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More issues at Iowa
The University of Iowa is grappling with an athletics-department scandal, a search for a new president, and an ill-conceived model for conducting that search. It is also, as the Daily Iowan unwittingly reports today, asking for some unwanted attention from the Office of Civil Rights. It's understood now that public colleges and universities cannot discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or ethnicity -- and it is understood, too, that this means scholarships and similar programs that are exclusively earmarked for minorities are unconstitutional. In recent years, a number of schools, among them Carnegie Mellon, Harvard, and Yale, have either eliminated or reworked such programs to bring them into line with the law; failure to do so puts an institution at great risk.
In an article that both notes and discounts the legal problems faced by public schools that maintain minority-based programs, the Daily Iowan describes how UI is keeping its "'ethnic' financial aid" program in the form of the "Opportunity at Iowa" scholarship. Awarded annually to between 50 and 100 students, the scholarship grants $5000 a year to highly qualified minority students. The article notes that program director Marcella David has no plans to remove the requirement that recipients be of non-white descent; it also notes that Iowa has several other minority-based student-aid packages.
Apart from the article's blithe documentation of Iowa's blatant disregard for the law, what is most interesting about it is its inclusion of interviews with two minority students whose thinking about such programs underscores the manner in which even those who are eligible for them are disserved by them.
The first student mentioned in the article is Amber Lively, a fair-skinned blonde of Choctaw descent who refused a minority-based full ride to Princeton because she does not believe in accepting scholarship money for anything other than academic merit, and who now divides her unfunded time between UI and a local community college. "I knew I didn't have the grades for [Princeton], and my family's income was high enough that I knew need wasn't it," she told the Daily. "I didn't feel comfortable receiving it based on something I don't really identify with, unless it was merit-based."
The second student mentioned in the article is Lindsey Loban, a UI sophomore who receives an Opportunity at Iowa scholarship despite the fact that she does not really identify with her hispanic heritage or even with her minority status. "The Oelwein native doesn't consider herself a minority at the university," the article observes; Loban justifies accepting the scholarship because it is at least partially merit-based: "If I knew I were receiving a scholarship based solely on my background, I would consider turning it down."
Neither student likes the idea of minority-based scholarships; neither identifies particularly with the ethnicity that makes her eligible for such scholarships. One turns the money down, keeping her integrity while signing on for a tougher, less certain path through college. The other takes the money, compromising her integrity while rationalizing her decision in ways she should never be asked by a degree-granting institution to do. Both are casualties, in different ways, of a system that sees them as prestigious notches on its diversity belt. "The university's strategic plan recognizes that diversity is vital to educational excellence," David told the Daily. "And it is appropriate that we use our resources, including scholarships, to better achieve this."
The question David leaves hanging in the air is a pressing one: In using resources, including scholarships, to achieve the university's strategic plan for diversity, what happens to the humanity of those who are themselves reduced to resources to be used in the pursuit of that all-important strategic plan? Lively knows what she thinks the answer is; Loban doesn't want to know.
Posted by acta online at April 4, 2006 08:28 AM
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acta online: April 2006 Archives The second student mentioned in the article is Lindsey Loban, a UI sophomore who receives an Opportunity at Iowa scholarship despite the fact that she does not really identify with her hispanic heritage or even... [Read More]
Tracked on April 4, 2006 10:06 AM