Apparently, Plan 2008 — the University of Wisconsin System’s much heralded diversity initiative intended to eradicate educational disparities in the state — came up short. Enrollment of black students as a percentage of the total student body is up only 1 percent from 1998. Enrollment of Asian American students has increased by only 1.6 percent. Hispanic students: 1.1 percent. For a program with such ambitious goals and quite a lot of time to accomplish them, the advocates of diversity may well have reason to be disappointed. Plan 2008 was certainly not the multicultural masterpiece many expected it to be. And yet, how much can be expected of a plan that tackles racial disparities at a time when the victims of said disparities are already full-fledged adults?
Putting ideological squabbles over the morality of affirmative action aside, it is blatantly obvious that a “Plan 2018,” or its equally euphemistic counterpart, will inevitably be revealed by Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate Damon Williams sometime soon. Chancellor Biddy Martin has expressed passionate support for improved diversity. The faculty and presumably a majority of students are behind such a measure. However, before university administrators arbitrarily force their good-natured quick fix for modern racism down the willing throats of students, they should take a good, long look at the realities in the state of Wisconsin that make educational disparities between races not only possible, but inevitable.
For example, take Milwaukee’s public school system, composed of mostly minority students. It’s in shambles. Meanwhile, suburban areas, saturated with predominantly white students, reap the benefits of high property values to create a relatively country club-esque atmosphere of public education. All of this is obvious to even the most casual observer of the state’s demographics, and yet the good-willed champions of Plan 2008 acted as though these disparities magically spring up the moment a black teenager celebrates his or her 18th birthday. And so it should come as no great shock that this university does not mirror the rest of the state in terms of ethnic diversity — or more bluntly put, that Plan 2008 failed.
The cause can be divined from the Plan’s strikingly naive insistence that it could singlehandedly resolve inequities older than the country itself. For the university’s racial composition to mirror that of the state, or the country, massive investments would have to be made at virtually every educational level. And it is no challenge to see that such investments have been woefully absent from state budget proceedings, concerned as legislators are with their patently immoral tug-of-war over funding for prisons — yet another contributor to the educational gap.
In its text, Plan 2008’s founding document vaguely invites the university’s counterparts at the K-12 levels to participate in a renewed commitment to improving the lot of minority students with regards to education. However, actual coordination between Wisconsin schools and UW is lacking. For appreciable change to occur, not only would the university need a vice chancellor of oh, say, secondary education, but institutions at that level would need to be willing to make corresponding commitments to getting their students into college. And that takes money. $5.4 billion might be sufficient. Unfortunately, that’s the size of our projected budget deficit, and as sales tax revenue continues to decline, optimism about such a windfall for education is rightfully in short supply.
Martin will be facing some brutal choices in the coming months. Any effort to improve diversity at the university via a powerful commitment to Wisconsin’s high schools may well be the right course of action. Then again, maintaining affordable tuition in the depths of a recession is perhaps much more essential, considering minority students will inevitably be hit worse overall than white ones. Then again, our professors are among the most poorly compensated in the Big Ten.
Whatever admirable cause receives the ax in the coming months — and some of them will, whether or not administrators have the courage to put it so bluntly — students should hope the university does not try to shoulder the incomprehensible burden of stamping out the embers of racism all on its own. That requires more money, more time and more ‘planning’ than almost anyone is willing to admit. So here’s to you, Plan 2108.
Sam Clegg ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in economics.
