Running scared: University minority summer programs in jeopardy

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2003 by Carrington, Penelope M

As the nation awaited the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the University of Michigan's use of race in its admission policy, several colleges and universities eliminated or changed their minority-specific summer enrichment programs.

The programs, a staple at many of the nation's Ivy League and predominately White colleges for decades, help minority students integrate into life on campuses with little diversity, offer additional academic preparation and nurture minority high school students' interest in fields where minorities are underrepresented.

But last winter, two conservative organizations - the Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) in Sterling, Va., and Ward Connerly's California-based American Civil Rights Institute (ACRI) sent a letter to approximately 30 schools, including the University of Michigan, Harvard, Cornell, Carnegie Mellon and Yale universities. The letter stated that the continuation of race-based enrichment programs would result in the filing of a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights.

This is "just round one," says Edward Blum, director of legal affairs for the American Civil Rights Institute. "We have at least another 50 schools we're holding in abeyance until the Supreme Court ruling."

Cornell University has no plans to alter its minority programs, says news director Linda Grace-Kobas. The three programs that aid minority college students bound for medical school will proceed "as is." The school will revisit the issue after the Supreme Court ruling.

Angelo Ancheta, director of legal and policy advocacy programs for The Civil Rights Project at Harvard University, believes Cornell is doing the right thing. He says it is premature and unwise for schools to "start tinkering with policy" before the Supreme Court ruling.

But several other schools, including Princeton and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, have recently dropped or changed their programs to include non-minorities.

In a statement, Robert Redwine, MIT's dean of undergraduate education, said: "Our best (legal) advice was that for racially exclusive programs, our chances of winning were essentially zero. We'd be much better off putting our energies into redesigning our programs to achieve the goals we want, while opening it up to other students."

Despite the change, Redwine said the school remains committed to recruiting a diverse student body.

The CEO and ACRI believe that more schools will follow suit, because even though most minority enrichment programs' academic core may be solid, the racially exclusive premise is discriminatory.

"If you give someone a preference for their race or ethnicity for whatever reason you devise, someone who is not that race or ethnicity suffers," Blum says. "That is the line in the sand."

Ancheta says that getting rid of minority programs is not the answer, but schools will have to be more creative in establishing new policies that promote and ensure that diversity in higher education remains.

"What is especially troubling about those opposed to affirmative action is that they're still trying to pursue an absolutely colorblind approach to policymaking," says Ancheta. "Race still makes a difference in people's lives, and to say it doesn't ignores the fundamental reality."