Yet More On “Diversity” At UVa

The Washington Post published a remarkable letter today from a third year law student at UVa about the effect of the alleged attack on Daisy Lundy on race at the UVa Law School. The most remarkable thing about it is its length: at about 750 words, I think it’s the longest letter I’ve ever seen in the WaPo. It resembled an OpEd, or even a regular WaPo Ed, much more than a normal letter.

A few questionable assertions (below in italics, followed by my comments) are worth noting:

On a bitterly cold evening in February in Charlottesville, Daisy Lundy went to her car to get her cell phone.

Not exactly evening. It was 2:30 in the morning, and she claimed to be on her way to the library to do some campaigning.

Lundy, who went on to win the election [as president of the student council]….

Actually, in the face of the paroxysm of guilt, vigils, new demands for “diversity,” etc., there was no real election. Lundy’s opponent withdrew from the race, which it later was revealed she had been losing.

But leave those aside. The letter revealing details the frenzy of activity at the law school that followed the alleged attack/attack. (The first paragraph says an assailant “allegedly” attacked Lundy, but subsequent paragraphs refer to “the attack.”)

Although a massive blizzard had just begun, within a day of the attack 125 students, professors and community members came together at the law school to found the Committee for Progress on Race. This committee quickly coordinated a march and a candlelight vigil at the school’s rotunda featuring a poignant keynote address by law professor Anne Coughlin. The event attracted more than 500 people, and the momentum it generated provided the law school with an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate and reform its curriculum…. [Read this for a considerably less favorable view of Professor Coughlin’s comments to the estimated “200 to 400” vigilers. Among other things, she said that she was afraid to speak and that her “fears are produced by racism…. My fear has made me an ignorant person.”]

The Committee for Progress on Race rapidly developed a proposal calling for a Center for the Study of Race and Law….

As of the first week in September, the center was up and running….

The writer’s real concern, however, is with the number of black law students at UVa.

The question is whether such momentum can be used to tackle affirmative action at the law school. In the past few years, the law school’s 350-member entering class has included, on average, only 20 black students. Yet from 1986 to 1995, each entering class had, on average, 40 black students.

Explanations vary for this sharp drop in diversity. Some administration officials point to the increased threat during the mid-1990s of anti-affirmative action lawsuits from organizations such as the Center for Individual Rights, the increased importance of law school rankings and stiff competition from other top schools that allocate far more money to financial aid than the University of Virginia does.

I would like to hear from those “administration officials” how the threat of anti-preference lawsuits could have reduced the number of admitted black student who chose to attend UVa. That aside, it seems clear, even to the letter writer, that top black law students are in demand everywhere, and UVa has stiff competition in persuading them to come. His solution? Pay more to persuade them to come.

The issue at U-Va. isn’t racism; it’s resources. The university provides a comparatively small pool of scholarship funds and does not pay for minority applicants’ campus visits or fund a minority recruitment weekend. It lacks a special minority recruitment brochure and has a minimal admissions staff. These factors contribute to its difficulty in persuading minority students to come to U-Va.

Reasonable people can debate whether or not it is such a travesty that the proportion of black law students at UVa declined from roughly equal to the percentage of blacks in the total population of the U.S. (about 12%) to the current figure of just under 6% in this year’s class. But does such a decline automatically equate to “a sharp drop in diversity?”

The number of entering black students may have declined from 40 to 20 over the past decade or so, but before lamenting “a sharp drop in diversity” isn’t it at least necessary to know who the 20 non-black students are who took their places? What if they are from formerly unrepresented foreign countries, communicants of formerly unrepresented minor religions, have out of the mainstream political views, or have overcome severe if non-pigmentary disabilities? For all we know, real diversity, as opposed to “diversity,” may actually have increased at UVa.

Or maybe “diverse” has already become so widely accepted as a synonym for “black” that such complaints are pointless.

I should know. After all, the car we just bought is diverse.

Say What? (4)

  1. Laura October 20, 2003 at 8:51 am | | Reply

    “After all, the car we just bought is diverse.”

    Thanks for the giggle. That’s the right note for a Monday morning.

  2. Dom October 20, 2003 at 3:14 pm | | Reply

    Did you notice that the letter writer did not mention the attack on the two other students that you posted on (I forget their names)? Why wasn’t this incident taken as an “unprecedented opportunity to evaluate and reform [UVa’s] curriculum”?

    Dom

  3. Ron October 22, 2003 at 2:12 pm | | Reply

    Maybe the Law school needs to visit their neighbors on Massie Ave. Next door is the Army JAG. The Commandant is Col. Lewis a UVA Law graduate who happens to be a man of color.

  4. cell phone batteries April 9, 2005 at 2:32 am | | Reply

    really cool weblog – loved it

Say What?