A New Kind of Diversity

In the wake of the Supreme Court ruling disallowing the use of race in admissions something surprising (although it should have been predictable) is happening. While admissions of Black students to Ivy League schools is down, admissions to state schools is up.

The New York Times reported this week that Black admissions to the nation’s 50 most selective schools, which includes all of the Ivies, was down 27% while admissions to flagship state universities was up by 8%. The percentages are probably misleading because the selective schools tend to have lower enrollments than the bigger state schools. So, a 27% drop in a collection of smaller campuses and fewer schools may be about the same number of actual students as an 8% increase on a larger base.

This strikes me as good news. The UW Madison campus has been struggling for decades to get more diversity. Despite all kinds of efforts the Black enrollment here has been stuck in the low single digits forever. While the report didn’t have any specific numbers for Madison, the trend may mean that the UW will finally make some progress in this regard. And, of course, that will be true on lots of campuses all over the country.

Yet, this was reported by the Times as some sort of tragedy. That’s because the Times never questions the fundamental assumption that the Ivy League is a gate through which every American leader in government, industry or culture must pass. But, as David Brooks has pointed out, much of the Trump Administration is made up of Ivy Leaguers. And, in fact, much of the “resistance” is made up of Ivy grads as well. Brooks sees this as, to some extent, a pissing match between elites with everybody else as pawns.

We’d be better off if we just jettisoned the whole notion of elite school attendance as being some sort of seal of approval for leadership. After all, if Ivy Leaguers are high officials in the most incompetent, mean-spirited administration in history, shouldn’t that make us question the value of an Ivy League education?

With many institutions still — or likely to return — to at least some informal policy of diversity within their leadership ranks this could mean that Black grads from the UW or other state schools might find themselves in influential spots in the future. And they’ll get to the top with another good kind of diversity — the different experiences and educations they will have received at high quality state schools.

That’s all he wrote for this week, kids. We’ll see about a Quote & Quiz for tomorrow. Go, Seahawks!