DNA dragnet affect college diversity?
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| Fri, 05-14-2004 - 8:37am |
http://www.cnn.com/2004/EDUCATION/05/12/uva.diversity.ap/index.html
Suddenly, Greg Thrasher wasn't so sure he wanted his two children to even visit the University of Virginia, let alone enroll there.
They had already been accepted to the commonwealth's flagship school. But when the news broke last month that police had been collecting random DNA samples from black men in their search for a serial rapist, Thrasher was offended.
"I was troubled because I didn't want to become an arbitrary victim, nor did I want my son to become one," Thrasher said in a telephone interview from Detroit, where he directs a think tank.
For a school struggling for years to recruit minority students and faculty, the controversy could not have come at a worse time. Many on campus had thought the school was finally recovering from a recent spate of racial incidents that had polarized students and led to the creation of two special commissions on diversity.
Now faculty and administrators find themselves again defending the school's record on race. Some wonder whether enough is being done to combat the school's unwelcome reputation of being racially intolerant.
"When things like this happen, unfortunately, I'm usually the only person who speaks up," said M. Rick Turner, dean of Office of African-American Affairs. "I've asked my colleagues and they've said that folks don't really want to be confronted with these issues. They hope and pray the next day will come and it's forgotten. But racial issues are not forgotten so easily."
Declining diversity
The university has made increasing black enrollment a priority, but the number of black undergraduate students has fallen from 12 percent in 1993 to 9 percent a decade later.
Black graduate enrollment in 2003 was stuck at 4 percent, where it had hovered for the last 10 years. The proportion of black students in the law and medical schools had decreased from 10 percent in 1993 to about half that a decade later.
"The university does so much to get you to come here, then when you're in the community, there's no support," said Myra Franklin, a fourth-year student and president of the Black Student Alliance.
On the faculty side, full-time black professors remained at about 4 percent from 1998 to 2003.
Administrators say increased competition for minority students and a hiring freeze are partly to blame. But some students say elements of institutional racism remain, made apparent by a series of incidents in the last two years.
One that garnered national media attention was a Halloween fraternity party where at least three guests wore blackface. One man was dressed as Uncle Sam and two others were dressed as tennis champions Venus and Serena Williams. The two fraternities involved were suspended by their national organizations.
There were also two assaults on students, one a candidate for student body president. Both attackers allegedly used offensive language. One case remains unsolved; the other victim is suing his assailant and the man's fraternity.
Silent tension
After news of the DNA testing broke in April, the university's silence was telling to some. Turner said the only discussion of the matter took place at a student forum he helped organize with police Chief Timothy Longo. He said no white administrators attended or spoke with him about it.
"It expresses a lack of concern for the greater community and people who are marginalized generally," said fourth-year student Kasie Scopetti, who is white. "There is no racial dialogue. There is racial tension. ... People don't want to talk."
Only a sprinkling of opinion columns appeared in the student newspaper, The Cavalier Daily, and one was in support of the DNA dragnet.
Police have asked 197 black men for cheek-swab tissue samples since the dragnet began in November 2002; of those, 187 have complied and all were cleared. The program was stepped up last year after a victim gave a detailed description of the rapist, who is being sought for six attacks between 1997 and 2003.
The police department eventually revised its testing policy under pressure from the community.
School officials are quick to downplay the extent of racial problems and note that the university leads all major public institutions nationwide in graduating black students. Of 36 new full-time faculty members hired by the undergraduate college this spring, 19 are women, three are black and five are Asian or Asian-American.
A university commission on diversity and equity will release recommendations in June that range from the hiring of a chief diversity and equity officer who will coordinate educational forums to holding discussions with first-year students on multiculturalism, said Angela Davis, associate dean of students and director of residence life.
"We want whatever recommendations we put forward to be sustainable," she said. "Not something reactionary or incident-driven, but something that begins to speak to the quality of the educational institution we should be proud of."
Whether recent events will affect minority recruitment remains to be seen. Thrasher said Wednesday that his daughter had decided to attend New York University law school and his son chose Howard University in Washington, D.C.
The decision surprised Turner, who had spoken with Thrasher several times.
"I thought I had changed his mind," he said with a sigh.

