THE UNIVERSITY practices affirmative action. There have been many arguments made that this practice is unfair to non-minority students. By overstressing race as a factor in admissions, the University diminishes the academic quality of the student body and invokes "reverse racism." Putting these arguments aside, the University's implementation of affirmative action is detrimental to the status of minority students who actually are enrolled here. Although the intended purpose of affirmative action is to provide equal opportunity and to compensate for past discrimination, the University actually helps perpetuate racist ideas among the student body.
There is a good amount of public information that contributes to this belief. The University admissions office accepts African-Americans at nearly twice the rate of white or Asian students. In 2001, 60 percent of African-American applicants were offered admission, while only 34 and 36 percent of white and Asian-American applicants were accepted, respectively.
The result is that the incoming African-American classes appear quantitatively weaker academically. In 2001, average SAT scores for African-American first-year students were 200 points lower than scores of white or Asian-American students. Average GPAs also were clearly skewed racially. White and Asian-American students came out of high school with GPAs three-tenths higher than African-American students. These facts offer more fuel to the belief among many on Grounds that minorities do not deserve to be here as much as other students.
These statistics most likely are nothing new to any students here. They have been brought up time and again. The significance is not the actual numbers, but instead the fact that students are aware of them. The affirmative action policy here is a publicly recognized fact. The well-known reality of these statistics is negatively affecting students' racial assessments. The methods adopted by the University admissions office create the illusion that any minority success in gaining admission is unearned.
Many minority applicants to the University are just as qualified - if not more qualified - than white or Asian-American students. But, looking at a person, you cannot tell what their high school GPA or SAT score was, while race is a perceivable, external quality. Many University students look at a minority counterpart and assume that his admittance was less deserved than their own. The University brand of affirmative action perpetuates the stereotype that minorities are less intelligent and are incapable of being accepted on their earned merits. We should not be letting academically accomplished African-American students wonder if their admission was deserved, or letting white students challenge the presence of every underrepresented minority at this school.
There are other factors not related to academic merit that can alter a student's acceptance. These include alumni relations, athlete status and state residency. But most of these background qualifications are hidden. A student with legacy status might wonder if he would have been accepted without family connections or be questioned by close friends on how good his high school academic profile was. But this small problem is amplified greatly when considering the factor of race.
The on-Grounds racist mentality definitely is the fault of the student body, but we need to tackle the root of the problem. The University needs to eliminate race as a factor in their admissions process and thus stop providing the factual evidence from which students are misinterpreting and drawing racist conclusions. Diversity rates may decrease, but the overall racial atmosphere will improve immensely.
The relaxation of affirmative action guidelines also will make existing students appreciate their minority counterparts more, and cease to make judgments about other students' merits based solely on their race. African-American students will earn more respect from their peers and will know for certain that their presence here is justified. All students will be able to rightly view each other as academic equals. Minority students can feel that their right to be here is justified in the eyes of their peers. If we want racial stereotyping to end on Grounds, the place to begin is in the admissions office. Let all students be accepted under equal standards, and let those standards exclude the consideration of color.
(Kimberly Liu's column appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at kliu@cavalierdaily.com.)
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