This feisty blog has occasionally talked about issues of discrimination against minority-group members and women, in science, or in academia, or just more broadly. We have also, one must admit, occasionally taken the Bush administration to task for this or that example of egregious malfeasance. Thus, rigorously fair folks that we are, it’s only right that we also mention those instances when the administration takes time off from its busy schedule of intelligence-doctoring, operative-outing, deficit-growing, and hurricane-ignoring to actively fight the pernicious effects of discrimination.
So, here we go: the Justice Department is going to sue Southern Illinois University for discriminating against white males.
No, you can’t make this stuff up. SIU, like almost every university in the country, is seriously under-represented by minority groups among its graduate students; out of 5,500 graduate students, only about 8 percent are Latino or African-American (compared to over 20 percent of Americans). So they have a few fellowship programs that specifically target women and minorities, and help out a tiny number of people — perhaps 40 per year. The Bush administration, tireless warriors for social justice that they are, will stop at nothing to squelch this manifest anti-white bias:
“The University has engaged in a pattern or practice of intentional discrimination against whites, non-preferred minorities and males,” says a Justice Department letter sent to the university last week and obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
The letter demands the university cease the fellowship programs, or the department’s civil rights division will sue SIU by Nov. 18.
I don’t know about you, but if I’m going to discriminate against someone, I would be able to do a much better job than that. You know, like actually having fewer members of the discriminated class at my university than in the surrounding society, rather than significantly more.
Sadly, this is an issue that (even) scientists don’t always think very clearly about. There is a feeling in some circles that perfect fairness consists of taking the tiny part of society’s workings over which you have control, and pretending within that part that there is no such thing as race or gender, everyone should be treated equally. But in the real world, where we are not all born into equal circumstances and presented with equal opportunities, it makes perfect sense to recognize that and account for it when we recruit and train students.
Of course, people will complain that singling out minority-group status forces us to treat people according to some external characteristics rather than as individuals, and amounts to an insidious form of reverse racism, ultimately hurting the people it tries to help. This philosophically appealing position has the downside of being in flagrant contradiction with the evidence. Although it’s true that programs typically aim (small amounts of) resources at people because of minority-group status rather than a detailed understanding of their personal history in overcoming obstacles, the fact is that this clumsy strategy actually works. People gain access to education and training that they otherwise would not, and the result is that the pool of highly-educated and successful people grows more diverse, which helps both the people in those groups and the society as a whole. As crude as it is, the strategy of targeting fellowships at under-represented groups is both cheap and effective.
Deep down, nobody likes affirmative-action type programs. Nobody. We would all much prefer it if universities and other employers could truly ignore the race or gender of applicants and workers, because they were treated completely fairly throughout all of society. But that’s just not reality. And until it is, making a tiny little effort to help out people who have faced systematic bias throughout their lives — even if the efforts are clumsy and imprecise — is the least we can do.
Plenty of evidence for the positive impact of affirmative action, if you care to look.
Normally I’m all in favor of ignoring the trolls, but I do have to say that I feel sorry for the students in Haelfix’s classes. Any teacher who thinks they can “spot the affirmative action babies from a mile away,” and is convinced that the immense majority of them just don’t make it (regardless of what the evidence says), isn’t someone I would want to depend on for a grade.
Perhaps one should also look at the source of the problem: Studying at a university in the US costs much more than here in Europe.
I’m not sure exactly how much a student in the US has to pay for studying maths or theoretical physics, but it is a lot more than the 1000 euros tuition fees per year I paid. Even in my case, I have a hard time understanding why following a few lectures and doing a few exams should cost 1000 euros.
The professors who teach are paid by various funding agencies for their research. Teaching takes up about ten percent or less of their time. If you divide ten percent of their income by the number of students they teach and multiply that by the number of courses, you arrive at a few hundred euros per year.
So, transforming a high school graduate to a university graduate should cost no more than a few thousand dollars. If the real costs are charged then students from less privileged backgrounds can afford to study.
Count Iblis…. where do you get your numbers from? the percentages, etc? I find some of them a bit questionable, but I realise I don’t have data to offer in their place. So references, please, if you have some. Or is this based on your own experience (which is ok too, but I’d like to know).
cheers,
-cvj
When making the case for any kind of non-ability based admission system where do the legacy issues stand? At the Ivy leagues a non negligible percentage of the admissions are reserved for donor/ alumni offspring. Isn’t this a bigger contributor than AA to cutting out students who may be more deserving based strictly on academic/athletic/leadership etc., criteria?
Hi Clifford,
I just did a back of the envelope calculation based on my own experience at university as a graduate student. I know a bit about how much time I and the Prof. I was working under spend prepairing for colleges and exams for students (not much).
I don’t see why educating students to graduate level should cost more than a total of 10,000 dollars in tuition fees. Note that I’m not talking about the costs for books annd living costs etc.
Cambridge University charges domestic students £3000 (about $6000) tuition per year (American parents don’t get excited, international students are charged £8,832-£11,571 depending on the subject)…
[see http://www.cam.ac.uk/admissions/undergraduate/finance/tuition.html%5D
Let’s compare this with a similarly high profile state university (since there are very very few private Universities in the UK). UC Berkeley, say. The registration fees there are $3,716.95 per semester.
[http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Registration/feesched.html]
I realize that there is a $1500 difference, but the two fees seem rather comparable to me.
Slightly more informative link which I think is balanced.
http://siop.org/AfirmAct/siopsaartargecon.htm
Dropout rates did increase the second AA went live in the US though (at least in California schools according to the Harvard report), and have persisted to be rather dismal with clear racial disparities.
If you think thats trolling, then fine, but before you dismiss any opinion that differs from your world view, consider this.
What I mentioned above has a name, its called ‘slapping a badge of inferiority on a race’, and it is unconstitutional (rightfully so). Many of the judicial battles with AA hinged on this, eg just how much AA was applicable or not.
And yes, I do admit I have a tendancy to grow impatient with incompetent students. Already we have enough Freshman who clearly shouldn’t be in our university (with dysmal math and science skills, people who don’t even know what an exponential is), AA if nothing else just amplified this. I’m sorry, but I just can’t agree with a policy (noble as it might try to make itself out to be) that lowers standards, when already in the US our standards are so low (for highschool students).
Citrine,
Thanks – I was just going to point this out myself. I don’t hear much of a fuss over the admission slots given to offspring of alumni or donors. Does anyone have the stats on whether these students meet the academic requirements and have the best test scores or whether they are admitted because Mommy & Daddy have big bucks?
Samantha, thanks for the links.
Yes and here in Holland there is a similar development. A new masters degree education was introduced and international students are charged similar amounts. Students end up paying for their tutors fat pay checks…
When I was studying I didn’t even follow half of the courses. If I really had to, I could have stayed at home and studied only from the lecture notes or books. Studying theoretical physics requires the student to do a lot of reading and working on problems by themselves. The tutor doesn’t really do that much.
$3,716.95 per semester means that I could teach ten students fulltime and earn $74000 per year. With my knowledge of physics and the full time attention the would get from me, they would learn much more than at UC Berkeley.
Thanks, Count Iblis.
-cvj
Legacy admissions are the single biggest affirmative-action program for college undergraduates. And I’m sure Haelfix can spot them all a mile away.
Joane.
Legacy students are as much a problem (perhaps even worse) than some of the AA students or Scholarship Athletes.
In a perfect world, the idea is that if you have two equal resumes in front of you, only then can you add points for race/gender/athletics/legacy etc. If it worked that way in reality, I don’t think any of us would have a problem with any of these practises.
Actually Sean you would be surprised =)
Come on, just between the two of us, can you admit that you can spot the scholarship athletes in the ‘requirement filler’ 101 courses? Maybe Uchicago is a little different in that regard.
Ok enough stereotyping, even for my blood, im off to do some work..
Hi, just to keep things straight, the fees Samantha quotes are only for in-state residents. If you are coming from out of state or are not a resident of California, the tuition is ~ $8,500. If you include the registration fees and other required fees, you get up to almost $12,000 a year for grad school, similar for undergrads.
Numbers are here:
http://registrar.berkeley.edu/Registration/feesched.html
I applied for Pell Grants when I was doing my undergrad in CA, I believe the only 2 requirements were to be poor, not be claimed as a dependent by your parents, and get decent grades. Those grants were extremely helpful to me, highly recommend them (although I think they’ve been phased out) and wish more such grants were available to people who are disadvantaged in any way.
Thanks Jennifer,
It is a fine point, but I wasn’t trying to be disingenuous (hence why I also included the link to Berkley’s registration fees) I was comparing just the tuition for the subsidized students (i.e. CA state residents vs British citizens). If you compare the non-subsidized students (out of state residents vs non-British citizens) the tutuion is $12,626.95 (Berkeley) vs approx. $17,000 – $23,000 (Cambridge).
To me such tuition fees are outrageous. What do you get in return for paying these tens of thousands of dollars?
Count Iblis:
I don’t mean this in a sarcastic way, but it has to be said that you do get a pretty good education for those tens of thousands of dollars.
(I’m not saying that you can’t get a good education for cheaper, by the way….but it is noteworthy that you largely do get one at this price in these places.)
Cheers,
-cvj
Hi Clifford,
I’m sure that the education one gets at Berkeley is first class. It would be madness if it were anything less than that. But, as you mention, the point is really if it can’t be done for cheaper. I’m sure it can, because I only paid a fraction of the amount students at Berkeley are paying.
What happens to the money the students pay? Is that also used to fund the research of the Profs?
Varies from institution to institution (salaries, facilities, etc)……I can’t say anything in general, since I do not know anything in general.
-cvj
Both the University of Washington and the University of California have clever programs designed to help underrepresented groups without discriminating against anyone. The University of California has the presidential postdoctoral fellowships which used to be set aside for minorities but now are set aside for those who have a strong interest in mentoring members of underrepresented groups. The University of Washington has some preference for hiring faculty who have demonstrated their committment to mentoring members of underrepresented groups. Since someone of any race or gender can mentor this is neither reverse discrimination nor affirmative action. I think we have to think harder about affirmative action, because of the backlash problem, and figure out more clever, non discriminatory ways of increasing access and diversity.
I have worked for a program (Upward Bound/ Math Science Initiative Project) that prepares high school kids from low-income, minority and first-generation families for college. The kids get to spend about 2 months on a college campus, take academic courses and work on small research projects. I really enjoyed working for this program as it was very satisfying to see steps being taken to bring up deserving kids from underprivileged families without having to rely on lowered admission standards to accomodate them. I got my strangest but most treasured “student feedback” during one of these programs – a girl who complained a lot about her stepmom wistfully remarked that she wished her dad would divorce the woman and marry *me*!
Samantha, I missed your link somehow, sorry about that. You’re right, they are comparable.
This may not be the place to do it, but I would like to point out that many of these comments are addressing a problem with which some of us are more familiar. I teach physics at a rural community college which is, unfortunately, not very diversified. The problems that I face, and many others in similar situations, is that across the board we are having less capable and properly prepared students come through our doors. With no entrance requirements and no AA, we in the community college ranks have always had challenges in helping students to find the desire and commitment to pursue significant intellectual pursuits; mathematics and physics as prime examples. In the past, we could motivate these students to dig deeper and try harder by giving them the scores they actually deserve based on their demonstrated understanding of the subject. Now, there is considerable pressure to increase retention and provide more successors. The underlying problem is that our society as a whole is losing its perspective on what it means to legitimately think and it is being manifested in the political and administrative decisions that guide distribution of funds to our institutions of higher education; at least to community colleges. We are more concerned with political correctness and economics than we are with knowledge.
Philip, you asked,
“What evidence to you have to support your contention that “discrimination against racial minorities has been negligible in the United States for over thirty years”?”
1. It’s long been known that the median income of black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean matches that of whites in the United States. The median income of the children of such immigrants exceeds that of whites. [See Thomas Sowell, Ethnic America (New York: Basic Books, 1981), pp. 5, 219-22]. If anti-black discrimination was significant, it would noticeably operate against immigrant blacks.
2. It is obvious that a person would face greater discrimination at any time over the last thirty years were she ugly, fat, short, or stupid than were she merely black. [Say it’s 1975. Which would you rather be — just as you are now except black, or just as you are now except for being 20% shorter (or dumber)?]
3. I have lived in the United States throughout this period. I have probably been and likely continue to be discriminated against on racial grounds. But the discrimination is so slight that I cannot even detect it. In other words, it’s negligible.
On the fees thing: Count Iblis, in the UK (and possibly the rest of Europe, but i don’t know) profs do significantly less teaching than lecturers. as most undergrad teaching is undertaken by lecturers, you can’t really calculate the percentages based on profs if you want an accurate estimate of teaching time for most faculty members. also, in Oxbridge and Durham, the faculty also teach tutorials which are one on one or one on two, and those take up a lot of time too.
on the discrimination thing:
Belizean, medians don’t actual tell one an awful lot. also, anti-black discriminiation is based on skin colour not country of birth, so it’s not clear to me why you think that would affect immigrant blacks more than people who have live in the US all there lives but are black.
the other real difficulty (or at least one of) that ethnic minorities and women face is not so much active discrimination, but simply the unspoken assumptions that people make about women or some racial groups. the assumption that the only woman standing in the math department is the secretary, and not a grad student; or the association between being black and criminality; or whatever.
i’m somewhat surprised that everyone is talking about “racial minorities” as referring only to hispanics and blacks. do you really think that Arabs aren’t discriminated against?
–Q