Racial Discrimination by the University of Virginia

By John S. Rosenberg

The University of Virginia has just released data about it applicants for the class of 2020, including a “record number of Early Action minority applications.” These numbers reveal a prima facie case of racial discrimination by the university.

The cover of the February 1 Cavalier Daily presents a graphic display of the distribution of early admission offers by race. Offers were extended to 2893 of 9636 white applicants, for an acceptance rate of 29.7%. Of the 692 blacks who applied for early admission, 294 were accepted — an acceptance rate of 42.5%.

It is conceivable, of course, that there is a non-discriminatory explanation of these dramatically different acceptance rates. The accompanying article quotes Jahvonta Mason, a third-year undergraduate and co-chairman of the Student Council’s Diversity Initiative Committee, who, “These students tend to have some of the best undergraduate success rates of any university in the United States.” True, but how likely is it that their qualifications were so much higher than those of the white early admission applicants? In any event, it will be a freezing day in July in Charlottesville before UVa voluntarily releases test scores, etc., by race.

More likely is that UVa has to over-admit qualified minorities because they will also have been admitted to other institutions, many of which are quite literally bidding for them. According to Mason, “acceptance rate of minorities is exciting,” but that does not solve what minorities at UVa see as “the problem.” Many “minorities who received offers to come to UVa will ultimately decide to go to another university,” Mason said. “Part of the problem is that many of these students can go to other academically comparable universities for free because of minority scholarships, and UVa doesn’t offer any.”

That may or may not be true, depending in part on a Clintonian parsing of the meaning of “offer” (see my discussion of racially restricted scholarships in “Is The University Of Virginia A Racial Scofflaw?”), but it is clear UVa is going the extra mile after mile after … to recruit and retain minority students. Proudly describing these efforts to the Cavalier Daily, Dean of Admissions Gregory Roberts mentioned “several new initiatives the admissions office is implementing to increase the number of admitted minority students who enroll, including connecting current students to admitted students, hosting seven different open houses in the spring, reaching out to every admitted African-American student through alumni and a newly-redesigned admissions packet mailed to acceptees.” (Query: Should white and Asian students regard the absence of similar efforts on their behalf an institutional microaggression?)

When liberals see racial differences in rewards or punishments much less severe than UVa’s Early Action decisions, they are quick to decry discrimination, either overt and intentional or covert, “systemic,” etc. So far no such complaints have been heard in Charlottesville — perhaps simply providing more evidence for the old saw that if liberals didn’t have double standards where race is concerned they wouldn’t have any standards at all.

John Rosenberg blogs at Discriminations.