U.S. Urges Creativity by Colleges to Gain Diversity

[alp227]

Source: NYT

The Obama administration on Friday urged colleges and universities to get creative in improving racial diversity at their campuses, throwing out a Bush-era interpretation of recent Supreme Court rulings that limited affirmative action in admissions.

The new guidelines issued by the Departments of Justice and Education replaced a 2008 document that essentially warned colleges and universities against considering race at all. Instead, the guidelines focus on the wiggle room in the court decisions involving the University of Michigan, suggesting that institutions use other criteria — students’ socioeconomic profiles, residential instability, the hardships they have overcome — that are often proxies for race. Schools could even grant preferences to students from certain schools selected for, among other things, their racial composition, the new document says.

“Post-secondary institutions can voluntarily consider race to further the compelling interest of achieving diversity,” reads the 10-page guide sent to thousands of college admissions officials on Friday afternoon. In some cases, it says, “race can be outcome determinative.”

The administration issued a parallel 14-page outline on Friday for the nation’s 17,000 public school districts, explaining what government lawyers consider to be acceptable ways that educators can seek to reduce racial segregation, which has been increasing nationwide.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/03/education/us-urges-campus-creativity-to-gain-diversity.html

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I personally oppose ANY consideration of race at all per the Bakke case but welcome consideration of income or personal background. Evaluate a person by character not innate characteristics. Sadly, get ready for Glenn Beck to say "see? I told you so!" after saying that Obama "has a deep-seeded hatred of white people." There's nothing wrong with diversity, but meritocracy comes first.

[XemaSab]

1. I was very bothered

by the proposal to start providing athletic scholarships at Humboldt State University.

Like black people only go to college for teh sprots, no?

Meanwhile, there are all of 50 black people in Humboldt County, California, and there's really no larger community there for them. :(

Having been in an extreme racial minority before, it sucks. :(

[L0oniX]

2. Yes ...we will create it and then it will be used for jobs over seas.

:evilfrown:

[exboyfil]

3. Admission is not so much an issue in our state school

We do have many scholarships available based on race along with other considerations of diversity. That, along with aggressive matching of Pell grants, seems to show alot of affirmative action opportunities already exist. One example in particular are scholarships for children in the foster care system. We recently had an incident in school in which one of these foster children was able to bypass firewalls to load porn on all of the Kindles in a Remedial Reading class. If the child could do that, he belongs in college in CS if only we could find a way to focus his efforts.

[gtar100]

4. If they want diversity, they should make college affordable.

More bureaucratic bullshit layered on top of what's already there isn't going to change a thing. Bankers and investors have turned education into just another fucking capitalist money-making scheme. That's the root of the problem.