What a crock

What an insult to humanity this report is! Because “most” professors come from middle-to-upper-income families, those economic brackets necessarily produce the more “promising” candidates for academic careers?! What kind of incestuous logic is that? Perhaps if more lower-income families had the option of a graduate career, they’d produce equally “promising” candidates. As both a minority and a working-class candidate, I find this study insulting on every level. There is no way that my wealthy, private-school-educated black colleagues faced half the hurdles to an academic career that a working-class kid (of any racial background) faced in getting this far. If anything, their way has been paved by the combination of wealth and preferential admissions. It’s time to stop thinking about “diversity” as simply a matter of color, and start thinking of it as a matter of culture and opportunity. Disenfranchisement is more often an economic process in this country than a racial one, though they obviously go hand-in-hand in many cases. It’s not enough to recruit promising minorities that merely reflect the bourgeois values of their white peers. If you want real cultural discourse, you have to look first and foremost across economic boundaries.

jem, at 9:53 am EDT on May 26, 2005

Response to Dan Kurt

Mr. Kurt I am quite concerned about your IQ testing of minorities and your statement that cognitive ability accounts for the lack of Black/Hispanic/ Native American PhD’s. First let me ask you what is your educational background? I am a third year Black student in genetics and evolution and let me say there is no genetic basis of IQ and skin color. In the words of Benjamin Banneker(Black mathematician and designer of the nation’s capital where he reproduced the blueprints from memory) stated the color of the skin is in no way connected to the color of the skin. IQ test were developed using europeans as the standard of the test. Certainly, you are educated enough to know there is a cultural bias to this exam but may be you don’t. Why do we need programs for minorities to go school in the first place if all men all are created equal..oh yeah the fact that minorities are often unable to afford the cost of higher education. If the goal of higher education is to serve american society then it has failed. The higher education landscape does not reflect American society as stated in the article. What is the goal of higher education? Are not all Americans regardless of color of their skin entitled to a quality education? or is based how much can you pay??? I would encourage you to study higher education more Dan Kurt because your comment is genetically flawed. Genetic fact to ponder: 98% of all humanity is genetically the same and the 1.5% accounts for variation in height, weight, hair texture. A whopping 0.5% accounts for skin color or “races".

Black Man-future PhD, Doctoral candidate in population genetics/molecular evolution at U. of South Carolina, at 4:34 am EDT on May 27, 2005

Higher Education

Higher education’s objectives according to the missions statements of many colleges/universities are scholarship, service and teaching to the community. Which community is higher education seeking to serve? Is it for the numbers of African Americans who were not only denied admission based on the color of their skin but were the subject of a national, timeless,orchestrated effort to repress and oppress any ideas or dreams that they could even learn. Given the lack of diversity present at most institutions with the exception of MSI’s (minority serving institutions) it appears that African Americans are the community higher ed is seeking to enrich. Neither are Hispanics, Native Americans and Pacific Islanders and other people of color. There are individuals who are still in positions in higher ed who supported and still support the oppression of people of color. Lynching is still going on in the halls of academia. The academy is suffering from anemia and inbreeding. It is in desperate need of a blood transfusion and is dying. In genetics, inbreeding is damaging to the genetic integrity of the genome and may predispose the genome to higher rates of mutation. The genome is the academy, the mutations are policies and procedures that seek to maintain the status quo and will seriously affect the mission of higher ed. Is higher ed working for who it was designed for? Has higher failed?? Is it showing its true colors???

Black Man, Scholar, at 6:07 am EDT on May 28, 2005

“except for MSI’s??!?!”

Black Man,

why are MSI’s excepted from the group of institutions that lack diversity? Simply identifying them as “minority-serving institutions” tells me that they will probably have a low level of diversity. Take a look at historically black colleges and universities in the US and tell me what percentage of their student bodies are non-black. Howard, North Carolina A&T, North Carolina Central. They are just about as ethnically and racially imbalanced as any school you will find! Because “imbalanced” might have a bad connotation, I should say that by “imbalanced” I am speaking in terms of percentage enrollment by ethnicity. Schools all over the country are experiencing movements to increase minority enrollment for the sake of making that school’s particular student body more diverse. Are the MSI’s doing this to a similar degree? In all fairness, I know that white students (for example) can get scholarship money to NC A&T for being an underrepresented group.

Gary, student, at 10:31 am EDT on June 2, 2005