Ten years after Florida banned affirmative-action admissions policies, minority enrollment at the state’s public universities is lagging, The Orlando Sentinel reported. According to the newspaper’s analysis, black students made up 17.5 percent of the state’s university freshmen in 1999, but only 14.9 percent in 2008. Their representation among high-school graduates was roughly unchanged over those years, at about 20 percent. Jeb Bush, the former governor who had championed the “One Florida” initiative that ended consideration of race in admissions, said the program had succeeded in admitting minority students without offering explicit racial preferences. But State Sen. Tony Hill, a Democrat and longtime critic of One Florida, said, “We turned our back on a policy that we know was working. And now we have less diversity.”
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5 Responses to Minority Enrollments Lag at Florida Universities, Newspaper’s Analysis Finds
22261984 - April 12, 2010 at 7:41 am
From Roger Clegg, Center for Equal Opportunity: (1) This is not a big drop, and must be weighed against the many costs of continuing institutionalized racial discrimination (the unfairness, divisiveness, resentment, stigmatization, mismatching, etc.). (2) Well, we you get rid of artificial quotas and preferences for two groups, their numbers go down — should we be surprised? (3) There might be other reasons for this modest decline — in particular, for example, the effects of the continuing implosion of black (and, to a lesser but increasingly significant extent) Latino family structure.
tridaddy - April 12, 2010 at 9:16 am
This type of reporting seems like a way to create a firestorm rather than provide in depth factual analysis of what is truly going on. On one hand the decline may be due to dropping the racial quota requirement. But on the other hand, maybe there are other factors, as suggested by poster #1. Why not dig a bit deeper and present something a little more newsworthy or don’t report at all?
mjtorres - April 12, 2010 at 9:26 am
The problem with casting affirmative action as reverse institutional racism is that it ignores the fundamental racial bias of the white majority in Academia towards people of color. Why do you think they call it the Ivory Tower? White Professors view white students, and to a certain extent foreigners, as having superior intellects; they view people of color as intellectually inferior. The White Establishment in Academia perpetuates these racist policies in much the same way that the greater society conducts business with racial bias. That’s why most people of color in the USA live in ghettos, because we are discriminated against by employers, landlords, the police, the courts, and educational institutions. We still live in a system of racial apartheid in the USA today. The need for racial preferences for students of color exists as long as we fail to provide them with Professors of color. We eliminate the need for racial preferences in Academia by forcing the predominately White College and University Faculties to admit Professors of color to tenure; even if we use the power of the government to reach this point. Dr. Manuel J TorresLife Sciences ConsultantWashington DC 20001
cwinton - April 12, 2010 at 11:01 am
Here are the figures:1999 – Blacks were 17.5% of university freshmen, Hispanic 13.8%2008 – Blacks were 14.9% of university freshmen, Hispanic 19.1%That’s hardly a loss of diversity, although there is a gap between numbers graduating from high school and those going to college for both of these groups. I suggest a number of other factors are more likely at work than the changeover from affirmative action, not the least of which is the large increases in cost to attend that has occurred during this time period.
honore - April 14, 2010 at 9:55 am
Dear Dr. Manuel, Perhaps if you didn’t contribute to the racist brainwash of “people of color” that strip EVERYONE of their racial, ethnic and cultural reference, these pedantic “diversity dialogues” might actually go somewhere. Do you really expect the (as you so ignorantly put it) “White Majority in Academia” to believe that there is no difference in the experience or world view of a Basque -descended Puerto Rican?, a Chinese-descended Cuban? a Lebanese-descended Dominican? a Welsh-descended Argentinean? a Polish Jew-descended Brazilian? a Japanese-descended Peruvian? A Sub-Saharan-African-descended Bolivian? Yes, yes, I KNOW, there is not as much political or victimology mileage to be made from acknowledging the REAL racial, cultural & ethnic realities of these “people of color” as you so deliberately and duplicitously mis-IDENTIFY all of us.But for those of us with a synapse or 2 of intelligence and authentic identity still in our possession, unlike yourself who has obviously sold-out to American-centered race ignorance and all of its attendant “vocubulary”, your commentary is grossly offensive, mis-leading and inaccurate.Now go preach your “people of color” litanies to idiots who have never left their Che Guevara poster-plastered office, but just know that your “life sciences consultancy” is a bit behind the times.Coje verguenza ya idiota. And do let me know if you would like for me to write you in Spanish, Italian, Portuguese or Arabic. But don’t expect me to join you in your People of Color Jibberish. YO NO HABLO PENDEJO.