If you’ve gone to college, or even visited a college campus, then you’re likely no stranger to the recurring debates over on-campus diversity.
Recently, the University of California, Los Angeles has received stern criticism from a group of minority students, led by junior Sy Stokes.
Stokes and his fellow student-activists filmed a very informative spoken-word poem that revealed some surprising statistics.
As reported by the Huffington Post :
“African-Americans make up 3.8 percent of the student population. In the video, Stokes points out that black males make up 3.3 percent of the male student population, and that 65 percent of those black males are undergraduate athletes. Of the incoming men in the freshmen class, only 1.9 percent of them were black.”
Stokes and his peers are justified in attempting to shed light upon these bleak statistics.
Although the school’s vice chancellor of student affairs, Janina Montero, acknowledged she was aware of the statistics, she maintains that it is nevertheless “difficult to eliminate the painful imbalance without considering race in the admissions process.”
In her statement, Montero is referring to the fact that California did not ratify affirmative action in 1996, passing Proposition 209 instead, “which banned state schools from considering race, gender, ethnicity or national origins in their admissions processes.”
Meanwhile, the Supreme Court has both expanded and refined affirmative action since its inception.
In Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), the Court found quota systems unconstitutional when used in the admissions process of state universities. Further, in Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the Court nonetheless held that race had an “appropriate but limited role in the admissions process of state universities.”
Finally, in Fisher v. University of Texas (2012), the Court expounded on Grutter v. Bollinger, ruling that the burden of evidence primarily lies with the university “to prove that its admissions program is narrowly tailored to obtain the educational benefits of diversity.”
Without a doubt, the role race should play in the admissions process of public universities is highly controversial and debatable.
While it is clear that affirmative action is surely a form of discrimination, the question is whether this type of discrimination is a social necessity, crucial for leveling the playing field for students of all races.
