996

Controversy over the UW-Madison’s quest for racial/ethnic “diversity” in undergraduate enrollments continues. It is fueled by our continued failure to analyze the available data in an effort to better understand the effectiveness of our efforts to recruit more minorities and to ascertain the dimensions of the pool of potential applicants. As a consequence, new plans and proposals are regularly advanced, without solid knowledge about their potential effectiveness.

We have another instance of this during the recent celebration of “(Lack) of Diversity Week.” The Civil Rights Coalition (CRC), a student group, staged a week-long series of meetings to discuss proposals addressed to Chancellor Ward that seek to improve minority student recruitment by the year 2000. This action follows the successful efforts of CRC last spring to secure the Chancellor’s commitment to raise by the year 2000 UW-Madison’s percentage of new freshman minority enrollment to equal the percentage of minorities graduating from Wisconsin’s high schools. That agreement is now described by the CRC as “a good start.”

The new CRC material goes beyond that, repeating old charges from last spring and introducing others. One is that undergraduate minority students are severely unrepresented on this campus, with students of color constituting only 9.4 percent of enrollment as contrasted to 19.7 percent at four-year colleges nationwide. Another is that UW-Madison has one of the worst records for minority recruitment in the Big 10. A third is that campus’ total minority enrollment of 10.27 percent falls short of the state’s college age population of 13.08 percent. The first comparison is not relevant, the second is questionable, and the third is simply incorrect. For this, the CRC deserves a failing grade in its research.

More important, CRC missed the obvious: the CRC goal Chancellor Ward agreed to last spring has already been met and exceeded. The goal was realized not over the four year timeline in the agreement but in less than a single year. The evidence is unambiguous. This fall minorities constitute 9.0 percent of new freshmen, thus exceeding the 8.5 percent share of minorities among Wisconsin’s 1995-96 high school graduates.

This new information should be cause for a gigantic campus celebration by the CRC, Chancellor Ward, and everyone else. The goal of proportional representation originally set by the Faculty Senate and pursued for more than two decades has finally been realized. Progress has been frustratingly slow and uneven, despite the fanfare of a succession of programs and initiatives, the most publicized being former Chancellor Shalala’s Madison Plan. Even opponents of minority recruitment goals must admit the importance of this accomplishment.

Before assuming a complete victory, several reminders are in order. One is that both the percentage figures used in measuring proportional representation fluctuate from year to year. This occurs because of changes in the number and mix of both new freshmen and the state’s high school graduates. The former reflects the University’s inability to control the precise number of those admitted who choose to enroll, either overall or for any racial/ethnic group. Thus, small fluctuations next year could change the percentages and push us back below proportionality.

The other and more serious problem is the possible ambiguity in the Chancellor’s agreement which refers to “our minority student freshman enrollment.” Exactly what does that phrase mean? The agreement could easily be construed, in light of long-standing concerns about the small numbers of African Americans students, as requiring proportional representation for each of the five major racial /ethnic groups — African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and White Americans.

Under this interpretation, there is less reason to celebrate. Fall enrollment data indicate that Hispanic Americans are very close to proportional representation, with 1.9 percent of new freshmen compared to 1.8 percent of Wisconsin high school graduates. African Americans, however, continue to be seriously underrepresented, with 1.6 percent of new freshman compared to 3.9 percent of the state’s high school graduates. American Indians are less seriously underrepresented, with 0.5 percent of new freshman and 0.9 percent of high school graduates. Curiously, White Americans are also underrepresented, with 91.0 percent of new freshmen compared to 92.5 percent of high school graduates. Only one group stands out as being overrepresented, Asian Americans, who constitute 4.9 percent of new freshman while representing only 1.9 percent of Wisconsin high school graduates.

What if anything should be done about these imbalances? Should the campus increase its intake of new freshmen from the three underrepresented groups so as to achieve proportionality? Doing so would require a substantial increase in freshman enrollment because of the presence of so many more Asian Americans. Or should it reduce the intake of new Asian American freshman in order to make way for more African Americans, American Indians, and White Americans? A strict interpretation of proportionality that recognizes the constraints on overall enrollment would require the latter. In quantitative terms, this would mean reducing the number of new Asian American freshman from this year’s 267 to 104, with offsetting increases for the other three groups.

Many students would probably go for the first option. However, the Board of Regent’s current enrollment management policy would prevent much of any increase in overall enrollment. Substantial numbers of other students might argue that the second option would seriously reduce the number of Asian American students. The affected students would probably argue that such action discriminates against them, a minority group, many of whom have academic credentials superior to other students in both the minority and nonminority categories.

The difficulties of operating a program that seeks proportionality in the enrollment of racial/ethnic groups should be apparent. Moreover, there are strong arguments for admitting students to UW-Madison on the basis of their academic qualifications and their likely success as students. Even if minority groups are to be singled out for special consideration, some effort must first be made to determine what fraction of each racial/minority group is in some sense “qualified” to be admitted.

The evidence indicates clearly that the racial/ethnic composition of the state’s high school graduating class is a poor indicator of the proportions who qualify for admission to UW-Madison.