Date: 9|13|2011
UW-Madison Urges Response, Students Disrupt Press Conference
By: Brian Sikma
In a study that is drawing attention from the highest levels of the University of Wisconsin ? Madison?s leadership, the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative national education research organization, has unveiled a vast racial acceptance gap in UW-Madison?s enrollment practices. At fault is the university?s habit of using affirmative action to give lower performing African American and Hispanic applicants an edge over more academically qualified Asian and Caucasian applicants. The problem is evident at both the undergraduate and law school level.
In the law school alone, the study found that African Americans have a 7 out of 10 chance of getting admitted while Caucasian applicants with the same scores on their LSAT have only a 1 in 10 chance of getting accepted. Hispanic applicants have a 1 in 3 chance of being accepted while Asian students with equal academic qualifications have a 1 in 6 chance ? half the likelihood ? of being accepted.
Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a former teacher?s union staff member who became the highest ranking Latina ever appointed to a Cabinet position, commented on the study?s findings saying, ?This is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years.?
Damon Williams - Image courtesy of the Badger Herald
When word of the study?s findings came out overnight Monday, and it became apparent that the Center would be promoting their research Tuesday, UW-Madison apparently felt that a swift and strong response was required. According to the Badger Herald, an independent campus newspaper, Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate Damon Williams called a meeting of students on Tuesday morning and urged them to mobilize and respond without waiting for official university action.
After receiving sanction and encouragement from the administration, some students disrupted the Center for Equal Opportunity?s press conference held later in the day. Whether or not the students who received Dr. Williams? instruction are the same students that mobbed the Center?s press conference and shut it down is not yet clear. What is clear is that some clarification is needed from the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s administration. Did the vice provost and others intend for students to adopt hard-edged and disruptive tactics?
Dr. Williams joined the university in 2008 and his salary (disclosed in the press release announcing his appointment) is $150,000 annually. Earlier this year he said that he felt the school was progressing in the area of increased minority enrollment. It would seem that the affirmative action plan under review now serves as an important element in that program of increasing minority enrollment.
An interview with a student newspaper in May found Williams speaking of what motivated him to spend his career in diversity leadership. His rhetoric had a tinge of the language used by many left-wing community organizers when they describe their chosen profession.
As I was completing my undergraduate degree at Miami I desired some additional tools to become an agent of change with all the theory I had learned. Then when I was in grad school at the University of Michigan, issues of strategic planning and leadership development hit me like the Holy Ghost.
Williams, as an agent of change, should be focused on bridging gaps. If his expressed support for the sum total of UW-Madison?s attempts to boost minority student enrollment has earned some scrutiny, he should explain why the school?s affirmative action program is a positive thing. Urging students to ?respond? and then leaving them to do whatever they chose to do may not be the wisest course of action.
Mob-like actions by students are not something that UW-Madison leaders should encourage or promote. Diversity and a civil climate on campus would include serious dialogue with those that reasonably disagree with the school?s practices. An opportunity has been provided for Dr. Williams and the school to evaluate the relative success or failure of their efforts. The affirmative action matter shouldn?t be something that becomes a shouting matching that relies on stunts as a replacement for responsible debate.
UW-Madison Urges Response, Students Disrupt Press Conference
By: Brian Sikma
In a study that is drawing attention from the highest levels of the University of Wisconsin ? Madison?s leadership, the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative national education research organization, has unveiled a vast racial acceptance gap in UW-Madison?s enrollment practices. At fault is the university?s habit of using affirmative action to give lower performing African American and Hispanic applicants an edge over more academically qualified Asian and Caucasian applicants. The problem is evident at both the undergraduate and law school level.
In the law school alone, the study found that African Americans have a 7 out of 10 chance of getting admitted while Caucasian applicants with the same scores on their LSAT have only a 1 in 10 chance of getting accepted. Hispanic applicants have a 1 in 3 chance of being accepted while Asian students with equal academic qualifications have a 1 in 6 chance ? half the likelihood ? of being accepted.
Linda Chavez, chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity and a former teacher?s union staff member who became the highest ranking Latina ever appointed to a Cabinet position, commented on the study?s findings saying, ?This is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years.?
Damon Williams - Image courtesy of the Badger Herald
When word of the study?s findings came out overnight Monday, and it became apparent that the Center would be promoting their research Tuesday, UW-Madison apparently felt that a swift and strong response was required. According to the Badger Herald, an independent campus newspaper, Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate Damon Williams called a meeting of students on Tuesday morning and urged them to mobilize and respond without waiting for official university action.
After receiving sanction and encouragement from the administration, some students disrupted the Center for Equal Opportunity?s press conference held later in the day. Whether or not the students who received Dr. Williams? instruction are the same students that mobbed the Center?s press conference and shut it down is not yet clear. What is clear is that some clarification is needed from the University of Wisconsin-Madison?s administration. Did the vice provost and others intend for students to adopt hard-edged and disruptive tactics?
Dr. Williams joined the university in 2008 and his salary (disclosed in the press release announcing his appointment) is $150,000 annually. Earlier this year he said that he felt the school was progressing in the area of increased minority enrollment. It would seem that the affirmative action plan under review now serves as an important element in that program of increasing minority enrollment.
An interview with a student newspaper in May found Williams speaking of what motivated him to spend his career in diversity leadership. His rhetoric had a tinge of the language used by many left-wing community organizers when they describe their chosen profession.
As I was completing my undergraduate degree at Miami I desired some additional tools to become an agent of change with all the theory I had learned. Then when I was in grad school at the University of Michigan, issues of strategic planning and leadership development hit me like the Holy Ghost.
Williams, as an agent of change, should be focused on bridging gaps. If his expressed support for the sum total of UW-Madison?s attempts to boost minority student enrollment has earned some scrutiny, he should explain why the school?s affirmative action program is a positive thing. Urging students to ?respond? and then leaving them to do whatever they chose to do may not be the wisest course of action.
Mob-like actions by students are not something that UW-Madison leaders should encourage or promote. Diversity and a civil climate on campus would include serious dialogue with those that reasonably disagree with the school?s practices. An opportunity has been provided for Dr. Williams and the school to evaluate the relative success or failure of their efforts. The affirmative action matter shouldn?t be something that becomes a shouting matching that relies on stunts as a replacement for responsible debate.
