� Fudge | Main | Flying Monkeys �
July 02, 2003
Something about Critical Mass
John over at Discriminations asks questions that nobody on a college campus with critical mass ought to have to ask in the abstract.
Shouldn't admissions committees be responsible for determining what "the viewpoints" of their applicants are? Of course students can change their viewpoints over time, especially if they are learning something, and even students who strongly agree with "the viewpoints" of their minority group should be allowed to stray from the reservation every now and then, but why should any minority students be given an admissions preference if it is known in advance that they are likely consistently to express views that are unrepresentative of their minority groups? What "diversity" do they provide?
When I was in college, he would be slapped about and instructed to read the newsletter of the Friends of Africa or come to a meeting of the Black Survival Union or hear a guest of the speakers bureau of the Black Business Association. He would, within a week, have been exposed to three different groups of African American students with widely different persuasions and interests. But John's questions suggest we have reached a state at which there are such paltry numbers of black undergraduates that one can presume that black viewpoints can be assigned and determined by admissions staff. It makes me want to puke.
John references Peter Kirsanow
The "critical mass" or "meaningful numbers" of minorities is the level at which minorities will not feel isolated and will feel free to express themselves without concern that they are necessarily representing the viewpoints of their particular racial/ethnic group. Divining these figures is akin to determining the precise location of a photon at a given point in time (apologies to Neils Böhr), but institutions should back up their determinations with social-science data.
On the other hand as I suggested, there are always essay questions.
I think one can be 20 points of 'athlete' and that counts as much as 20 points of 'asian' or 20 points of 'legacy' at the age of 18. That these are all positive discriminations gives these characteristics the benefit of a doubt. Fine. But now that the automatic granting of points is no good I am just as well suited to accept an essay on any such topic (pick two from "My Ethnicity", "My Athleticism", "My Religion", "My Dad's Old Boy Network"..etc) and assign points to the quality of the essay. There's nothing particularly mechanized about that.
At my university we had about 1700-2000 black students in a population of 25,000. I recall from memory the following black organizations:
Rejoice in Jesus
Friends of Africa
National Society of Black Engineers
Black Business Association
Alpha Phi Alpha
Kappa Alpha Psi
Omega Psi Phi
Phi Beta Sigma
Sigma Gamma Rho
Delta Sigma Theta
Alpha Kappa Alpha
Zeta Phi Beta
Black Greek Council
Black Survival Union
Minority Engineering Program
That's all I can recall, but I know there were more under the radar because of the charter issue I talk about below. I wrote this in 1993 (warts and all) in response to some query about assessing the quality of black student life on campus. I raised these issues in the context of different schools in Southern California in order to have some clarity beyond the standard ways and means of protest.
As a black BMOC I dealt with a complex tangle of issues which affected the quality of life for black students. Too often institutional questions are overlooked or given scant attention [due to the] coverage of 'diversity' issues that I see and hear nowadays. Here are some questions that pop into my mind which you might pursue...Institionally, what access to blacks have to finance their student organizations under the auspices of the University? Many colleges have insisted that black organizations be funded from single 'black' funds, or that all black clubs be organized under one 'umbrella' organization. Does the school recognize with equal benefits etc any and all clubs and orgs that black students seek to organize? What is the predominating disposition of complaints lodged by black organizations?
Do black organizations have complete freedom to select which speakers come to campus for their groups? Do they have complete access to university facilities? How does their access compare with that of other groups? Are black organizations denied insurance for their social functions on campus? Does the University require additional security for activities black organizations sponsor which involve blacks from off-campus?
Are there records of harrassment or conflict between blacks and campus security? What is the predominating disposition of such conflicts? What types of complaints have been officially lodged by black organizations against University policy? How have these been resolved?
Characterize the racial quality of student politics. Are blacks likely to form coalitions with other racial minority groups? Are black organizations represented in all public University activities (parades, reception committees). Compare and contrast protocols and courtesies extended to officers of black organizations with others. What is the volume & quality of mail distributed through University offices to black organizations? Are all black organizations listed in official rosters of university groups? Are very small black organizations allowed their own charter?
How are black organizations solicited for their opinions on major questions facing the student body? Are black organizationally sponsored functions given adequate coverage by the campus press? Is there an adversarial relationship between the school paper and any black organization? Do black organizations tend to publish their own calendars or advertise independently of major school media?
In the 1980s we were informed that we were the largest numbers of black students ever in predominantly white colleges and universities. Some time during those years, the number at integrated schools eclipsed that in the HBCUs. I don't know what the figures are these days, but I'm concerned that they are something less than critical mass.
John suggests that 'diversity' requires and reinforces stereotypes. He's right, unless and until you have critical masses of minorities on campus whose own diversity is self-evident.
Posted by mbowen at July 2, 2003 12:09 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.visioncircle.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/196
Comments
Cobb - I'm not quite sure where your criticism of me ends and where your criticism of Michigan's (and others') defense of racial preference begins. After all, it is they and not I who argue that race is a proxy for viewpoint and thus that racial preferences are necessary in order to insure viewpoint diversity. I believe this argument is at best racialist and quite often actually racist.
To me, the critical mass argument as it relates to a justification for racial preferences is a snake swallowing its own tail, and more. It begins with the assumption that race is a proxy for a differing viewpoint, uses this as a justification for lowering standards for blacks in order to have their viewpoint fairly represented, then asserts the need for lowering standards sufficiently so as to insure the presence of a critical mass in order to demonstrate that there is so much diversity among blacks that there is no black viewpoint preferentially admitted students should feel the need to represent. In my opinion that last point is clearly true, and it's truth undermines the foundational assumption on which the entire racial preference edifice rests.
Posted by: John Rosenberg at July 2, 2003 01:15 AM
That is unless you believe in racial integration for its own sake, as I do. I am harking back to the days before Republican activists demonized Affirmative Action. In those days, critical masses of black students were established in predominantly white state universities that were taking up the slack in the public educational system created by the legacy of Jim Crow and property tax abatement's defunding of urban schools.
I don't buy arguments about broken meritocracy for any university that allows students more than 4 years to graduate or freshmen to have undeclared majors. I say freshman year can be two years, or a pre-freshman year can be employed to make up for the deficiencies of area high schools. Aside from all that, as a programmer I have a very difficult time talking about meritocracy with people I know haven't been required at least two years of college calculus. In other words, how can anyone suggest that the very diversity of college curricula are equally difficult on students? Isn't there a such thing as an easy major? Are we saying that there are too many Art History majors and that their proliferation despoils the rigor of university? No we are saying there are too many blacks. Kill Affirmative Action and you're an anti-racist hero. Kill Art History and you're anti-intellectual troglodyte.
One could suggest with equal seriousness given the composition and content of say, television programming and the Fortune 500, that America will hardly miss Art History or black graduates.
But to the point, 'diversity' has grown legs and started to walk. And now the fools who are following its logic are unable to invest rationally in racial integration, which is in fact what is needed. Whether one has quibbles with the putative racism (which I do not concede) of any regime of preferences created to establish racial integration is beside the point. That is unless you can stomach the educational gap by race and the reversion of predominantly white college campuses to lily white.
You call it lowering standards, I call it educational reform. Your terminology encourages the hostile racist stigmatizing of blacks on campus (as if the passing of classes granted blacks amnesty). The more you attack the strawman of diversity upon which so much now depends without acknowledging that something must be done to mind the gap, the more you legitimize that same old hostility blacks suffer wherever they "don't belong".
Posted by: Cobb at July 2, 2003 08:25 AM