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May 16, 2005
Affirmative Action in the Classroom
Via Number 2 Pencil, I saw this story about the University of Oregon offering classes
that reserve the first 10 slots in an 18-student class for minority students, while requiring others who want to get into the class to arrive on the morning of the first day of class and meet with an adviser before being allowed to register for the remaining eight slots. The OMAS pays for and controls three lower-division math and three lower-division English classes that allow fewer enrolled students and provide more individualized instructor attention. While other sections of Math 242 and Math 243 this term have an average of 115 students for lectures, 29 students for discussions and 35 students for integrated classes, the OMAS classes had a maximum of 18 students. The general Writing 121 and Writing 122 sections had an average of 25 students per class, and the OMAS sections were again restricted to 18 students.Linda Liu, advising coordinator and academic adviser for OMAS, said the classes are meant to offer a safe haven for minority students and give struggling students a chance to work more closely with professors.
This issue was brought to the forefront when a white student attempted to enroll in one of these classes because it was the only one available. This certainly seems like blatant racism to me. What’s the reason given for these classes?
University Senior Instructor Michel Kovcholovsky, who teaches the OMAS's math classes, said the classes were created to foster a comfortable environment for minorities. "That was the basic idea, so that they don't feel afraid to raise their hand and ask something."
Ahhh, the same condescending claptrap you always hear from these sorts of people. Minorities might feel afraid to raise their hands to ask a question if there are too many white people in the class. (This makes me wonder what they are going to do if they get a job in the real world where less than half of the workforce is non-white.) Let me just say, as a female engineering student I attended many a class where I was one of 2-3, if not the only, female in the class. It never caused me a moment of trouble.
I might also point out that, seeing as how American engineering programs attract a lot of students from different countries, there were also times when white students were in the minority in my classes. And yet no one ever made any concessions for us. Indeed, see my article from last month about unintelligible foreign instructors. On that subject many were saying that this problem was the fault of the white American students who just weren’t willing to suck it up and learn “worldly listening skills.” So what if it took them half the semester to learn how to understand the instructor and they were unable to catch up?
He said students enjoy interacting with him one-on-one.
Gee, you think other struggling students would enjoy interacting with you one-on-one?
The course material he teaches is exactly the same. "To lower the standards for people of color would be racism," Kovcholovsky said.
That last sentence there is pretty darn funny.
Senior psychology major Kady-Ann Davy, who identifies as Jamaican American, said she took an OMAS Writing 122 class her sophomore year, and she liked the class because it covered diverse cultures and provided time to free-write about her own experiences with diversity.
So the class material isn’t the same.
She said the enrollment policy is fair because coming from a smaller high school, she liked the opportunity to study in a smaller class and that the remaining slots still give everybody a chance to enroll.
Apparently the white students who come from small high schools or struggle with large classes just have to suck it up.
The comments on the article are filled with the sort of stuff you always hear from supporters of affirmative action. It’s ok because it’s just making up for past racism, white people have it better so it’s ok to discriminate against them, you’re a racist if you object to this, etc.
This is my favorite comment.
What does it mean to be white? Please think about that. Why do I have to go to a class and be the only person of color in my class? Do you know what that feels like? So what students of color have 5 classes designated for them, you have all the rest of the 1,000 or whatever amount of classes where you are the majority. You are right, this campus is racist, the fact that we are even contesting the validity of the classes is a joke.
Yes, because the school has more whites than blacks enrolled, even though there are more whites than blacks in the population, the school is racist. Obviously, America should ship over 100 million black people from other countries so that everything will be “fair.”
You know, I do sympathize with these people who have a hard time coming into an unfamiliar culture. I’m very shy, and I have trouble in many situations where there are lots of people who are substantially different from me in any one of many ways. I think anyone of any race would have trouble being in a school where the majority of the population is a different race with a different culture. But that’s just life, and dealing with those situations is how you learn tolerance and respect for people who are different from you and how you learn to function in the real world. These courses may be just as academically rigorous as the other classes, but they aren’t as socially rigorous and “people of color” don’t need to be protected from that anymore than a person from a rural area needs classes with only FFA members in them, or a Jew needs a class with no Christians allowed.
Linked at Outside the Beltway and Mudville Gazette's open post.
Posted by illuminaria at May 16, 2005 01:22 PM