A recent study has reported that a racially diverse university
may offer no more benefits to its students and faculty than a
homogeneous student body.
The study, “Does Enrollment Diversity Improve University
Education?” has attracted attention on the eve of the U.S.
Supreme Court’s hearing for the constitutionality of
affirmative action.
It runs in direct opposition to the majority of academic studies
done on racial diversity, including those that the University of
Michigan cite to support racial preferencing in admissions
policies.
“Our study found no positive relationship between
increasing minority population in a university and educational
experience, except in the case of Asians,” said Stanley
Rothman, director for the Center for the Study of Social and
Political Change at Smith College and one of the study’s
authors.
Rothman said the study found that when the Asian university
population increased, be it faculty or students, university
officials reported an improvement in educational experience.
However, in the case of all other minorities, the study found no
benefit. Rothman did not say why Asian students had a different
effect on educational experience.
The study findings are significant because, while the study did
not prove racial diversity is harmful, “the findings failed
to support the argument that enrollment diversity improves the
education and racial milieu at American colleges and
universities,” the study reported.
“We have not established it is bad, we have just found it
is not necessarily good,” Rothman said.
The study drew its information by conducting personal interviews
with 1,643 students, 1,632 faculty and 808 administrators across
140 randomly selected American colleges and universities.
The study, which focused on racial diversity at predominantly
and historically white colleges and universities after the
admittance of black students, found negative correlations between
minority enrollment and the degree to which students appreciate and
benefit from their education.
“As the proportion of black students enrolled at the
institution rose, student satisfaction with their university
experience dropped, as did assessments of the quality of their
education and the work efforts of their peers,” the study
reported.
The study, published in the International Journal of Public
Opinion and The Public Interest, comes at an important juncture in
the field of academic admittance.
Today, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear the case brought forth
by several white students who claim the undergraduate and law
school admittance policies of the University of Michigan are
racially biased.
University of Michigan Professor of psychology Patricia Gurin,
whose research is part of the university’s legal argument for
racially preferencing, disagrees with Rothman.
“A racially and ethnically diverse university student body
has far-ranging and significant benefits for all students,”
Gurin reported in a University of Michigan press release dated Mar.
17, 1999.
She added, “Students learn better in a diverse educational
environment.”
Gary Orfield, Harvard professor of education and social policy
and co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, said there
are myriad benefits from a diverse university student body, and
students know this.
“Students of all races overwhelmingly agree there are
benefits of interacting with students of other races,”
Orfield said.
He discredited Rothman’s study as unusual, “obsolete
and superficial.”
“The thing about racial diversity is it doesn’t
necessarily make you happy, but it is better for you,” he
said.
Some UCLA students said racial diversity is a good thing and
teaches people about other cultural perspectives, but others noted
that racial diversity is often not realized because of student
social behavior.
Ben Bert, a third-year physiological science student, and Yuriy
Dyudyuk, a first-year international economics student, said that
although UCLA is a diverse university, most students typically
associate with students of their own cultural background.
“Southern California has a weird understanding of
diversity; every race is represented, but every race stays to
itself,” Bert said.
Dyudyuk agreed, “It ends up being segregated anyway.
People don’t get out of their bubbles.”
Other students said racial diversity is good because of what
they have learned from people of cultures and ethnicities different
from their own.
“Having a culturally diverse community is important or
else you get a homogenous, one-sided group that only sees things
one way,” said first-year English student Aaron Fai.
Tarah Giz, a third-year sociology student, said it is a negative
thing for Americans to attend racially homogenous schools because
they will not be prepared to handle the diverse population of
post-college life.
“In the real world you are faced with different
ethnicities and cultures; it makes sense to go to a school that is
diverse,” Giz said.