Ohio University's deeply flawed new sexual harassment policy arguably violates free speech and due process rights. But that's not the only lawsuit waiting to happen at OU--the school's Junior Executive Business Program for Minorities almost certainly violates the university's obligation to conduct itself in a non-discriminatory manner. "Geared towards high-achieving African-American, Hispanic and Native American high school juniors who are interested in exploring majors in business," the Program invites select rising seniors to spend a week on the campus during the summer--as long as they belong to select demographic groups. The program combines intensive recruitment with comprehensive guidance counseling about going to college; participants learn about Ohio's undergraduate business program from "world-class faculty members" while benefiting from "workshops on applying to college, securing financial aid, managing your time, and succeeding in business. The program will allow you to experience life in a residence hall, visit campus cultural centers and, most importantly, gain insight from current college student." And it's all free--all participants need to supply, besides the right ancestry, is their own transportation and spending money. The program site notes that while participation in the program does not guarantee admission to the University, it certainly helps.

The program is two years old--this summer's ran from June 18-25--and the University sees it as an important piece of its diversity initiatives. At a press conference, according to the Athens News, University president Roderick McDavis said "he was very happy to have the students on campus. He said the students would learn a lot during the week, and that he hopes it will encourage them to attend OU and help increase the number of minority students attending the university. McDavis has made it a goal to increase diversity at OU, and the number of minority students is increasing for the 2005-2006 school year, over the 2004-2005 school year." A number of participants interviewed by the Athens News said that their experience in the program was so good that they are now seriously considering attending Ohio University.

The Junior Executive Business Program was co-founded by Ohio University and Cardinal Health with the goal of helping "minority high school students in making informed decisions about their futures." It all sounds very noble on the surface--but you don't have to look very far below the surface to see that there are serious problems with a program at a public university that discriminates against everyone who is not African-American, Hispanic, or Native American. It's not just that the program is not an equal opportunity program, but that its own attempt to select for disadvantaged kids is poorly conceived. Not all minority kids are poor or disadvantaged; not all white or Asian kids are wealthy and privileged.

Numerous programs like Ohio's have come under fire in recent years. In the wake of the Michigan rulings and in the face of pressure from the Center for Equal Opportunity, Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, Yale, Caltech, Indiana University, and a host of other schools have revamped scholarships and programs that were previously reserved for minority students. Diversity remains the goal of those programs, but the definition of diversity they now employ is more comprehensive and more in line with the law. As a private business, Cardinal Health can run all the minority enhancement programs it wants to--but Ohio University is not so free, and its partnership with Cardinal Health is thus a problem.

Diversity programs such as Ohio University's are not discriminatory insofar as they do not create palpable barriers to entry to the non-target demographic. What is appealing to me about such programs is that certain goals are set that can be measured and then opened to scrutiny. For example, university administrators may find out that the program attracts black students who are better-prepared than those who do not participate in the program. To me, this seems like a worthy investment of university funds. Of course, the opposite case may hold and the university could kill the program on grounds of non-performance; to me, this option is more attractive than killing it to quell charges of "reverse racism."

By way of comparison, there are de facto diversity programs on university campuses that are not open to such scrutiny and that may be overtly discriminatory, creating palpable barriers to entry for groups of students. For example, Harvard Business School, Stern, MIT, Wharton, and Chicago (to name only a few) set a considerably lower bar for admission for female students. The average difference in standardized test scores for admitted female applicants at these schools can be as much as five percentile points lower than those for men, and the acceptance rates as much as two or three hundred percent higher. Is this a problem? It depends upon the goals of the school. Harvard Business School, for example, ostensibly sends some of the best women into the business world; the statistics, however, demonstrate that a female Harvard MBA is likely to leave the corporate world after less than 10 years. Harvard does not love to publicize such statistics, but the administration and their consultants are familiar with the problem.

As regards equal opportunity, imagine what a private school such as HBS might look like without de facto diversity programs. If grades, work experience and test scores are taken as key admissions indicators, only 10% of the MBA class should be female. Similar numbers would hold at Stern and Chicago. Public charges of discrimination most likely would erupt if these schools did not make a special effort to "recruit" female students.

I have given examples of private schools in order to limit the question of stakeholders. In the case of public schools, keeping secret de facto diversity programs subjects the university to the risk of charges of racial or gender discrimination; making these programs public opens the system up to scrutiny and allows for "success" to be measured. It may very well be the case (as the data from Berkeley show) that the eradicaton of such programs may make students of certain racial minorities disappear from campus. This in itself is not a "problem" as long as these ethnic minorities as not considered stakeholders in the public school system; this, unfortunately, is not the case. Destroying these programs results in a solid barrier to entry for entire groups of people; even if this does not have look of discrimination it certainly has the same effects. In either case, administration officials are criticized.

"Destroying these programs results in a solid barrier to entry for entire groups of people; even if this does not have look of discrimination it certainly has the same effects. "

Now Basil, aren't we being a bit condescending here? And what about those who are excluded by the diversity programs? You sound like you think the problem is that there isn't an equality of outcomes But if discrimination is wrong, then why is it okay to discriminate against some groups in favor of other groups.?
As for the administration officials being criticized, shouldn't they be criticized when someone thinks they are doing something wrong.? Seems like a healthy thing to me. Isn't it more important that they do the right thing, than be immune from criticism?

It seems to me the problem is with those who criticize them for the wrong reasons. If those who are in a position of power think that others should be discriminated against so that the discriminators can feel better about themselves, then they deserve to be criticized. Whatever benefits there might be to creating more equal group outcomes, they are insignificant compared to the harm that results.

Allan:

No, I am not being condescending; my assertion is based on the evidence of the UC system's abolishment of affirmative action. In the year following the end of affirmative action Berkeley saw its underrepresented minority figures drop by half. One might argue that only the truly meritorious and best prepared students were admitted to Berkeley. Fair enough. However, there were also many students (overwhelmingly from underrepresented minority groups) that did not even apply to Berkeley for whatever reason, or specifically chose not to attend Berkeley because the competition (private schools) snapped these students up. Whether this is "right" or not is of little interest to me here. The experiment was conducted and the data show that these groups disappeared from campus.

I am not arguing for (the PC sounding) equality of outcomes. I am arguing that diversity initiatives such as the one at OU may IMPROVE the quality of the student body. To me, a conservative position does not imply //doing nothing//. Admissions teams at all universities face the challenge of getting well-qualified students to apply to and enroll in their schools. White middle-class males with top grades and SAT scores almost always apply to and attend college (this is public information); members of certain minority groups with similar achievements often do not apply to or enroll in college. This is where the university recruiters must do their jobs, and it seems to me that active recruitment of certain groups can only serve to raise the bar for all students as more applications roll in and the competition increases. It seems to me that arguing for the end of such recruiting initiatives in light of the known difficulties of getting minorities to apply is tantamount to asking for an inequality of outcomes privileging the median applicant, which is just another way of keeping the bar lower than it needs to be. In the case where such diversity initiatives do not improve the quality of the student body critics then have substantial cause to call for the end of such programs. Cries of “reverse racism” depend upon an exaggerated appeal to political correctness itself, and I distance myself from such cries.

Of course, I agree with you that it is a healthy thing that administration officials be criticized, and I agree with you that there is a problem when such officials are criticized for the wrong reasons. The very point of my initial post is that cries of "reverse racism" will not necessarily lead to a desirable outcome; such reasons are wrong. It is the public criticism of these officials that ensures that the needs of the stakeholders are met. Arguing from the dogmatic position that diversity programs are wrong does nothing to persuade the legions of people who think about the problem long enough to ask “Why, in what context?”

Please elaborate upon your comment, "Whatever benefits there might be to creating more equal group outcomes, they are insignificant compared to the harm that results." Though my position is not that equal group outcomes ought to obtain, unless spoken of in the Aristotelian sense, I am nonetheless interested in understanding the basis for your assertion that a greater harm results.

Basil,
A drop by a half does not mean disappearance. Besides the numbers came back up later. But if they were to stay low for a long period, then one would have to wonder why, and, depending on the reason, address the problem at the level it exists.
Also I wasn't arguing that all forms of diversity are always wrong. However in Erin's post, the term means preferential treatment by race, and that was what I was referrring to.
As for your request for elaboration, the harms I was referring to were those that result from preferential programs generically., i.e. people are judged as members of groups rather than as individuals, racial categories become institutionalized, a victim mentality results, defacto quota systems result, there is a lack of emphasis on academic achievement, certain types of corruption occur in high places in the institution, and more generally, we run the risk of becoming another Lebanon, just to mention some obvious problems.

What makes this program particularly embarassing for Ohio is that it prides itself on being a university that serves south-eastern Ohio, an area rather more economically depressed than the rest of Ohio and overwhelmingly poor and white, and therefore champions itself as being a place that educates an awful lot of people who are the first in their families to go to college. To turn around and limit a program like this to people based on their skin color rather than economic status is to turn the university's back on its tradition of helping families move up the economic ladder.

I see that OU does not serve this area or its poorer residents particularly well.

Hocking College, the community college in nearby Nelsonville, does that job much better. It takes students who come from families steeped in ignorance with no support and virtually no usable high school education and gets them ready for academic life with teaching in a reality based environment that OU does not provide.

They then move on to OU or other schools, but in their first two years they will have received much more bang for their buck than they can expect from OU.

Basil,

Having a "blacks" only summer program is as racist and is illegal as having a "whites" only drinking fountain.

Also, the Washington Post report that for white males and black males with the SAME SAT scores, the black male is much more likely to go to college. The reason is quota and AA programs that accept blacks with qualifications that no white could ever hope to be admitted to if he applied.

Will be interesting to see where this goes in the courts, especially since this has already been addressed ad nauseum at SCOTUS.