What Next? Does The Klan Have An EEO Officer?

What Next? Does The Klan Have An EEO Officer?

The February 25, 2009 Inside Higher Education reports on complaints about a public university that is supposedly trying to make itself specially white. What makes this so funny (aside from the gross deficiencies in the study) is that it is Sonoma State University:

A faculty report has stirred some racial tensions at Sonoma State University, following claims from its author that the institution’s administration has deliberately targeted those from higher-income families as potential students for the past decade. In this process, the report claims that the university has become the “whitest” public institution in California, effectively preferring white students to minorities in an admission practice that it deems “reverse affirmative action.”

One aspect of Sonoma State that is decidedly diverse is the administration, where the president, provost and director of admissions – all criticized in the report – are Latino. The professor who brought forth this report, however, is white.

Inside Higher Education points out that SSU is in the middle of a very, very white community, and like many of the institutions of the California State University system, a lot of the students live nearby. SSU, when I attended there in the 1980s and 1990s, had a large number of non-traditional age students--meaning, people like my wife and myself who lived in the community, and fit classes around jobs and family responsibilities. That alone would make SSU an especially white college because of the surrounding community.

But it wasn't that SSU wasn't trying. There were pretty regular little reminders that many faculty members were disappointed at having a bunch of white kids in the classroom. I remember seeing one scholarship that SSU offered that was limited to Hispanics--and it wasn't a private scholarship administered by SSU, but using public funds. I wrote them a letter reminding them that this was a violation of federal law--and they didn't even bother to respond.

I keep hoping for a post-racial America. But as long guilt-ridden whites, and minorities who choose to play the race card for control continue to dominate university faculties, I rather doubt that this is going to happen.