Top Colleges Take More Blacks, but Which Ones? By SARA RIMER and KAREN W. ARENSON AMBRIDGE, Mass. — At the most recent reunion of Harvard University's black alumni, there was lots of pleased talk about the increase in the number of black students at Harvard. But the celebratory mood was broken in one forum, when some speakers brought up the thorny issue of exactly who those black students were. While about 8 percent, or about 530, of Harvard's undergraduates were black, Lani Guinier, a Harvard law professor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., the chairman of Harvard's African and African-American studies department, pointed out that the majority of them — perhaps as many as two-thirds — were West Indian and African immigrants or their children, or to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples. They said that only about a third of the students were from families in which all four grandparents were born in this country, descendants of slaves. Many argue that it was students like these, disadvantaged by the legacy of Jim Crow laws, segregation and decades of racism, poverty and inferior schools, who were intended as principal beneficiaries of affirmative action in university admissions. What concerned the two professors, they said, was that in the high-stakes world of admissions to the most selective colleges — and with it, entry into the country's inner circles of power, wealth and influence — African-American students whose families have been in America for generations were being left behind. "I just want people to be honest enough to talk about it," Professor Gates, the Yale-educated son of a West Virginia paper-mill worker, said recently, reiterating the questions he has been raising since the black alumni weekend last fall. "What are the implications of this?" Both Professor Gates and Professor Guinier emphasize that this is not about excluding immigrants, whom sociologists describe as a highly motivated, self-selected group. Blacks, who make up 13 percent of the United States population, are still underrepresented at Harvard and other selective colleges, they said. The conversation that bubbled up that weekend has continued across campus here and beyond as these professors and others publicly raise painful and complicated questions about race and class and how they play out in elite university admissions, issues that some educators and black admissions officers have privately talked about for some time. There is no consensus on the answers, and since most institutions say they do not look into the origins of their black students, the absence of hard data makes the discussion even more difficult. Some educators, including the president of Harvard, Lawrence H. Summers, declined to comment on the issue; others are divided. The president of Amherst College, Anthony W. Marx, says that colleges should care about the ethnicity of black students because in overlooking those with predominantly American roots, colleges are missing an "opportunity to correct a past injustice" and depriving their campuses "of voices that are particular to being African-American, with all the historical disadvantages that that entails." But others say there is no reason to take the ancestry of black students into account. "I don't think it should matter for purposes of admissions in higher education," said Lee C. Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, who as president of the University of Michigan fiercely defended its use of affirmative action. "The issue is not origin, but social practices. It matters in American society whether you grow up black or white. It's that differential effect that really is the basis for affirmative action." Professors Gates and Guinier cite various sources for their figures about Harvard's black students, including conversations with administrators and students, a recent Harvard undergraduate honors thesis based on extensive student interviews, and the "Black Guide to Life at Harvard," which surveyed 70 percent of the black undergraduates and was published last year by the Harvard Black Students Association. Researchers at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania who have been studying the achievement of minority students at 28 selective colleges and universities (including theirs, as well as Yale, Columbia, Duke and the University of California at Berkeley), found that 41 percent of the black students identified themselves as immigrants, as children of immigrants or as mixed race. Douglas S. Massey, a Princeton sociology professor who was one of the researchers, said the black students from immigrant families and the mixed-race students represented a larger proportion of the black students than that in the black population in the United States generally. Andrew A. Beveridge, a sociologist at Queens College, says that among 18- to 25-year-old blacks nationwide, about 9 percent describe themselves as of African or West Indian ancestry. Like the Gates and Guinier numbers, these tallies do not include foreign students. In the 40 or so years since affirmative action began in higher education, the focus has been on increasing the numbers of black students at selective colleges, not on their family background. Professor Massey said that the admissions officials he talked to at these colleges seemed surprised by the findings about the black students. "They really didn't have a good idea of what they're getting," he said. But few black students are surprised. Sheila Adams, a Harvard senior, was born in the South Bronx to a school security officer and a subway token seller, and her family has been in this country for generations. Ms. Adams said there were so few black students like her at Harvard that they had taken to referring to themselves as "the descendants." The subject, however, remains taboo among some college administrators. Anthony Carnevale, a former vice president at the Educational Testing Service, which develops SAT tests, said colleges were happy to the take high-performing black students from immigrant families. "They've found an easy way out," Mr. Carnevale said. "The truth is, the higher-education community is no longer connected to the civil rights movement. These immigrants represent Horatio Alger, not Brown v. Board of Education and America's race history." Almost from its inception, following the civil rights struggles of the 1960's, affirmative action has been attacked and redefined. In its 1978 Bakke decision, the Supreme Court shifted the rationale away from issues of social justice to the educational value of diversity. One black admissions official at a highly selective college said the reluctance of college officials to discuss these issues has helped obscure the scarcity of black students whose families have been in this country for generations. "If somebody does not start paying attention to those who are not able to make it in, they're going to start drifting farther and farther behind," said the official, who declined to be identified because the subject is so charged. "You've got to say that the long-term blacks were either dealt a crooked hand, or something is innately wrong with them. And I simply won't accept that there is something wrong with them." Mary C. Waters, the chairman of the sociology department at Harvard, who has studied West Indian immigrants, says they are initially more successful than many African-Americans for a number of reasons. Since they come from majority-black countries, they are less psychologically handicapped by the stigma of race. In addition, many arrive with higher levels of education and professional experience. And at first, they encounter less discrimination. "You need a philosophical discussion about what are the aims of affirmative action,'' Professor Waters said. "If it's about getting black faces at Harvard, then you're doing fine. If it's about making up for 200 to 500 years of slavery in this country and its aftermath, then you're not doing well. And if it's about having diversity that includes African-Americans from the South or from inner-city high schools, then you're not doing well, either." Even among black scholars there is disagreement on whether a discussion about the origins of black students is helpful. Orlando Patterson, a Harvard sociologist and West Indian native, said he wished others would "let sleeping dogs lie." "The doors are wide open - as wide open as they ever will be - for native-born black middle-class kids to enter elite colleges," he wrote in an e-mail message. There is also wide disagreement about what, if anything, should be done about the underrepresentation of African-American students whose families have been here for generations. Even Professor Gates, who can trace his ancestry back to slaves, and Professor Guinier, whose mother is white and whose father immigrated from Jamaica, emphasize different ideas. "This is about the kids of recent arrivals beating out the black indigenous middle-class kids," said Professor Gates, who plans to assemble a study group on the subject. "We need to learn what the immigrants' kids have so we can bottle it and sell it, because many members of the African-American community, particularly among the chronically poor, have lost that sense of purpose and values which produced our generation." In Professor Guinier's view, there are plenty of other blacks who could also succeed at elite colleges, but the institutions are not doing enough to find them. She said they were overly reliant on measures like SAT scores, which correlate strongly with family wealth and parental education. "Colleges and universities are defaulting on their obligation to train and educate a representative group of future leaders," said Professor Guinier, a Harvard graduate herself who has been studying college admissions practices for more than a decade. "And they are excluding poor and working-class whites, not just descendants of slaves." Harvard admissions officials say that they, too, are concerned about attracting more lower-income students of all races. They plan to spend an additional $300,000 to $375,000 a year to recruit more low-income students and provide more financial aid to these students. "This increases the chances that we will be able to reach into the communities that have not been reached," said William R. Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions and financial aid. While Harvard officials ignore the ethnic distinctions among their black students, Harvard's black undergraduates are developing a body of literature in the form of student research papers. Aisha Haynie, the undergraduate whose senior thesis Professor Guinier cited, said her research was prompted by the reaction from her black classmates when she told them that she was not from the West Indies or Africa, but from the Carolinas. "They would say, 'No, where are you really from?' " said Ms. Haynie, 26, who earned a master's degree in public policy at Princeton and is now in medical school. Marques J. Redd, a 20-year-old from Macon, Ga., who graduated in June and was one of the editors of Harvard's black student guide, said that Harvard officials had discouraged them from collecting the data on who the black students were. "But we thought it was one aspect of the black experience at Harvard that should be documented," he said. "The knowledge had power. It was something that needed to be out in the open instead of something that people whispered about." Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/24/education/24AFFI.final.html
According to last week's Dallas Observer, Harvard denies admission to 25% of all applicants with 1600 SATs. It's just a different world up there, and with more "super star" kids out there with high grades and high test scores (as well as a continuing increase in college applications overall without the requisite increase in seats at elite institutions), it's more and more difficult to get in to the elite schools. Since Harvard apparently takes race into consideration but does not subdivide among African-Americans, it's not surprising that a specific kind of African-American is more highly representated, just as it's often a specific kind of white person who ends up at Harvard.
Yet another reason why affirmative action in this country is a complete joke. The people who are intended to benefit from it are again being squeezed out. We need to address the real issues at hand here. Blacks and hispanics are not scoring the necessary scores on standardized tests to get them into these elite universities. Let's finally address the cultural issue of valuing education and devoted study in the home. Indians and Asians have succeeded in this country due to the high value they place on education. What can we do to encourage this in other groups? The pity party that is affirmative action in this country is not the answer.
We could go round and round on the issue, but again, the difference is wealth not culture. Indian and Asian immigrants value education because that's probably one of the reasons they are here in the first place. Duh. Just like the African immigrants in this article.
Being a first-generation American, from Bangladeshi born parents, education was crammed down my throat from a young age. I had the luxury of growing up in Sugar Land, and going to a very good high school, Kempner, in Fort Bend ISD. However, plenty of Asian, Indian, and Pakistani friends of mine who went to school at Elsik or Hastings did not fare so well. Some of these guys were not very well off, and had parents that owned gas stations or washeterias and worked all the time. Their parents weren't home, and Alief ISD didn't prepare them well enough for college. Of course, plenty of very strong Indians and Asians came out of Alief as well. However, you can clearly see the digital divide between Sugar Land and Alief. What we need is a two-prong approach: 1. Root cause -> parents. For the love of God, teach your kids outside of class. Sit down with them to read or do some math once in awhile. 2. Better equipment and resources in poor schools. Every classroom should have at least 3 or 4 computers -> no excuse not to in 2004. More books in libraries and more money for well qualified teachers. Just giving out handouts to a group of students who put together a good essay is not going to solve any long term problems. The root cause starts at home and in the public schools.
There is no policy that would be able to enforce #1. The current public school/private school funding situation in this country enforces the opposite of #2 with some exceptions for Robin Hood type remedies.
Isn't Dallas ISD one of the best funded but poorest performing school districts in Texas? What needs to be done is to get rid of race based affirmative action which is discriminatory and doesn't work anyway (see the original article) and institute class based affirmative action that helps poor blacks, whites, hispanics, asians, and everyone else instead of helping upper-middle class minorities more than any other group.
I have a friend who was born in Egypt, but moved to America when he was 4. He got awarded a private African American scholarship of some sort, that paid a huge chunk of his tuition and expenses at UT.
I went to both Alief for up to 6 grade and moved to the Katy-Memorial area for 7th grade and up. I would venture to say that my 6th grade classroom in Alief, though it didn't have walls between the class rooms, had better facillities than the classrooms I had in the other schools. I think the main difference IS culture, and that is what I think needs to be changed. Too many people in the poor communities still sees sports as the only way out at the same time buys into the commercialism while not valuing what's really neccessary. Like Chris Rock said, Blacks will put rims on everything (while at the same time not buying some essentials that might help them or their kids later like insurance, IRA, or house in a better neighbor hood). Signs of this are showned at the very early age. I remember being peer pressured into complaining to my parents into buying a new pair of expensive sneakers every couple of moths in Alief. If you don't wear a new sneaker every year you get **** talked to you. Shoes were a big deal. While at the same time, in the suburbs, people are more than willing to wear any kind of shoes. Shoes just aren't even an issure. If Blacks in this country are going to do well, there needs to be major cultural changes within the black communities. And lastly, Blacks need to stop labeling blacks who like mozart and golf uncle toms.
Of course, with elite universities turning away many students who have perfect scores on the standardized tests, it's not as easy as having a high enough score. Plus, I'm still not certain that the test scores are a test of anything beyond the ability to get a high test score, whether that translates into a more successful college student hasn't been proven, to my knowledge. Perhaps we need to completely reconsider the way we decide who is or isn't right for a particular institution.
that's crazy that a west indian could get into harvard because of affirmative action, even though they are not really part of the group that has traditionally suffered the unequal but separate sections of american society. or have they? i don't think so. i think they're johnny cakes come lately.
Alief is not the hood last time I checked. Enroll your child in schools in 3rd ward, 5th ward, Acres Homes or Gulfgate and I'm sure your perspective will change. I don't think culture has much to do with it at all. I see more poor people (of all colors) fail to make it because of a lack of resources (which also can lead to a decrease in your drive to make it). Juts because 1 kid isn't blowing excess $$$ on shoes doesn't mean they aren't blowing it on something else. I went to River Oaks, Lanier and Booker T, and I saw kids (of all colors) blow their parents money on complete bs (thats what kids do). In the "burbs", I see plenty of adults blow their $$$ on complete bs. The only difference is folks in the burbs have excess $$$ to blow. They are still just as frivolous.
No it's not the hood, but when your school's population is made up of 1/3 black, 1/3 hispanics, and 1/3 recently immigrant asian, all from fairly low income families with a single white kid every three classes. It's not neccessary the hood, but it's not exactly a good neighborhood either. My parents started with $45 in their pockets when they came here, as a lot of the main land chinese immigrants in the late 80's and early 90's. My mom in the early years folded wonton for like $20 a day in a Chinese restaurant. We were poor for majority of our lives. But that doesn't keep us or a lot main land Chinese from saving every dime possible, not buy or use excessively anything unnnecssary like candy or snacks, clothes, christmas presents, cable, A/C past 80 degrees (fans work great). And that definitely doesn't change the idea that education is THE ONLY way out of poverty. Even when I liked to read. my parents never saw the need to buy me books since I can just use the stuff in the libraries. Poverty inhibits, but look at recent asian immigrants, you see that being poor doesn't neccessary limit, culture is a big part. My argument is that people in the poor areas shouldn't even have a need to "blow" money on anything. A person shouldn't blow money period especially if they don't have it. I wasn't saying that white people don't blow money on stuff, I was more critizing that people from poor areas shouldn't blow money on things that aren't absolutely neccessary . I'm criticizing the mass consumption that's being pushed a blacks is a horrible thing, and that after years of brainwashing wit television I'm seeing it working.
I have yet to truely believe that a republican is honestly seeking a solution that is beneficial to underprivaledged people. Instead, rupubs seem content in shooting down anything the left offers but never attempts to profer a solution...at least a solution that is offered in good will. Not just throw a bone over but a genuine effort to find a solution. Talk about school vouchers certainly doesn't prop up my faith that republicans are looking out for the underpriveleged. No child left behind and then cut education spending doesn't do anything for me either. The real "joke" is that we still even have to have this conversation in 2004.
You're right, no black people save money, we all have rims. Its part of our culture. If you go to a black neighborhood, its like 1 out of 2 cars have rims on them. Even the elderly put rims on their cars and then have the nerve to ask the government for help with perscription drugs. Its all about the rims.
Right, it's the government's fault that there are underpriveledged people.(?) See wizkid's post please. He put things in very understandable terms. I still believe it's a cultural issue, the groups who have fallen and remained behind in this country need to have leaders emerge who promote education and saving. I understand many people enjoy the free handouts, but after a while one has to ask if they are really doing anything positive in the long term.
What Chris Rock was being satirical, I used it as an as such to examplify what I think is a bigger probelm which is the consumptionism ideaology that's being forced on to blacks of America by the media and which I see is currently been bought into by the Black community.
Don't get me wrong, I think that some financial help to the needy is very appreciated. I had the free lunch, which really helped my family as it helped to cut me and my brother's financial expanses by as much as 1/2 as far as food is concerned. And I know that need based scholarships and other financial assistance really helped put a lot of kids through college that needs it. I think the government does need to get invovled and help financially. I just think that there needs to be more focus on the root causes as well, which isn't happening.
The ideology of consumption may be a problem in the black community, but that has nothing to do with affirmative action or education. Its a totally separate issue. Affiramtive action is about getting kids into college, not whether or not they can afford it.
