On Monday, the Wisconsin Committee on Colleges and Universities hosted a hearing regarding admissions at the University of Wisconsin in response to a Center for Equal Opportunity study claiming there is racial and ethnic discrimination in the admissions process.
Members of the committee heard testimonies at the informational hearing from representatives from the CEO and the UW.
The CEO published a study on Sept. 13 stating UW was using unfair racial discrimination practices to favor certain ethnicities over others.
“We found that African Americans and Latinos are given heavy preferences over whites and Asians. An out-of-state African American applicant had a seven out of ten chance of admission [to the law school], while a white in-state applicant with equal scores was given a one in ten chance of admission,” CEO President Roger Clegg said at the hearing.
Clegg said the CEO study showed discriminatory policies which allegedly led to the admission of under-qualified black or Latino students in place of more qualified white or Asian students. The organization is recommending changes be made in the admissions process so no race or ethnicity is privileged over any other.
According to the CEO study on undergraduate admissions at UW, 85.5 percent of students admitted to the university in 2008 were white.
At the hearing, UW Provost Paul DeLuca Jr. defended the university’s use of racial or ethnic consideration in the admissions process as this helps promote ethnic diversity among students.
“No student is admitted simply because of race or any other factor alone. Academics are the most important factor in our admissions process. We also have a desire to create a diverse academic community,” DeLuca said.
According to DeLuca, 6.3 percent of the state of Wisconsin’s population is black, while only 2.2 percent of all UW applicants were black in 2008, accounting for 2.9 percent of the student body.
DeLuca said racial and ethnic consideration in the admissions process is crucial to enrolling a diverse student body representative of the state’s racial make-up and that without these policies, minorities would likely be even less represented than they are now.
Clegg said UW’s problem is not its emphasis on diversity but rather its racial discrimination.
“There’s no problem with having students of diverse backgrounds. We’re not against diversity; we’re against discrimination. We don’t care what the percentage of any race getting in to the university is; we’re concerned with what groups are getting preference,” Clegg said.
Rep. Terese Berceau, D-Madison, said at the hearing the problem is not racial consideration in the admissions process but lack of diversity on campus.
Berceau said in her 13 years as a representative, she has had one complaint of discrimination against white or Asian students and numerous complaints that the campus is not diverse enough.
“We take this approach because we’re a world class institution. This fundamentally requires a diverse student body. Corporations expect to see diversity in the learning of the students that they hire,” DeLuca said.
According to DeLuca, some corporations are no longer recruiting UW graduates because it is not diverse enough, citing the Green Bay company Proctor & Gamble as an example.
It is a vital part of the UW education to create a learning environment where students of different races are able to interact and learn from each other, DeLuca said.
The original version of the article said 6.3 percent of UW students are African American. However, African Americans make up 6.3 percent of the state’s population, not UW students. A change has been made to the online version of the article with this correction. We regret the error.
