Mixed race students confront college admission dilemmas

Wow. As if college admissions decisions weren't difficult enough as it is:

At the beginning of the college application season last fall, Natasha Scott, a high school senior of mixed racial heritage in Beltsville, Md., vented about a personal dilemma on College Confidential, the go-to electronic bulletin board for anonymous conversation about admissions.

“I just realized that my race is something I have to think about,” she wrote, describing herself as having an Asian mother and a black father. “It pains me to say this, but putting down black might help my admissions chances and putting down Asian might hurt it.”

“My mother urges me to put down black to use AA” — African-American — “to get in to the colleges I’m applying to,” added Ms. Scott, who identified herself on the site as Clearbrooke. “I sort of want to do this but I’m wondering if this is morally right.”

Within minutes, a commenter had responded, “You’re black. You should own it.” Someone else agreed, “Put black!!!!!!!! Listen to your mom.”

No one advised marking Asian alone. But one commenter weighed in with advice that could just as well have come from any college across the country: “You can put both. You can put one. You’re not dishonest either way. Just put how you feel.”

Until this year, questions about race on most college applications were much simpler. A student who was white with a distant American Indian ancestor , for instance, would most likely have identified himself as white.

But students can now choose from a menu of new boxes of racial and ethnic categories — because the Department of Education started requiring universities this past school year to comply with a broad federal edict to collect more information about race and ethnicity. The change has made it easier for students to claim a multiracial identity — highlighting those parts of their backgrounds they might want to bring to the fore and disregarding others, as Ms. Scott considered doing with her Asian heritage.

So the number of applicants who identify themselves as multiracial has mushroomed, adding another layer of anxiety, soul- (and family-tree-) searching and even gamesmanship to the process.

The new options have forced colleges to confront thorny questions, including how to account for various racial mixes in seeking diversity on campus. Is a student applying as black and Latino more desirable in terms of diversity than someone who is white and black? Or white and Vietnamese? Should the ethnicities of one’s distant relatives be considered fair game, or just parents? And what should be done about students who skip the race question altogether — a sizable number of whom, some studies have shown, are white, and do so either in protest or out of fear that identifying as merely white could hurt rather than help their chances in this new environment?

Some scholars worry that the growth in multiracial applicants could further erode the original intent of affirmative action, which is to help disadvantaged minorities. For example, families with one black parent and one white parent are on average more affluent than families with two black parents. When choosing between two such applicants, some universities might lean toward the multiracial student because he will need less financial aid while still counting toward affirmative-action goals.

Read the whole thing.

The effect of the huge increase in multi-ethnicity students reaching their college admissions years is another thing I never really thought about from this perspective, although I did have a Nordic god of a step-cousin go to school as a Native American for free. But what about those whose ethnicity is Asian and African-American, as with the student in this article? Or how about a politician with a white mother and an African father who identifies (and is identified by others) as African-American?

And should it really even matter in college admissions?

An apology for supporting segregation in Virginia

Well, I guess this is "better late than never."

A Virginia newspaper expressed regret Thursday for supporting a systematic campaign by the state's white political leaders to maintain separate public schools for blacks and whites in the 1950s.

The Richmond Times-Dispatch acknowledged in an editorial that it and its now-defunct sister newspaper, The News Leader, played a central role in the "dreadful doctrine" of Massive Resistance. "The record fills us with regret," the newspaper said.

The newspaper took the unusual step of promoting the editorial on its front page. The editorial was published on the eve of a conference in Richmond marking the 50th anniversary of the end of Massive Resistance, which was dismantled by a 1959 court ruling.

Massive Resistance was Virginia's answer to Brown v. Board of Education, the 1954 Supreme Court decision that outlawed school segregation. Endorsed at the highest levels of state government and promoted by U.S. Sen. Harry F. Byrd, the policy cut funds to any school that dared to integrate.

"The hour was ignoble," the editorial says. "Editorials in The News Leader relentlessly championed Massive Resistance and the dubious constitutional arguments justifying its unworthy cause. Although not so intimately engaged, The Times-Dispatch was complicit."

Words are indeed powerful. Although, these words of apology would certainly have been more powerful if they hadn't waited fifty years to utter them.

You know, I've heard apologists for segregation repeatedly act as if the problems of the civil rights movement were purely a "Deep South" phenomenon, all a part of the "it's just a part of the Southern culture" mumbo-jumbo-- that it was in places like Mississippi and Alabama and South Carolina, especially areas where blacks outnumbered whites, that the worst kinds of race relations took place. That kind of thinking flies in the face of facts, such as that Linda Brown lived in Topeka, KANSAS. They also ignore the fact that the Brown case was actually five cases combined together: besides the Topeka action, lawsuits from Prince Edward County, Virginia; Summerton, South Carolina; Claymont, Delaware; and Washington, D.C were part of the Brown decision. Although Delaware was technically a Northern state, as was Kansas, our nation's capital was (and is) a Southern city. The evils of segregation and discrimination remain a legacy ALL Americans must acknowledge.

Holiday hunger

A school district in Ohio is keeping its lunch lines open during the holiday break to make sure that needy students still have access to at least one hot meal a day during the week.

A school district in Ohio says the economy is so tight it has kept its cafeterias open during Christmas break to provide hot lunches for needy students.

It's the first time North College Hill School district outside Cincinnati has kept its lunch lines going through the holiday break.
Officials say two-thirds of the district's 1,600 students are economically disadvantaged, up from fewer than one in 10 a decade ago.

The national School Nutrition Association says almost 80 percent of the schools it surveyed are reporting an increase in the number of free lunches served this year.

What does it mean when our society has descended to this point? True, there are no doubt some of these students who could be fed if the adults in their lives made feeding their children a priority over their own entertainment-- and I am speaking as someone who knows personally people who do wrongheaded things like this consistently-- but kids should not suffer hunger as a consequence of the decisions of their parents.

In this time of giving, please don't forget to support your local food pantry as well.

Should GLBT teens have their own school?

In Chicago, they're thinking about it:

Weeks after a proposal to open Chicago's first public high school catering to gay, lesbian and transgender youth was announced, about 200 people on Thursday met with administrators at the city's main gay social services center to discuss whether it's a good idea.

The Social Justice High School—Pride Campus would offer a college-preparatory curriculum in which students would take four years each of English and math, three years each of foreign languages and science, as well as fine arts and physical education, administrators said during the public hearing at the Center on Halsted on Chicago's North Side.

"[We want] to continue to provide a college-prep campus for students who are often overlooked," said Chad Weiden, an assistant principal at the Social Justice High School who would be the principal of Pride Campus. "Gay, lesbian and transgender students are often overlooked in our district. And this is a school for all students."

As a gay youth, Weiden said, he often experienced violence and fear at school.

But Andy Thayer, a co-founder of the Gay Liberation Network, said he fears the Pride Campus could relieve Chicago Public School administrators of responsibility for making sure gay and lesbian students throughout the district are being treated respectfully.

"My fear is that the rest of the system will be let off the hook," Thayer said. "The notion that the Pride Campus is a silver bullet to set aside all needs of [lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender] youth is mistaken."

Administrators at the meeting said the Pride Campus would not segregate gay students because attendance is voluntary and the institution would be open to all students, regardless of their sexual orientation.

District chief executive Arne Duncan is expected to decide by Oct. 1 whether he wants to bring the proposal for Pride Campus to the board for a vote. If Duncan decides to go forward with the plan, there will be at least one more public hearing before the board votes on Oct. 22.

Backers of the school said that even if they receive the necessary approvals, they do not expect the school to open until 2012. A site for the school must still be determined.

The plan is being put forward by members of the Greater Lawndale Little Village High School for Social Justice.

Officials expect a school of up to 600 students, and those familiar with the project expect a high population of minorities.

Okay, first, why was the announcement made, and then public input sought? That's a pretty ineffective way to do things.

Second, is segregation really the answer?

Third, and I am serious here, is this also an attempt to make things easier on the part of administrators who then hope to shove GLBT teens off into a corner, or is this meant to empower GLBT teens? Would the school still have a comprehensive curriculum, or would it focus on GLBT issues at the expense of academic content?

I don't know what to think about this, but I thought I'd throw it out there for the rest of you to at least ponder as well. I seem to recall that New York City runs a separate school for GLBT teens named after Harvey Milk, but I could be wrong.