Racial Discrimination in the Admission of Students to University - Essay Example

“There is yet one more notable thing about this class that I would like to mention. You have helped to make Middlebury a more diverse and inclusive place than it was four years ago – which brings me to the theme I particularly want to discuss this afternoon. Your class is statistically the most diverse, and the most international, ever to graduate from Middlebury. That has certainly affected – and I would say greatly improved – the education you have received here.” Both McWhorter and Liebowitz agree that diversity is a positive step to improving the lives of many.

So why, therefore, do some universities use racial discrimination in the selection of students; accepting only the bare minimum of non-whites to the institution in order not to appear racist; instead of using SAT scores and grades as a meritocratic tool to admit students. Students do not just go to university in order to forge a well educated, national elite (McWhorter pg.438, ch.4), but also to enrich their own lives, to have a once in a lifetime experience where groups of people of relatively the same age can come together and socialize and form bonds as well as improve and change the order of thinking.

“Since my undergraduate days, however, elite universities have come to mean something much different when they speak of “diversity”: having as many brown faces on campus, regardless of standards.” In both cases, there would be racial discomfort, with the minority only interacting within their own community and not socializing with the larger university community. This would also cause segregation inside and between fraternity and sorority houses. If universities were to remove the diversity preference part of their recruitment program they, therefore, would have to admit students according to the intellect, for example, SAT results and grades instead even if this, as much as it proves valid, has the problem that their past.