Using Synonyms for Race, College Strives for Diversity

HOUSTON, Dec. 6 — When a federal appeals court in New Orleans ruled in 1996 that the University of Texas Law School could not legally consider race in admitting students, lawyers at Rice University, a highly selective private college here, reluctantly decided that the ruling applied to it, too.

Almost overnight, the admissions officers at Rice stopped saying aloud the words "black," "African-American," "Latino," "Hispanic" or even "minority" in their deliberations. The next year, the proportion of black students admitted in the freshman class fell by half; the proportion of Hispanics fell by nearly a third.

The university feared that openly defying the federal court could cost it $45 million annually in federal aid, about 15 percent of its budget.

But like other colleges, Rice says it remains fiercely committed to having a diverse student body, so in the years since, it has developed creative, even sly ways to meet that goal and still obey the court. Thus the admissions committee, with an undisguised wink, has encouraged applicants to discuss "cultural traditions" in their essays, asked if they spoke English as a second language and taken note, albeit silently, of those identified as presidents of their black student associations.

Those efforts, along with stepped-up recruiting at high schools with traditionally high minority populations, yielded a freshman class last year with a near-record composition of blacks and Hispanics. Of the 700 freshmen, 7 percent are black, 11 percent Hispanic.

The experience of Rice provides a preview of the subtle ways that life would most likely change inside the admissions offices of colleges like Yale, Princeton and Stanford should the Supreme Court decide to impose strict restrictions on affirmative action. Those restrictions could be issued next year, when, the court said this week, it intends to consider two cases challenging racial preferences in admissions at the University of Michigan.

At issue is the court's 1978 Bakke decision, which has been widely interpreted as permitting public and private colleges to consider an applicant's race a "plus" in assembling a class.

Public universities — including those in Texas, Florida and California — have responded to lower-court decisions and other efforts to roll back Bakke by automatically accepting a set percentage of students ranked at the top of each public high school in their states. Because some of those high schools have heavy minority populations, a minority presence in the university system is assured.

But private colleges like Rice have long shunned such formulas as too mechanical and impersonal and have instead adopted a more nuanced approach that colleges elsewhere see as a blueprint, should they face a prohibition like that imposed by the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, whose jurisdiction is Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.

"You can no longer say to the committee, `This is a great African-American from New York,' " said Julie M. Browning, the dean for undergraduate enrollment at Rice. "You have to drop a lot of language associated with affirmative action."

Instead, Ms. Browning said, the admissions team at Rice has developed a whole new vocabulary — including the overarching goal of achieving "cultural inclusiveness" in the student body — to justify its admissions decisions.

That new lexicon was evident this morning as the seven-member admissions committee met under a vaulted stucco ceiling here to winnow the list of nearly 500 students who have applied for early admission to the Class of 2007.

One of the first candidates under consideration had an obviously Hispanic last name, but no one on the committee mentioned it. Though other colleges affix color-coded stickers to the folders of minority applicants, Rice blots out students' answers to questions on their application about race or ethnicity. (Office assistants who are sworn to secrecy first record the answers for later use to make a statistical profile of applicants.)

While there were obvious clues that this applicant was Hispanic — a recommendation from a teacher noted his "desire to represent his Hispanic heritage" — the members of the committee found other ways to support his case, including his good grades in hard courses.

"He is first-generation college," said Jamila Mensa, the admissions officer charged with making the presentation. "The teacher described him as altruistic."

Another committee member, noting problems in the student's family, used admissions' shorthand to describe the candidate as "an overcome," and later said, "I just like the `overcome' here."

In the committee's opinion, these qualities helped the student rise above an SAT score more than 150 points below the 1400-point median at Rice in recent years. After just a few minutes of discussion, he was unanimously admitted.

For opponents of affirmative action, who have long argued that colleges have different standards for white and nonwhite applicants, the vote on this student would have provided little comfort. In response to a reporter's question, university officials refused to release statistics that they have gathered comparing the SAT scores of minority applicants accepted to Rice to those of nonminority applicants. They said only that the scores of minorities are generally lower nationally, and in the Rice pool as well.

Partly by engaging in delicate minuets like those danced by the committee this morning, Rice has faced no legal challenges in the six years since the lower court ruled in the case known as Hopwood v. Texas.

"You can't be using race or ethnicity as a factor in admission," said Richard Zansitis, the university's general counsel, in explaining the ground rules of Hopwood, which could serve the Supreme Court as a blueprint. "On the other hand, if a student has shown leadership — it may be in the black students association, it could be the chess club — that's something to look for in assessing that student as an individual. Whether it's leadership in an ethnic or racial organization is irrelevant."

The timing of the Hopwood decision was especially inopportune for Rice, which generally receives about 7,000 applications for a freshman class of about 700. Founded by a wealthy cotton trader in the early 1900's as an exclusively white institution, the university went to court in 1965 to change its charter so that minority students would be welcome to study on its campus of gingerbread buildings.

By 1996, the proportion of blacks (7.7 percent) and Hispanics (11 percent) in the freshman class was among the highest of any top college in the nation. Six years later, the Class of 2006, which arrived on campus this fall, was 7.1 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic. The percentage of Asian-Americans was 16 percent.

Over that period, the university increased its canvassing of high schools with many minority students — including Eleanor Roosevelt in Greenbelt, Md., and Central High School in Philadelphia — and tripled its budget for flying minority students to campus for recruiting visits, which Hopwood permits. (None of the voting members of the committee are permitted to meet those recruits.)

Some minority students at Rice said that the university's abandonment of affirmative action, at least in its classical definition, has made them feel an enhanced sense of pride at getting in.

Vanessa Costilla, 18, a freshman from Anton, Tex., who is Mexican-American, said her admission to Rice probably meant more than her admission to two Northeastern colleges, Smith and Wellesley, which still give a lift to minority applicants.

"I don't think that just because I was Hispanic-American I got into Rice," said Ms. Costilla, the valedictorian of her 25-member high school class and president of "everything except the Future Farmers of America."

But Kristin Dukes, 19, a sophomore from Greenville, Tex., who is black, said that many of her classmates were unaware of the university's admissions policies.

"At Rice, probably in the back of their minds, kids are still thinking I was privileged to get in because of the color of my skin," said Ms. Dukes, a psychology major. "Just because they have new standards at the university doesn't mean the students at the university feel the same way."

I thought courts dropped anvils on organizations that defied court rulings like this. Why have they been allowed to get away with it? If SCOTUS stikes-down affirmative action next year, what's to stop the quota mongers from simply side-stepping their decision in just this way?

That is exactly the reason for writing this article, to serve as a blueprint in the event of a ruling to strike. The author clearly implies this here:

What makes you think that government funding of research makes it any less biased, and less likely of there being an axe to grind somewhere? Please. There is more worthless 'research' promulgated by government than there is research with a real payoff for humanity. Everyone knows it. Congress hands out pork to universities like candy at Halloween.

FYI, research is not only possible without government subsidy, without government subsidy, it's a damn sight more likely it would occur in areas where it would be profitable to study, as opposed to what some politician would like to see 'studied' by his favorite hometown school and his ol' buddy professors.

Because something is good and productive does not mean that that government has any reason to be involved in it somehow. Don't assume government subsidy makes anything better. If anything, this whole thread should demonstrate to you how much getting Uncle Sam in the mix makes things worse.

Government funded research is key because it funds both basic and application science. My congressman doesn't have a damn thing to do with whether one of my researchers gets a grant from NIH or DOE or NSF. Nor does he/she direct, via some pork program, my scientists research interest areas. My scientists determine their research areas and apply for govt funded grants in the area of their research.

FYI, I'm totally aware that research is possible w/o govt funding. That usually means it is funded from SOMEWHERE, such as private corporations, private non-profits or private individuals. Each of those groups have their biases which can weigh much more heavily on the money usage than does govt funded grants.

I'm not assuming government funding makes "anything" better. I know that government funding is not only essential for good science to get done, but is also smart - If my govt is going to use my tax dollars to fund research, then I want that research to be in areas of both pure and application science - we get incredible discoveries from both.

No one is saying here, least of all me, that govt funding of research is the only way to do it. Quite frankly, in my opinion, the future of science funding is partnerships w/industry. There are inherent problems with that approach but there are inherent positives too.

You ARE assuming government funding makes something better. You say it's essential for good "pure" science to get done. Seems to me you assume that no one would do it or pay for it if it weren't for good old Uncle Sam and my taxes. And if your assumption is true, if good "pure" science must have government funding to get done, it's simply amazing that history progressed at all before government.

"Aiiigh! Fire burn...Unk need grant."

But I think the most important part of your comments are where you say "If my govt is going to use my tax dollars to fund research..."

The answer to that logic is simple. Defuse the conditional. Your government and mine SHOULD NOT use your tax dollars or mine to fund ANY research.

The problem is that even though expending my tax dollars on NIH or DOE or any other research may produce productive, useful, wonderful incredible discoveries, it doesn't make those expenditures "necessary and proper." It doesn't make them pass constitutional muster. What is productive, useful, and wonderful is up to me to judge, and you taking my money to spend on programs you consider productive and I care not a whit about is just as evil as me taking your money to spend on booze.

So they want "diversity". Fine. Expel all of the white kids. Job done.

That is all that "diversity" means. It means "No white folks wanted here". That is the entire meaning of "diversity". It makes a great code word for "complete genocide of all of those evil, dirty, rotten white people".

Diversity. Coming to every first world country on the planet, and to your neighborhood real soon now. Don't complain or else we'll call you "racist".

Read what I wrote - "I'm not assuming government funding makes "anything" better." Emphasis on the word "anything." Maybe you should take a short course in reading.

Govt doesn't have to fund research. You won't benefit from medical discoveries because they won't happen anywhere near the rate they do now. We won't have a clue about atomic subparts and won't be able to devise a Star Wars system.

Yes, we can go back to the Cro Magnon era you seem to favor. I'd prefer not to and am glad that part of my tax dollars go to fund research that is saving lives, making new discoveries which give us more of a clue about the role of genes in disease, and subatomic particles.

And it looks like, Cro Magnon, you're in the minority (thank God) so you get to live vicariously (and benefit directly) from medical and engineering advancements that would otherwise not have happened if we were left to YOUR own devices.

I read everything you wrote. Which is why I know full well that you SAY that you don't assume that government funding makes "anything" better. But to explain it again: you do in fact make that assumption. You do in fact assume government funding DOES make "anything" better. You assume that it specifically makes research better. This was the point of the word change. Maybe you should take a long course in logic and a longer one in manners.

Liberals are happy to know that there are plenty just like you, that think the Departments of Agriculture, Education, Health and Human Services, and all the rest are vital and necessary--individually. That's how big government gets to be big government. You think your stuff is important and productive, farmers think their stuff is important and productive, and we all get the bill because you're all too busy being important and productive to realize that you're spending OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY.

So as long as it doesn't affect your favorite budget or your government funding, you're conservative. As long as you get the taxes as your paycheck or grant funding, it's okay that the money comes from others. Papering it over with words like "saves lives" and "engineering advancements," peppering me with insults like "Cro-Magnon," and attempting to guilt people into thinking you are some one-person crusade for humanity, that all might make you feel better about the fact you're cashing a check drawn on other people's money, but it doesn't stop you from being a hypocrite.

In deciding that you'll spend my money more wisely than I would, you have accepted the liberal viewpoint that us dumb unwashed "Cro-Magnons" simply won't spend our money in the sensible way it should be spent. So you'll just have to do it for me, to larn me `bout them atomic subparts and Star Wars and health research, and if I'm lucky, maybe someday after hicks like me get all book smarted up you'll teach me. And if I don't grow up, well, you'll just use the government to make sure I pay up, anyway.

Go take your silver pieces and watch O'Reilly. You can imagine you're a conservative again.

Oh, I vote absentee, and I'd be willing to bet I've been far more active in representative government than you have, but that's not the problem. The problem is your attempt to sideline the debate, telling me to "stop whining" so that you avoid facing the real issue, which is that you're so happy taking a check and expanding government's intrusion that you forget that you're plain wrong for doing so.

So, you see, I didn't miss the concept of representative government. I just didn't forget that the folks who established our representative government for us intended that government to be for, of, and by the people, not some collective wallet for the fleecing by well-intentioned but smugly self-righteous people like you.

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