The Boston Globe reports this morning that in order to provoke a debate over racial preferences the Boston University College Republicans are offering a $250 scholarship that
requires the recipient to be at least one quarter white and to have at least a 3.2 grade point average. Applicants have to submit a photo of themselves and write two short essays about their race. The first question asks applicants to describe their ancestry and the other, what it means to be a Caucasian-American today.
Joseph Mroszczyk, the president of the group, stated that
We are trying to convey the absurdity of any race-based scholarship…. I don’t think race should be part of any scholarship. It should be based on merit or economic need.
A note in the three-page application says that
race-based scholarships and other affirmative action policies send a message to members of minority groups that they are inferior and require special accommodations to be raised to the same level as others.
Did we do this to give a scholarship to white kids? Of course not. Did we do it to trigger a discussion on what we believe to be a morally wrong practice of basing decisions in our schools and our jobs on racial preferences rather than merit? Absolutely.
The tactic is succeeding. Supporters of racial preferences, who claim that this tactic is a stunt that will do nothing to provoke discussion, are discussing it. For example, “in interviews last night,” reports a student paper at another college in the Boston area,
several Harvard students said that the Caucasian-only scholarship was divisive.
“An act such as this is probably not going to help people on the other side of the table understand where the BU Republicans are coming from,” said Jason C. B. Lee ’08, president of the Harvard Black Students Association. “We’re open to discussion, but we think it should be done in a less inflammatory way.”
Leaders of Harvard’s political community agreed, criticizing the means used by the BU Republicans.
“If they want to have a serious debate about affirmative action, that’s one thing,” said Eric P. Lesser ’07, former president of the Harvard College Democrats. “But if they want to resort to these gimmicks, then that’s despicable.”
“The statement they’re making is worthwhile,” said Mark A. Shepard ’08, the former vice president of the Harvard College Republicans, “but they are themselves engaging in discrimination to protest discrimination.”
“This idea is completely ridiculous,” Vijay G. Warrier ’09 said. “But if this scholarship is awarded, Indian-Americans should be allowed to apply because any reasonable usage of the term ‘Caucasian’ would include most Indians.”
Many anthropologists and biologists believe that those who live in present day India and Pakistan are genetically Caucasian, having emigrated from Western Eurasia centuries ago.
That article also reported that “Mroszczyk said in an interview that his organization was protesting the National Hispanic Recognition Program, the only scholarship offered at BU for which ethnicity is a prerequisite.” It did not report whether any of the interviewed Harvard students thought that scholarship was “divisive.”
Long-time readers, at least ones with good memories, will recall a similar flap over a conservative student group at Roger Williams University in Providence offering a $50 scholarship “for a student of non-color.” (See here and here to refresh your memories.)
UPDATE [23 Nov.]
Reader Fred Ray calls our attention to this heated editorial condemnation of the Boston University College Republicans in the student newspaper. For example, it claims that “BUCR’s claim that race-based scholarships send the message that minorities are ‘inferior and incapable of meeting us at our level,’ is absolutely obscene.”
When the editorial attempts to move beyond simple invective and provide a defense for racially restrictive scholarships (except to whites, etc.), however, it falls flat.
First, it says criticism of race-based benefits “ignores the very real academic achievement gap between whites and minorities.” One could make a relevant argument here, but oddly the evidence the editorial offers in support of this point is that “[m]inority enrollments increased by 50.7 percent to 4.7 million from 1993 to 2003, and the number of white students increased 3.4 percent, to 10.5 million….” And the point of this is?
Moving on, the editorial then argues that racially and ethnically restrictive scholarships “are celebrations of ethnic pride, not handouts from rich, white benefactors, as BUCR’s literature implies.”
Instead, minority organizations and community leaders often fund these scholarships, hoping to help a new generation of students succeed.
The United Negro College Fund, for example, has given more than $2 billion to help more than 350,000 students attend college. The organization — funded in part by black benefactors such as Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr. and Oprah Winfey — says it offers scholarships because it believes “a mind is a terrible thing to waste,” not to make students feel “inferior.”
Let’s leave aside the fact that United Negro College Fund’s two billion dollars, or the great bulk of it, came from a rich, white benefactor, Bill Gates. The point the edit is attempting to make is that these restrictive scholarships, building or reflecting “ethnic pride” as they do, are a Good Thing. Making the same argument as a commenter below, the edit notes:
And race-based scholarships are not just designated to black and Hispanic students. Many heritage groups dish out money to needy students, including those that would fall under the Caucasian label. The National Italian American Foundation, for instance, offers money to Italian American student who do well in high school.
And, of course, there is also the old standby:
Also to imply that white students do not receive any sort of “racial preference” is ludicrous. While they may not be awarded “Caucasian scholarships,” thousands of white students enjoy the benefit of “legacy” status every year.
Let’s see if we can sort some of this out.
First, legacies. It’s not clear in this case whether the editors think “racial preference” for whites in the form of legacy preferences is wrong. If such preferences are discriminatory, they are so because they have a “disparate impact”; they are neutral on their face, but clearly and predictably favor and disfavor certain groups. But insofar as one’s goal is to eliminate all “disparate impact” discrimination, one would have to eliminate not only the SAT but also grades as components of college admission decisions.
But perhaps legacy preferences are like Italian-American scholarships to Italians, and thus aren’t wrong (though they could still be bad policy). I suspect that my own views on these privately endowed preferences, including the “ethnic pride” ones, are similar to those of most critics of official race preferences. (Commenters will let me know if I’m wrong.) And that view is: they’re O.K., as long as they stay in their place … and that place is private. If Bill Gates wants to give money to worthy minorities and the National Italian American Foundation wants to give money to worthy (or even unworthy) Italians, that, in my view, is their prerogative.
But whether foundations and others who attach racial or ethnic strings to their gifts should receive tax deductions as charities is another matter altogether, as I’ve argued here a number of times using the Bob Jones case as an example of liberal hypocrisy on this issue. (See here, here, and here, among many others.)
Most liberals regard tax deductions as indistinguishable from public subsidies. Such a view should logically lead to the conclusion that private discrimination, though tolerated except where specifically outlawed (as by the Civil Rights Act), should not be subsidized by tax dollars.
Many conservatives and most libertarians, by contrast, would emphasize the benefits of private charity and, so to speak, let a thousand flowers bloom, but on equal, non-discriminatory terms. On this view Bill Gates could have his tax deduction for giving race-restricted gifts to minorities, but so too could Bob Jones keep its tax deduction along with its racially discriminatory dance policy.
Finally, let me note that this editorial implicitly recognizes what we preference critics saw right off the bat: the “white scholarship” offered by the BUCR has had the great virtue of promoting discussion, to which the editorial, bad as it is in many ways, contributes.
Can “progressives” can be any more hypocritical that they are now? They organize, protest, pull stunts, and have have street theater without any desire for a discussion. Yet, if any other groups does the same thing, the “progressives” immediately call them divisive and racist and demand a “discussion” with all parties involved.
Nope. They’ve pretty much pegged the hypocrisy meter.
>>>”Joseph Mroszczyk, the president of the group, stated that
We are trying to convey the absurdity of any race-based scholarship…. I don’t think race should be part of any scholarship. It should be based on merit or economic need.”
It’s a very Interesting topic. I wonder however, if Mr. Mroszczyk truly means “any race-based scholarship”, or just those that may be offered by a public university itself? If he means exactly what he says in the first sentence, I wonder what his position would be on the REALITY of scholarships in America.
A quick look at some other scholarships is required for a COMPREHENSIVE discussion of the topic, IMHO. Take for example….
ITALIAN-AMERICAN SCHOLARSHIPS:
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Arcolian Dental Arts Society
Scholarship Name: Arcolian Dental Arts Society Scholarship
Amount: $500.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: contact organization
Deadline: contact organization
You can get the application by: mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: Dental student
Chicago Metro area
Contact: Dr. Josephine DiFranco/Bordigon
511 W. Talcott
Park Ridge, IL 60068”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Associated Italian American Charities of Maryland
Scholarship Name: AIAC Memorial Scholarship No. 8
Amount: contact organization
# of Scholarships Awarded: contact organization
Deadline: contact organization
You can get the application by: phone
e-mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: Undergraduate and Graduate Students
Engineering major
Attend Johns Hopkins University
Financial need considered
Contact: Office of Dev. And Alumni Relations
GWC Whiting Schol of Engineering
Baltimore, MD 21218
410-516-8028
email hidden; JavaScript is required
hopkinsnet.jhu.edu/html/scholarships/engin.html”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Association of Italian Americans
Scholarship Name: Association of Italian Americans Scholarship
Amount: $1,000.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: contact organization
Deadline: contact organization
You can get the application by: mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: 3.0 or above GPA
Frostburg Student
Contact: Office of Financial Aid
114 Fullen Hall
301-687-4301
http://www.frostburg.edu/finaid-scholbook.htm”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Augustus Society of Clark County
Scholarship Name: Augustus Society Scholarship
Amount: $1,500.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: contact organization
Deadline: contact organization
You can get the application by: mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: Graduating senior
Clark County, Nevada residnet
Contact: http://www.augustus.org/scholarship.html”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Ben V. Marconi Lodge #1628 – OSIA
Scholarship Name: Ben V. Marconi #1628 Order Sons of Italy Scholarship
Amount: $600.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: 5
Deadline: July 5
You can get the application by: phone
mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? True
• Other: Graduating senior and undergraduate
Contact: Michael and Lucy DeComo
725 Mohawk Ave. NW
Canton, OH 44708
330-477-6428
email hidden; JavaScript is required”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Casa Italiana
Scholarship Name: Casa Italiana Scholarship
Amount: $1,500.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: 2
Deadline: February
You can get the application by: phone
mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: Italian or related major
Undergraduates
3.5 or above GPA
Contact: Stella Plutino-Calabrese
Nazareth College of Rochester
4245 East Ave.
Rochester, NY 14618
585-389-2468
email hidden; JavaScript is required”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Chicagoland Italian American Charitable Organization
Scholarship Name: Chicagoland Italian American Charitable Organization Scholarship
Amount: $1,500.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: 10-15
Deadline: February 28
You can get the application by: phone
mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: High School Graduate, Undergraduate, or Graduate Student
Chicago Metro area
Contact: Gerald Saviano
198 Wood Dale Rd.
Wood Dale, IL 60191
630-307-7202 http://www.ciaco.org”
>>>”Sponsoring Organization: Columbian Club Charitable Foundation
Amount: $1,000.00
# of Scholarships Awarded: 15
Deadline: October 1
You can get the application by: phone
mail
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: High School Graduate, Undergraduate, or Graduate Student
Chicago Metro area
Contact: Dr. Samuel Cascio
26 Graystone Lane
North Barrington, IL 60010
847-304-0051”
>>>Sponsoring Organization: Columbus Citizens Foundation
Scholarship Name: CCF Scholarship
Amount: contact organization
# of Scholarships Awarded: contact organization
Deadline: contact organization
You can get the application by: on-line
Scholarship Criteria:
• Must be of Italian descent?: True
• Parent/Grandparent must be a member? False
• Other: Graduating senior and undergraduate
Contact: Bernadette
212-249-9923
http://www.columbuscitizensfd.org”
This is just a sampling of the scholarships listed at the National Italian-American Foundation page: http://www.niaf.org/research/images/NIAF_Scholarship_Handbook.pdf
I didn’t post the ones that prompted contacting the organization on the “Italian descent” question, or those that made no specific Italian descent requirement.
There are scholarships for Jewish Students:
http://www.ojcf.org/
http://web.info.com/infocom.us2/search/web/jewish%20scholarship?CMP=3073&itkw=jewish%20scholarship
And there are too many others to name. Why did I post them? I went back to the thread in 04 John references and saw that a challenge was laid out to list “white” scholarships.
There you go. I don’t have a problem with ANY OF THEM, of course, just as I don’t have a problem with scholarships for groups that aren’t as popular with conservaties, such as my own.
–Cobra
Some more ingredients to pour into this Thanksgiving “race scholarship pie”…
>>>”MINORITY-ONLY SCHOLARSHIPS comprise about 4 percent of all scholarship money given to U.S. undergraduates, according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, and only 7 percent of U.S. minority students receive them.”
http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/VA-news/VA-Pilot/issues/1994/vp941107/11070058.htm
>>>”This kind of logic also explains the effort of whites at Roger Williams
University to start a “white scholarship fund,” on the pretense that scholarships
for students of color are unfair and place whites at a disadvantage.
This, despite the unmentioned fact that ABOUT 93 PERCENT OF ALL COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP MONEY GOES TO WHITES; despite the fact that students of color at elite
and expensive colleges come from families with about half the average income
of whites; despite the fact that there are scholarships for pretty much every
kind of student under the sun, including children of Tupperware dealers, kids
whose parents raise horses, kids who are left-handed, kids whose families
descend from the founding fathers: you name it, and there’s money available for it.”
–Tim Wise, “White Whine”
http://www.outfm.org/News/whitewhine.html
>>>” Students of color made up 27.8 percent of the nearly 17 million students on America’s college campuses, up from 21.8 percent in 1993.”
http://www.acenet.edu/AM/TemplateRedirect.cfm?template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=18734
Which means that a SIGNIFICANTLY DISPROPORTIONATE amount of the total available scholarship money goes to white students in America.
Elimination of “race based” scholarships will, by the NUMBERS, create an even HIGHER percentage of white student scholarship disproportionality.
–Cobra
Mroszczyk also said “in an interview that his organization was protesting the National Hispanic Recognition Program, the only scholarship offered at BU for which ethnicity is a prerequisite.”
BU, as a private university, should have the right to offer any sort of scholarship it wishes. But this doesn’t mean Mroszczyk can’t protest the only one at the campus that is apparently race-based, as he noted.
Personally, I hold that any private organization that wants to give a scholarship — race-based or not — has that right. But John’s point about tax deductability is a darn good one.
There are scholarships for Jewish Students
And your point is cobra? Do you think that you can’t be Black and Jewish? I guess you never heard of Operation Solomon.
Richard writes:
>>>”And your point is cobra? Do you think that you can’t be Black and Jewish? I guess you never heard of Operation Solomon.”
My point is that I don’t have a problem with scholarships for Jewish Students, whatever color they happen to be.
–Cobra
Cobra,
I do not know why you would quote Time Wise when it is obvious that the cannot do math. He cites the 93% of scholarship money for whites without any reference. It just seems that he took the 7% of scholarships being minority scholarships and subtracted.
I also find it ironic that when it is convient you want to include Asian students as “students of color” when universities never include Asian students as part of any “diveristy program” since they are massively overreoresented in the student body.
I also find it ironic that blacks talk about how students of color add to diversity at elite university while at the same time keeping most HBU’s as universities that only have students of one color.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”I also find it ironic that blacks talk about how students of color add to diversity at elite university while at the same time keeping most HBU’s as universities that only have students of one color.”
You’re not keeping up with the issue, are you Supe? Especially those in the past that don’t favor your arguments…such as when John Rosenberg HIMSELF discussed “white only” scholarships at HBCU’s:
>>>”In reply to my query as to whether there were any inducements for non-blacks to attend, several readers commented (see the “Say What?” comments to the post linked above) that indeed some white scholarships were requires in consent decrees or other legal settlements to lawsuits in North Carolina, Mississippi, and Alabama. (As a general rule, public scholarships limited by race have been illegal, at least in the Fourth Circuit, since Podberesky v. Kirwan [1994, cert. denied 1995]).”
http://www.discriminations.us/2002/12/black_colleges_and_diversity.html
Heck, even Jennifer Gratz’s puppet-masters at CIR sued Alabama State University over white scholarships, I would assume, in some dog-and-pony show to appear “fair and balanced”.
http://www.adversity.net/cirnews.htm#ala_whites
John is even helpful enough to list the percentages of white students at these HBCU’s in the link, which showed that the OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of these schools had white student populations, some in high percentages.
Compare and contrast that list posted by John to the list of black student percentages at “elite state Universities” at The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education:
http://www.jbhe.com/features/51_survey_stateuniversities.html
Very interesting. Very interesting INDEED.
–Cobra
Cobra,
Once again you practice propoganda.
I am sure than most HBU have a small percentage of whites. If you look at the list of the highest, it is usually due to nearby military bases or satellite program. I am willing to claim that most HBU’s probably have virtually no Asian-American or Hispanic students. Thus, virtually any flagship state university is much more diverse because whites as a percentage of the student body is much lower than blacks are at HBU’s.
You should be supporting white only scholarships at HBU’s because the “promote” diversity.
I however as consist in that I think that HBU’s are anachornistic and should be close. The blacks students at universities like Grambling St should be enrolled at LA Tech or LSU in order to achieve diversity.
Superdestroyer writes:
>>>”You should be supporting white only scholarships at HBU’s because the “promote” diversity.
I however as consist in that I think that HBU’s are anachornistic and should be close. The blacks students at universities like Grambling St should be enrolled at LA Tech or LSU in order to achieve diversity.”
What part of “I don’t have a problem with ANY OF THEM”, do you need me to explain to you?
–Cobra