I almost feel sorry for university officials straining to explain how treating everyone without regard to race or gender is a bad thing, but this example from Michigan State ought to win some humor prize.
First, the dire facts:
All of the female students in MSU’s College of Engineering could fit in one large lecture hall — with room to spare.
That’s 488 females out of 2,845 total engineering students, or 17 percent, who enrolled for 2006 fall semester.
Now some perspective:
This number is on par according to the U.S. Department of Education, which reported a slight rise in female engineering applicants nationwide nine years ago, but that number has since flatlined at around 18 percent.
Thus, Michigan State’s percentage of female engineering students perfectly reflects the national average of the percentage of women who apply to engineering schools.
So, you might well ask, what’s the problem, or at least what’s the problem caused by Prop. 2’s ban on racial and gender discrimination?
I’m glad you asked.
And with the state’s affirmative action ban in effect, university officials said it’s possible the number of women applying to the school could decrease.
MSU’s College of Engineering admissions process does not include race or gender — but people don’t necessarily know that, said MSU President Lou Anna K. Simon.
“If you look at the small number of women there now, they might look at that and think they can’t get in, so they won’t apply,” she said.
In other words, even before Prop. 2 Michigan State did not give any preferences to female engineering applicants. But the president of Michigan State nevertheless regrets the passage of Prop. 2, barring MSU from doing what it did not do, because future applicants might not know that it did not do what it did not do and fail to apply because they mistakenly fear that MSU no longer doing what it never did would reduce their chances for admission.
This may well be the strangest argument against laws barring discrimination I’ve ever seen. I hope the graduates of the Michigan State School of Engineering, both male and female, build better bridges than their dean builds arguments.
