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Wisconsin Regents Consider Race and Class

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UW Regents consider race, income for admissions policy (via the Green Bay Press-Gazette):

A proposed rewrite of freshman admissions policy for the University of Wisconsin System would de-emphasize class rank and give greater weight to nonacademic factors such as race and income.

I think it’s wonderful that the University of Wisconsin System and its Board of Regents are considering race and income as admissions factors.

The article states that nameless, faceless, and random conservatives are opposed to an admissions policy which considers race and class.

[C]onservatives sharply criticized the proposal after it became public earlier this year. They have questioned whether the policy would shut out academically qualified students in favor of minority and low-income students.

Translationwill middle to upper-class white students have their white privilege / class privilege challenged by this admissions policy?

The reality

  • Students of color who are academically gifted would increase their chances of being admitted because their academic record and their race would be considered.
  • Students of color who have low financial need would still have a chance for admission since race would be an admissions factor.

Related posts:

  1. A Race is a Nice Thing to Have
  2. Surveys, Race, and Banana Republic
  3. Discussion on race + Oregon
  4. Space Race Matters
  5. Race, Disaster and Comparative Suffering

Written by Eric Stoller

December 6th, 2006 at 4:16 pm

  • http://oregonstate.edu/~farism/blog Michael Faris

    Eric, I love you.

  • http://ericstoller.com/blog/ Eric Stoller

    Thanks Faris. I just came up with a scoring guide that recognizes race and income:

    Low income: +1
    Person from a historically underrepresented group: +1
    High academic ability: +1
    High income: +1 due to class privilege
    Low academic ability: 0
    White person: +1 due to white privilege

    Person of Color, low income, high academic ability: 3
    White person, low income, high academic ability: 3

    Person of Color, high income, high academic ability: 3
    White person, high income, high academic ability: 3

    Person of Color, low income, low academic ability: 2
    White person, low income, low academic ability: 2

    Person of Color, high income, low academic ability: 2
    White person, high income, low academic ability: 2