Hellcat
Registered
Not Just for Minority Students Anymore
Fearing charges of discrimination, colleges open minority scholarships and programs to students of all races
By PETER SCHMIDT
Carnegie Mellon University may care deeply about its minority students, but, as of last month, it no longer cares to assume the legal risks associated with offering scholarships and programs specifically for them.
It is hardly alone in that respect.
Colleges throughout the nation are quietly opening a wide range of minority programs to students of any race, mainly to avoid being accused of discrimination.
In addition, several nonprofit organizations and federal agencies have recently made, o
are considering, similar changes. Among them, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has changed the criteria for a major fellowship program to allow nonminority participation. The National Institutes of Health h
as a
lready opened at least one minority program
to participants of any race and appears poised to open several others. And the National Merit Scholarship Corporation has discontinued a program that asked colleges to sponsor scholarships for black students, in part because fewer colleges were willing to participate.
At least in name, minority programs are rapidly disappearing from college campuses. Colleges are dropping the word "minority" from the titles of scholarships and fellowships -- as well as recruitment, orientation, and academic-enrichment programs -- and opening them to populations that they had excluded. The goal of most of the programs remains helping black, Hispanic, and American Indian students succeed in higher education, but now colleges must be willing to include white
and Asian students in the mix.
Most colleges have made the changes only recently and, as a result, have no idea whether the programs' racial composition will differ. It is also unclear whether
such chang
es will sidetrack the programs from their original mi
ssions, or cause them to lose public or philanthropic support.
William H. Gray III, the departing president of the United Negro College Fund, calls the challenges to the legality of such programs "a blatant attempt to narrow the doorway of access for minorities." He says he worries that financially needy minority students will lose access to scholarships now that white students can compete for them, and "without this financial help, they probably will not go to some of the most prestigious and elite universities."
But Theodore M. Shaw, associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says it is too early to tell what the impact will be.
"We have to wait and see the numbers where
they have made the change," he says. "The jury is going to be out until we find out if there is any significant change in the number of minority students who are being reached."
Supreme Guidance<b
r>
Just a year ago, things were much different. While a small number of colleges had already aban
doned race-exclusive programs, most argued that the programs were on solid legal ground or, at worst, that the law governing them was unclear. The paucity of court rulings dealing with their legality fed the confusion.
In 1994 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down a scholarship program for black students at the University of Maryland at College Park. But later that year, the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights issued legal guidelines that made most race-exclusive scholarship programs appear permissible.
The current leaders of the civil-rights office, mostly staunch critics of affirmative action, sent mixed signals as well. While they ex
pressed no desire to revisit the office's 1994 guidelines, they nonetheless started investigating race-exclusive programs and issued a statement saying, "Generally, programs that use race
or national origin as sol
e eligibility criteria are extremely difficult to defend."
Carnegie Mellon responded defiantly early las
t year when its academic summer camp for minority students was challenged by two advocacy groups that oppose racial preferences, the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The university's general counsel, Mary Jo Dively, declared that she was "not going to take the word of some outside group that presumes to tell Carnegie Mellon what to do," and planned, instead, to wait for the federal courts to offer guidance.
That guidance came last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided two lawsuits involving race-conscious admissions policies of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The rulings initially were heralded as a majo
r victory for affirmative action because the court had accepted Michigan's basic argument that the educational benefits of diversity justified the consideration of race in college-admissio
ns decisions.
The court als
o held, however, that colleges must treat students as individuals, and not accept or reject them from programs based solely on t
heir skin color. That finding troubled college lawyers as they considered what the court's decisions meant in areas beyond admissions.
By late last fall, many colleges' lawyers were questioning whether their institutions could still offer scholarships and other programs solely for members of certain racial and ethnic groups. Many concluded that the answer was no. In recent months, those doubts have translated into a widespread retreat from race-exclusivity.
Ms. Dively says: "When I looked at the Michigan cases and read them carefully, my conclusion, as I think has been the conclusion of practically every scholar around the country
and every general counsel with whom I have talked, is that race-exclusive programs -- except in certain extreme factual circumstances -- are not likely to withstand a legal challenge."
The exceptions, she says, are mai
nly programs that arose in response to special legal situations, such as those set up to settle desegregation cases.
Last month Carnegie Mello
n officials decided to open the university's summer camp to white and Asian students who demonstrate that they can contribute to the campus's diversity. (The total number of high-school students at the camp will remain unchanged, at 100.) The university also opened a full-tuition, minority-scholarship program to white and Asian students who show they can contribute to campus diversity, and ended its policy of giving black, Hispanic, and American Indian students an edge when awarding need-based student aid.
Falling Dominoes
Similar changes have been made in recent weeks by Harvard University's business school
and by Yale University's undergraduate college. In a letter to Yale's students, Richard H. Brodhead, that college's dean, said the Supreme Court's rulings in the Michig
an cases had made it "harder to justify prog
rams that separate student communities instead of building them into an interactive whole."
Both Harvard and Yale changed their programs after being contacted by the Ce
nter for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute, which is headed by Ward Connerly, a University of California regent who helped lead successful campaigns for ballot measures banning racial preferences in California and Washington State.
"I think we have been helped by the fact that so many prestigious institutions have agreed with us that racially exclusive programs need to be changed," says Roger B. Clegg, the Center for Equal Opportunity's general counsel. "I think that that provides some reassurances to other schools that what we are asking is well fou
nded, and that it makes good educational sense."
"We make it very clear that we are not asking that these programs be ended," Mr. Clegg says. "We are simp
ly asking that they be made open to students of all racia
l and ethnic backgrounds. Students who have lacked opportunities come in all colors."
The two advocacy groups have jointly written to about 100 colleges, almost all since early 2003, threatening to file complain
ts with the federal Office for Civil Rights if the colleges continue to operate race-exclusive programs. Initially the groups based their arguments on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by any institution, public or private, that receives federal funds. After the Supreme Court ruled in the Michigan cases, the groups' letters began citing those opinions as well.
Mr. Clegg refuses to name most of the colleges that the groups have contacted, saying "we are not trying to humiliate anybody." R
ather, he prefers to let colleges decide on their own whether to discuss the complaints. He confirms, however, that about 70 colleges have responded by either opening up their p
rograms or by informing the two groups that their complaints are
based on outdated information, and that the programs in question have already been changed.
A Few Holdouts
Most of the other colleges contacted by the groups -- including Colorado State and Cornell Universities, and the Uni
versities of Michigan and Pennsylvania -- are still conducting legal reviews. In some cases involving privately endowed scholarships, colleges cannot make changes without first getting permission from donors.
But most colleges have not given any indication that they plan to defend programs that are race exclusive. Laurence Pendleton, associate general counsel at Colorado State, says, "It appears that, under the Michigan cases, race exclusivity will not pass legal muster."
Two other colleges, the Massachusetts Ins
titute of Technology and Saint Louis University, initially refused the demands of the two advocacy groups, but then backed down after the Office for Civil Rights became invo
lved. Only two colleges, Pepperdine University and Washington University
in St. Louis, have refused to alter scholarship programs that have been challenged by the two advocacy groups and brought to the attention of the Office for Civil Rights.
Pepperdine's resistance has struck some observers as a paradox, gi
ven its deep ties to the conservative movement. Officials at the university, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, say they are defending their scholarship program because it is consistent with both the law and the school's Christian philosophy.
"It's our responsibility, given our Chris-tian mission, to be not a white island but to reflect the diversity around us," says W. David Baird, dean of Pepperdine's undergraduate college.
Meanwhile, the University of Missouri at Colum
bia changed some programs for black students to include all "underrepresented minority students," while keeping them off limits to white applicants. Mr. Clegg
has termed its response inadequate, but had not filed a federal complaint as of
last week.
Which Whites?
Many colleges have acted without any outside prodding to open what had been minority programs to students of all races.
Thomas H. Parker, dean of admission and financial aid at Amherst College, says that he decided to open a weekend campus-vis
itation program to low-income white students after attending workshops on the Supreme Court's Michigan rulings sponsored by Harvard University and the College Board. At both, Mr. Parker says, he asked panelists about Amherst's campus-visit program for minority students and was told "that could now be challenged, and we could well lose."
Amherst is now working with the College Board and three other New England institutions -- Wellesley College, Wesleyan U
niversity, and Williams College -- to find new ways of using information gathered from takers of the PSAT and SAT tests to recruit academically talented students fro
m low-income areas.
Like Amherst, other colleges are keeping their programs foc
used on helping the disadvantaged, and are altering them to advance that goal. Most are requiring that nonminority applicants fit one of two profiles: Either they come from low-income households or families with little college experience, or they demonstrate a commitment to promoting racial diversity
by, for example, tutoring minority children or working to improve race relations in their communities.
Thomas R. Tritton, president of Haverford College, says administrators there will consider letting white students participate in his institution's summer pre-orientation program for minority students but would probably reject any applicant who seemed to oppose affirmative action and to be applying "to make the ideological point that this is a ba
d program."
He says the mission of the program, which is operated jointly with Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges and rotates among the three campuses
, is to help "students find their voices and assume leadership roles," and that the s
tudents who participate tend to fare better in college than those who don't.
Mr. Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity argues that colleges are still engaging in racial discrimination if they operate programs that require white and Asian applicants to come from disadvantaged backgrounds or show a commitment to
diversity, but don't make the same demands of black, Hispanic, or American Indian students.
If a program's criteria on views toward diversity essentially amount to a requirement that applicants "sign a pledge of allegiance to political correctness," the program could be challenged on First Amendment grounds, Mr. Clegg says.
Mr. Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund says he does not mi
nd when colleges open minority programs to nonminority students to be less legally vulnerable, as long as the same number of minority students continues to b
e served. "Prudence would dictate that if you can narrow the target without sacrificing your objec
tives, then, for God's sake, do it," he says.
Ripples and Resistance
Several of the colleges that have been challenged over minority programs have argued that the programs are financed by federal agencies that require them to be racially exclusive.
When Indiana University received a complaint against a program for aspiring minority
medical researchers at its Cancer Center, in Indianapolis, it sought guidance from the National Cancer Institute, which had awarded a grant for the program. What followed was a change in federal policy: The National Cancer Institute now gives grantees the option of applying the term "underrepresented minority" to subsets of the nation's white and Asian population that produce rel
atively few cancer researchers, such as those who are low-income or represent the first generation in their family to complete college.
Donald M.
Ralbovsky, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, says his agency is reviewing all of its race-excl
usive programs "in light of the recent changes in the legal landscape," even as it recognizes the need for more minority researchers in various scientific fields.
Lawrence Rudolph, general counsel at the National Science Foundation, says it has been several years since his agency had programs solely for minority students. A 1980 federal law directs the NSF to opera
te programs that increase minority representation in the sciences, but "no matter what statute is on the books, it still must be implemented in a constitutionally permissible manner."
Nonprofit organizations that help minority students continue to mull over, and disagree on, whether the legal environment has changed.
The Supreme Court's Michi
gan decisions prompted the Mellon foundation to change the criteria for its minority undergraduate-fellowship program, which serves 34 individual col
leges and a consortium of 38 historically black colleges and universities. The program, which provides students with fa
culty mentors and financial support, was altered last July to allow fellowships to go to white applicants who appear committed to the program's mission of increasing minority representation in college faculties.
"When the decision was made to extend the criteria, we had in mind that we did not want to subject the colleges and universities to unnecessary risk," says Michele S. Warman, th
e foundation's general counsel and secretary.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided last fall to halt a program that asked colleges to award scholarships to about 200 black students annually, and to try to take up the slack by expanding a National Merit-financed scholarship program for black students. Elaine S. Detwe
iler, a spokeswoman for the organization, says, "The number of college sponsors was declining," at least partly because of the associat
ed legal risks.
The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which consists of 13 business schools interested in inc
reasing their minority representation, is said by members to be considering a change in its minority-fellowship program. However, its executive director, Peter J. Aranda III, says, "It's really premature to say what might happen, if anything."
Many other nonprofit organizations are standing by their minority programs. Those that use private funds, or work directly with students, without involving colleges, appea
r most confident that they remain on solid legal ground.
Mr. Gray of the United Negro College Fund says no changes are being considered in any of the scholarship programs administered by his organization, including the Gates Millennium Scholars program, which will distribute $1-billion to minority s
tudents over 20 years. He denounces the assaults on race-exclusive scholarship programs as racist, pointing out that no complaints are being
lodged against the many privately financed scholarships for members of various white ethnic groups, such as Italian-, Norwegian-, and P
olish-Americans.
Also standing by its programs is the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to minority students and grants to the colleges that serve them.
Daryl Chubin, the group's senior vice president, says that the Fortune 500 executives who make up most of the council's governing board "are resolute in their support of the way we do business,"
and "would lose their enthusiasm" for the group if it began serving nonminority students.
"It would make it hard for us to do what we do," he says. "It might make it impossible."
---------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
A SAMPLING OF CHANGES IN RACE-BASED PROGRAMS
Since early 2003, nearly 70 colleges have opened minority programs
to nonminority students in response to complaints and threats of legal action from two advocacy groups, the Center for Equal Opportunity and th
e American Civil Rights Institute. Many other colleges have been opening the programs to nonminority students on their own, to avoid legal challenges.
Programs colleges changed under pressure from advocacy groups
Then Now
California Institute of Technology
Caltech had a three-day, campus-visit program, called GradPreview@Caltech, to recruit black, Hispanic, and American Indian graduate students interested in engineering or the sciences. The program has been opened to white
and Asian college students who have little knowledge of Caltech's graduate offerings. Of the 39 students who took part in January, four were white and four were Asian.
University of Colorado at Boulder
Colorado operated a 10-week Summ
er Minority Access to Research Training program to try to recruit more minority students into its graduate programs. Participants car
ried out research projects, attended seminars, and worked with faculty mentors. The program has been renamed Summer Multicultural Access to Research Tr
aining and opened to white students. The university's Web site, however, continues to describe it as "aimed at minority students."
University of Delaware
Delaware's Presidential Awards program annually awarded paid fellowships to five incoming minority graduate students. The university has expanded the program's selection criteria to take in nonminority students who have experienced challenging circumstances, are financially needy, or are the first in their family to attend gra
duate school.
Harvard University
To diversify its enrollment, the Harvard Business School operates a Summer Venture in Management Program, enabling undergraduates from underrepresented populations to study there for
one week each summer. The program had been reserved for black, Hispanic, and American Indian students. Harvard says it now plans t
o accept white and Asian applicants who come from families with little business education or experience, who are the first members of their families to attend
college, or who are enrolled at a college "whose graduates do not typically attend a top-tier, urban university."
Indiana University
Indiana University's nine-week Summer Minority Research Fellowship sought to get minority high-school and college students interested in medical research by matching them with mentors at the university's Cancer Center, in Indianapolis. The Minority Achievers Program offered scholarships of $4,000 to $7,000 a year to black, Hispanic, and American Indian
freshmen. One hundred and fifty freshmen received such awards last fall. The summer research fellowship has been opened to white and Asian students who come from poor backgrounds or have parents who are not
college graduates. The National Cancer Institute, which pays for the program, changed its rules to allow the switch. The Minori
ty Achievers Program has been renamed and opened to white and Asian students with an interest in promoting campus diversity. It will still give black, Hispanic, and
American Indian applicants an edge.
Princeton University
Princeton's Junior Summer Institute annually brought 30 minority college students to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, to encourage participants to undertake graduate study in public service. Princeton decided to stop the race-exclusive program early last year, after learning that the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights was investigating the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over a race-exclusive program
. As of last week, Princeton officials had not decided how to proceed.
Saint Louis University
The Ernest A. Calloway Jr. scholarship program, named for a former black faculty member, annually awar
ded 30 scholarships of $11,000 a year to black students. The program was disbanded and replaced with the Martin Luther
King Jr. Scholarships, to be available to any students "who demonstrate leadership potential for promoting Dr. King's dream of a diverse but unified America."
; The university plans to award up to 100 scholarships of about $8,000 annually, and expects that a large share of the recipients will be black.
Yale University
Yale operated several programs strictly for minority students. Cultural Connections, a summer preregistration orientation program, annually helped about 125 black, Hispanic, and American Indian freshmen get acclimated to the campus. The Science, Technology, and Research Scholars program provided academic enrichment and research opportunities to about 10
0 students interested in the natural sciences and engineering. Yale has decided to open both programs to all students who are interested. University officials said Yale has opened up other minorit
y programs, which they declined to identify. Yale has no plans to change a program that provides counseling solely to m
inority students.
Programs colleges changed on their own
Then Now
Amherst College
Amherst played host to a two-day Students of Color Open House every autumn, to giv
e minority high-school students a chance to experience life on the campus. The college subsidized the travel costs of 170 participating students who came from all over the country. About one-third of those who attended ended up enrolling at Amherst. The college has tentatively renamed the annual event Opportunity Weekend, and plans to open it to white students from low-income backgrounds. Amherst is working with the College Board and three other small colleges to try to find a way to focus recruitment efforts on talente
d white and minority students in low-income areas.
Williams College
Williams annually awarded dissertation fellowships to two or three minority graduate students, with the goal of increasi
ng minority representation in the professoriate. The recipients would teach one course for one semester and be allo
wed to spend the bulk of their time completing their dissertations. The fellowship program has been opened to anyone who belongs to a group that is underrepresented in a particular field.
Women in physics would be eligible, as would white applicants in Asian studies.
Source: Chronicle reporting
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MINORITY PROGRAMS STILL IN DISPUTE
The following colleges and public agencies are under investigation by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights for programs that continue to serve only minority students.
University of Hawaii
The university operates a program that grants tuition waivers solely to Native
Hawaiian students, as part of its efforts to remedy past discrimination against the state's indigenous people. The Office for Civil Rights has not disclosed the source of a compl
aint charging that the tuition waivers are racially discriminatory. Other state programs for Native Hawaiians h
ave been challenged on similar grounds.
Pepperdine University
Pepperdine's Richard Eamers Scholars Program annually provides about 50 financially needy minority students with scholars
hips of $1,000 a year. The program also organizes seminars and special events for the recipients, to help them feel more comfortable on the campus, in Malibu, Calif. The Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights after the university refused to open the program to white students. Pepperdine officials argue that the program is legal, partly because it accounts for only a small fraction of the university's overall budget for student aid. They also
say that the program reflects the Christian mission of the university, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ.
Seton Hall University
The university's law schoo
l, in Newark, N.J., operates Partners in Excellence, a program that provides scholarships and mentors solel
y to minority students. It also holds job fairs that are open only to "students of color." Its efforts on this front have been challenged in a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights b
y a private citizen. Officials of the law school have argued that its scholarship program and job fair are constitutional because they serve the compelling interest of promoting diversity in the law school and in the ranks of the legal profession. They also note that the scholarships are financed by the law firms that provide mentors and not with university funds.
Virginia Tech
More than 70 programs, including several that provide scholarships or academic support, have been cited in a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Right
s by the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The state's attorney general, Jerry W. Gilgore, a Republican, has also said that s
everal of the university's race-exclusive programs violate the U.S. Constitution. The university ha
s opened admissions to some of the programs and says that others no longer exist. However, it still operates some of the programs in question.
Washington University in St. Louis
Each year the university&
#39;s John B. Ervin Scholars Program provides 10 entering black freshmen with full-tuition waivers, a $2,500 stipend, and pledges of academic support. The Office for Civil Rights began investigating the program last year, in response to a complaint from the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The university argues that the program conforms to the last major guidelines on minority scholarships issued by the Office for Civil Rights, in 1994. Those guidelines held that colleges could operate minority-s
cholarship programs as long as the programs served constitutionally protected goals.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Since 1985, Wisconsin's
Minority Precollege Scholarship Program has provided money for minority students in grades 6 throu
gh 12 to attend precollege courses at campuses throughout the state. The scholarships cover the cost of college courses, books, supplies, and room and board. The Office for Civil Rights is investigating the program in r
esponse to a complaint from a private citizen. A spokesman for the state agency, Joseph F. Donovan, says the program remains in operation, but "we are working with OCR to find an agreed-upon solution, rather than contest the case."
Source: Chronicle reporting
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i28/28a01701.htm
Fearing charges of discrimination, colleges open minority scholarships and programs to students of all races
By PETER SCHMIDT
Carnegie Mellon University may care deeply about its minority students, but, as of last month, it no longer cares to assume the legal risks associated with offering scholarships and programs specifically for them.
It is hardly alone in that respect.
Colleges throughout the nation are quietly opening a wide range of minority programs to students of any race, mainly to avoid being accused of discrimination.
In addition, several nonprofit organizations and federal agencies have recently made, o
are considering, similar changes. Among them, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation has changed the criteria for a major fellowship program to allow nonminority participation. The National Institutes of Health h
as a
lready opened at least one minority program
to participants of any race and appears poised to open several others. And the National Merit Scholarship Corporation has discontinued a program that asked colleges to sponsor scholarships for black students, in part because fewer colleges were willing to participate.
At least in name, minority programs are rapidly disappearing from college campuses. Colleges are dropping the word "minority" from the titles of scholarships and fellowships -- as well as recruitment, orientation, and academic-enrichment programs -- and opening them to populations that they had excluded. The goal of most of the programs remains helping black, Hispanic, and American Indian students succeed in higher education, but now colleges must be willing to include white
and Asian students in the mix.
Most colleges have made the changes only recently and, as a result, have no idea whether the programs' racial composition will differ. It is also unclear whether
such chang
es will sidetrack the programs from their original mi
ssions, or cause them to lose public or philanthropic support.
William H. Gray III, the departing president of the United Negro College Fund, calls the challenges to the legality of such programs "a blatant attempt to narrow the doorway of access for minorities." He says he worries that financially needy minority students will lose access to scholarships now that white students can compete for them, and "without this financial help, they probably will not go to some of the most prestigious and elite universities."
But Theodore M. Shaw, associate director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, says it is too early to tell what the impact will be.
"We have to wait and see the numbers where
they have made the change," he says. "The jury is going to be out until we find out if there is any significant change in the number of minority students who are being reached."
Supreme Guidance<b
r>
Just a year ago, things were much different. While a small number of colleges had already aban
doned race-exclusive programs, most argued that the programs were on solid legal ground or, at worst, that the law governing them was unclear. The paucity of court rulings dealing with their legality fed the confusion.
In 1994 the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit struck down a scholarship program for black students at the University of Maryland at College Park. But later that year, the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights issued legal guidelines that made most race-exclusive scholarship programs appear permissible.
The current leaders of the civil-rights office, mostly staunch critics of affirmative action, sent mixed signals as well. While they ex
pressed no desire to revisit the office's 1994 guidelines, they nonetheless started investigating race-exclusive programs and issued a statement saying, "Generally, programs that use race
or national origin as sol
e eligibility criteria are extremely difficult to defend."
Carnegie Mellon responded defiantly early las
t year when its academic summer camp for minority students was challenged by two advocacy groups that oppose racial preferences, the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The university's general counsel, Mary Jo Dively, declared that she was "not going to take the word of some outside group that presumes to tell Carnegie Mellon what to do," and planned, instead, to wait for the federal courts to offer guidance.
That guidance came last June, when the U.S. Supreme Court decided two lawsuits involving race-conscious admissions policies of the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. The rulings initially were heralded as a majo
r victory for affirmative action because the court had accepted Michigan's basic argument that the educational benefits of diversity justified the consideration of race in college-admissio
ns decisions.
The court als
o held, however, that colleges must treat students as individuals, and not accept or reject them from programs based solely on t
heir skin color. That finding troubled college lawyers as they considered what the court's decisions meant in areas beyond admissions.
By late last fall, many colleges' lawyers were questioning whether their institutions could still offer scholarships and other programs solely for members of certain racial and ethnic groups. Many concluded that the answer was no. In recent months, those doubts have translated into a widespread retreat from race-exclusivity.
Ms. Dively says: "When I looked at the Michigan cases and read them carefully, my conclusion, as I think has been the conclusion of practically every scholar around the country
and every general counsel with whom I have talked, is that race-exclusive programs -- except in certain extreme factual circumstances -- are not likely to withstand a legal challenge."
The exceptions, she says, are mai
nly programs that arose in response to special legal situations, such as those set up to settle desegregation cases.
Last month Carnegie Mello
n officials decided to open the university's summer camp to white and Asian students who demonstrate that they can contribute to the campus's diversity. (The total number of high-school students at the camp will remain unchanged, at 100.) The university also opened a full-tuition, minority-scholarship program to white and Asian students who show they can contribute to campus diversity, and ended its policy of giving black, Hispanic, and American Indian students an edge when awarding need-based student aid.
Falling Dominoes
Similar changes have been made in recent weeks by Harvard University's business school
and by Yale University's undergraduate college. In a letter to Yale's students, Richard H. Brodhead, that college's dean, said the Supreme Court's rulings in the Michig
an cases had made it "harder to justify prog
rams that separate student communities instead of building them into an interactive whole."
Both Harvard and Yale changed their programs after being contacted by the Ce
nter for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute, which is headed by Ward Connerly, a University of California regent who helped lead successful campaigns for ballot measures banning racial preferences in California and Washington State.
"I think we have been helped by the fact that so many prestigious institutions have agreed with us that racially exclusive programs need to be changed," says Roger B. Clegg, the Center for Equal Opportunity's general counsel. "I think that that provides some reassurances to other schools that what we are asking is well fou
nded, and that it makes good educational sense."
"We make it very clear that we are not asking that these programs be ended," Mr. Clegg says. "We are simp
ly asking that they be made open to students of all racia
l and ethnic backgrounds. Students who have lacked opportunities come in all colors."
The two advocacy groups have jointly written to about 100 colleges, almost all since early 2003, threatening to file complain
ts with the federal Office for Civil Rights if the colleges continue to operate race-exclusive programs. Initially the groups based their arguments on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which prohibits racial discrimination by any institution, public or private, that receives federal funds. After the Supreme Court ruled in the Michigan cases, the groups' letters began citing those opinions as well.
Mr. Clegg refuses to name most of the colleges that the groups have contacted, saying "we are not trying to humiliate anybody." R
ather, he prefers to let colleges decide on their own whether to discuss the complaints. He confirms, however, that about 70 colleges have responded by either opening up their p
rograms or by informing the two groups that their complaints are
based on outdated information, and that the programs in question have already been changed.
A Few Holdouts
Most of the other colleges contacted by the groups -- including Colorado State and Cornell Universities, and the Uni
versities of Michigan and Pennsylvania -- are still conducting legal reviews. In some cases involving privately endowed scholarships, colleges cannot make changes without first getting permission from donors.
But most colleges have not given any indication that they plan to defend programs that are race exclusive. Laurence Pendleton, associate general counsel at Colorado State, says, "It appears that, under the Michigan cases, race exclusivity will not pass legal muster."
Two other colleges, the Massachusetts Ins
titute of Technology and Saint Louis University, initially refused the demands of the two advocacy groups, but then backed down after the Office for Civil Rights became invo
lved. Only two colleges, Pepperdine University and Washington University
in St. Louis, have refused to alter scholarship programs that have been challenged by the two advocacy groups and brought to the attention of the Office for Civil Rights.
Pepperdine's resistance has struck some observers as a paradox, gi
ven its deep ties to the conservative movement. Officials at the university, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ, say they are defending their scholarship program because it is consistent with both the law and the school's Christian philosophy.
"It's our responsibility, given our Chris-tian mission, to be not a white island but to reflect the diversity around us," says W. David Baird, dean of Pepperdine's undergraduate college.
Meanwhile, the University of Missouri at Colum
bia changed some programs for black students to include all "underrepresented minority students," while keeping them off limits to white applicants. Mr. Clegg
has termed its response inadequate, but had not filed a federal complaint as of
last week.
Which Whites?
Many colleges have acted without any outside prodding to open what had been minority programs to students of all races.
Thomas H. Parker, dean of admission and financial aid at Amherst College, says that he decided to open a weekend campus-vis
itation program to low-income white students after attending workshops on the Supreme Court's Michigan rulings sponsored by Harvard University and the College Board. At both, Mr. Parker says, he asked panelists about Amherst's campus-visit program for minority students and was told "that could now be challenged, and we could well lose."
Amherst is now working with the College Board and three other New England institutions -- Wellesley College, Wesleyan U
niversity, and Williams College -- to find new ways of using information gathered from takers of the PSAT and SAT tests to recruit academically talented students fro
m low-income areas.
Like Amherst, other colleges are keeping their programs foc
used on helping the disadvantaged, and are altering them to advance that goal. Most are requiring that nonminority applicants fit one of two profiles: Either they come from low-income households or families with little college experience, or they demonstrate a commitment to promoting racial diversity
by, for example, tutoring minority children or working to improve race relations in their communities.
Thomas R. Tritton, president of Haverford College, says administrators there will consider letting white students participate in his institution's summer pre-orientation program for minority students but would probably reject any applicant who seemed to oppose affirmative action and to be applying "to make the ideological point that this is a ba
d program."
He says the mission of the program, which is operated jointly with Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr Colleges and rotates among the three campuses
, is to help "students find their voices and assume leadership roles," and that the s
tudents who participate tend to fare better in college than those who don't.
Mr. Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity argues that colleges are still engaging in racial discrimination if they operate programs that require white and Asian applicants to come from disadvantaged backgrounds or show a commitment to
diversity, but don't make the same demands of black, Hispanic, or American Indian students.
If a program's criteria on views toward diversity essentially amount to a requirement that applicants "sign a pledge of allegiance to political correctness," the program could be challenged on First Amendment grounds, Mr. Clegg says.
Mr. Shaw of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund says he does not mi
nd when colleges open minority programs to nonminority students to be less legally vulnerable, as long as the same number of minority students continues to b
e served. "Prudence would dictate that if you can narrow the target without sacrificing your objec
tives, then, for God's sake, do it," he says.
Ripples and Resistance
Several of the colleges that have been challenged over minority programs have argued that the programs are financed by federal agencies that require them to be racially exclusive.
When Indiana University received a complaint against a program for aspiring minority
medical researchers at its Cancer Center, in Indianapolis, it sought guidance from the National Cancer Institute, which had awarded a grant for the program. What followed was a change in federal policy: The National Cancer Institute now gives grantees the option of applying the term "underrepresented minority" to subsets of the nation's white and Asian population that produce rel
atively few cancer researchers, such as those who are low-income or represent the first generation in their family to complete college.
Donald M.
Ralbovsky, a spokesman for the National Institutes of Health, says his agency is reviewing all of its race-excl
usive programs "in light of the recent changes in the legal landscape," even as it recognizes the need for more minority researchers in various scientific fields.
Lawrence Rudolph, general counsel at the National Science Foundation, says it has been several years since his agency had programs solely for minority students. A 1980 federal law directs the NSF to opera
te programs that increase minority representation in the sciences, but "no matter what statute is on the books, it still must be implemented in a constitutionally permissible manner."
Nonprofit organizations that help minority students continue to mull over, and disagree on, whether the legal environment has changed.
The Supreme Court's Michi
gan decisions prompted the Mellon foundation to change the criteria for its minority undergraduate-fellowship program, which serves 34 individual col
leges and a consortium of 38 historically black colleges and universities. The program, which provides students with fa
culty mentors and financial support, was altered last July to allow fellowships to go to white applicants who appear committed to the program's mission of increasing minority representation in college faculties.
"When the decision was made to extend the criteria, we had in mind that we did not want to subject the colleges and universities to unnecessary risk," says Michele S. Warman, th
e foundation's general counsel and secretary.
The National Merit Scholarship Corporation decided last fall to halt a program that asked colleges to award scholarships to about 200 black students annually, and to try to take up the slack by expanding a National Merit-financed scholarship program for black students. Elaine S. Detwe
iler, a spokeswoman for the organization, says, "The number of college sponsors was declining," at least partly because of the associat
ed legal risks.
The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which consists of 13 business schools interested in inc
reasing their minority representation, is said by members to be considering a change in its minority-fellowship program. However, its executive director, Peter J. Aranda III, says, "It's really premature to say what might happen, if anything."
Many other nonprofit organizations are standing by their minority programs. Those that use private funds, or work directly with students, without involving colleges, appea
r most confident that they remain on solid legal ground.
Mr. Gray of the United Negro College Fund says no changes are being considered in any of the scholarship programs administered by his organization, including the Gates Millennium Scholars program, which will distribute $1-billion to minority s
tudents over 20 years. He denounces the assaults on race-exclusive scholarship programs as racist, pointing out that no complaints are being
lodged against the many privately financed scholarships for members of various white ethnic groups, such as Italian-, Norwegian-, and P
olish-Americans.
Also standing by its programs is the National Action Council for Minorities in Engineering, a nonprofit organization that provides scholarships to minority students and grants to the colleges that serve them.
Daryl Chubin, the group's senior vice president, says that the Fortune 500 executives who make up most of the council's governing board "are resolute in their support of the way we do business,"
and "would lose their enthusiasm" for the group if it began serving nonminority students.
"It would make it hard for us to do what we do," he says. "It might make it impossible."
---------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
A SAMPLING OF CHANGES IN RACE-BASED PROGRAMS
Since early 2003, nearly 70 colleges have opened minority programs
to nonminority students in response to complaints and threats of legal action from two advocacy groups, the Center for Equal Opportunity and th
e American Civil Rights Institute. Many other colleges have been opening the programs to nonminority students on their own, to avoid legal challenges.
Programs colleges changed under pressure from advocacy groups
Then Now
California Institute of Technology
Caltech had a three-day, campus-visit program, called GradPreview@Caltech, to recruit black, Hispanic, and American Indian graduate students interested in engineering or the sciences. The program has been opened to white
and Asian college students who have little knowledge of Caltech's graduate offerings. Of the 39 students who took part in January, four were white and four were Asian.
University of Colorado at Boulder
Colorado operated a 10-week Summ
er Minority Access to Research Training program to try to recruit more minority students into its graduate programs. Participants car
ried out research projects, attended seminars, and worked with faculty mentors. The program has been renamed Summer Multicultural Access to Research Tr
aining and opened to white students. The university's Web site, however, continues to describe it as "aimed at minority students."
University of Delaware
Delaware's Presidential Awards program annually awarded paid fellowships to five incoming minority graduate students. The university has expanded the program's selection criteria to take in nonminority students who have experienced challenging circumstances, are financially needy, or are the first in their family to attend gra
duate school.
Harvard University
To diversify its enrollment, the Harvard Business School operates a Summer Venture in Management Program, enabling undergraduates from underrepresented populations to study there for
one week each summer. The program had been reserved for black, Hispanic, and American Indian students. Harvard says it now plans t
o accept white and Asian applicants who come from families with little business education or experience, who are the first members of their families to attend
college, or who are enrolled at a college "whose graduates do not typically attend a top-tier, urban university."
Indiana University
Indiana University's nine-week Summer Minority Research Fellowship sought to get minority high-school and college students interested in medical research by matching them with mentors at the university's Cancer Center, in Indianapolis. The Minority Achievers Program offered scholarships of $4,000 to $7,000 a year to black, Hispanic, and American Indian
freshmen. One hundred and fifty freshmen received such awards last fall. The summer research fellowship has been opened to white and Asian students who come from poor backgrounds or have parents who are not
college graduates. The National Cancer Institute, which pays for the program, changed its rules to allow the switch. The Minori
ty Achievers Program has been renamed and opened to white and Asian students with an interest in promoting campus diversity. It will still give black, Hispanic, and
American Indian applicants an edge.
Princeton University
Princeton's Junior Summer Institute annually brought 30 minority college students to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, to encourage participants to undertake graduate study in public service. Princeton decided to stop the race-exclusive program early last year, after learning that the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights was investigating the Massachusetts Institute of Technology over a race-exclusive program
. As of last week, Princeton officials had not decided how to proceed.
Saint Louis University
The Ernest A. Calloway Jr. scholarship program, named for a former black faculty member, annually awar
ded 30 scholarships of $11,000 a year to black students. The program was disbanded and replaced with the Martin Luther
King Jr. Scholarships, to be available to any students "who demonstrate leadership potential for promoting Dr. King's dream of a diverse but unified America."
; The university plans to award up to 100 scholarships of about $8,000 annually, and expects that a large share of the recipients will be black.
Yale University
Yale operated several programs strictly for minority students. Cultural Connections, a summer preregistration orientation program, annually helped about 125 black, Hispanic, and American Indian freshmen get acclimated to the campus. The Science, Technology, and Research Scholars program provided academic enrichment and research opportunities to about 10
0 students interested in the natural sciences and engineering. Yale has decided to open both programs to all students who are interested. University officials said Yale has opened up other minorit
y programs, which they declined to identify. Yale has no plans to change a program that provides counseling solely to m
inority students.
Programs colleges changed on their own
Then Now
Amherst College
Amherst played host to a two-day Students of Color Open House every autumn, to giv
e minority high-school students a chance to experience life on the campus. The college subsidized the travel costs of 170 participating students who came from all over the country. About one-third of those who attended ended up enrolling at Amherst. The college has tentatively renamed the annual event Opportunity Weekend, and plans to open it to white students from low-income backgrounds. Amherst is working with the College Board and three other small colleges to try to find a way to focus recruitment efforts on talente
d white and minority students in low-income areas.
Williams College
Williams annually awarded dissertation fellowships to two or three minority graduate students, with the goal of increasi
ng minority representation in the professoriate. The recipients would teach one course for one semester and be allo
wed to spend the bulk of their time completing their dissertations. The fellowship program has been opened to anyone who belongs to a group that is underrepresented in a particular field.
Women in physics would be eligible, as would white applicants in Asian studies.
Source: Chronicle reporting
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
MINORITY PROGRAMS STILL IN DISPUTE
The following colleges and public agencies are under investigation by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights for programs that continue to serve only minority students.
University of Hawaii
The university operates a program that grants tuition waivers solely to Native
Hawaiian students, as part of its efforts to remedy past discrimination against the state's indigenous people. The Office for Civil Rights has not disclosed the source of a compl
aint charging that the tuition waivers are racially discriminatory. Other state programs for Native Hawaiians h
ave been challenged on similar grounds.
Pepperdine University
Pepperdine's Richard Eamers Scholars Program annually provides about 50 financially needy minority students with scholars
hips of $1,000 a year. The program also organizes seminars and special events for the recipients, to help them feel more comfortable on the campus, in Malibu, Calif. The Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute filed a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights after the university refused to open the program to white students. Pepperdine officials argue that the program is legal, partly because it accounts for only a small fraction of the university's overall budget for student aid. They also
say that the program reflects the Christian mission of the university, which is affiliated with the Church of Christ.
Seton Hall University
The university's law schoo
l, in Newark, N.J., operates Partners in Excellence, a program that provides scholarships and mentors solel
y to minority students. It also holds job fairs that are open only to "students of color." Its efforts on this front have been challenged in a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Rights b
y a private citizen. Officials of the law school have argued that its scholarship program and job fair are constitutional because they serve the compelling interest of promoting diversity in the law school and in the ranks of the legal profession. They also note that the scholarships are financed by the law firms that provide mentors and not with university funds.
Virginia Tech
More than 70 programs, including several that provide scholarships or academic support, have been cited in a complaint filed with the Office for Civil Right
s by the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The state's attorney general, Jerry W. Gilgore, a Republican, has also said that s
everal of the university's race-exclusive programs violate the U.S. Constitution. The university ha
s opened admissions to some of the programs and says that others no longer exist. However, it still operates some of the programs in question.
Washington University in St. Louis
Each year the university&
#39;s John B. Ervin Scholars Program provides 10 entering black freshmen with full-tuition waivers, a $2,500 stipend, and pledges of academic support. The Office for Civil Rights began investigating the program last year, in response to a complaint from the Center for Equal Opportunity and the American Civil Rights Institute. The university argues that the program conforms to the last major guidelines on minority scholarships issued by the Office for Civil Rights, in 1994. Those guidelines held that colleges could operate minority-s
cholarship programs as long as the programs served constitutionally protected goals.
Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction
Since 1985, Wisconsin's
Minority Precollege Scholarship Program has provided money for minority students in grades 6 throu
gh 12 to attend precollege courses at campuses throughout the state. The scholarships cover the cost of college courses, books, supplies, and room and board. The Office for Civil Rights is investigating the program in r
esponse to a complaint from a private citizen. A spokesman for the state agency, Joseph F. Donovan, says the program remains in operation, but "we are working with OCR to find an agreed-upon solution, rather than contest the case."
Source: Chronicle reporting
http://chronicle.com/free/v50/i28/28a01701.htm
