Ron Burgundy was wrong. Diversity is not an old, old wooden ship that was used during the Civil War era; it’s actually an issue plaguing Catholic colleges and universities across the nation, including Fairfield.
As The Mirror reports in this issue, this year’s freshman class represents some of the highest percentages of minority students admitted into Fairfield in recent memory. But is that enough?
While racial background is certainly not the only type of diversity, it is a decidedly important one.
The Princeton Review ranked Fairfield as ninth highest on the Homogeneous Student Population list, and 19th highest on the Little Race/Class Interaction list this year, reporting that students from different racial and economic backgrounds do not interact frequently and/or easily.
Since Fairfield doesn’t rank in the top five in either category, there are clearly other universities that are grappling with these same obstacles.
A recent article in The Observer, the student newspaper of University of Notre Dame and St. Mary’s College, reported issues dealing with many of the same problems in attracting diverse students that Fairfield is having.
The Observer quoted a senior student who said the perception of Notre Dame as a white Catholic university could prevent minority students from even considering it as a choice.
Notre Dame reports more than 24 percent of its student population to be from ethnically underrepresented groups. Fairfield’s is only 18 percent. So, if Notre Dame can be perceived as a too-white-to-bother-applying-to-school, where does that leave us?
Both the common application and the Fairfield University supplement application ask applicants their “Ethnic Group Affiliation,” but both applications also clarify that providing that information is optional.
Many universities look at an applicant’s racial background as part of a holistic approach, but admissions counselors here at Fairfield say that an applicant’s ethnic background is in no way taken into account in their admitting process.
But since having a diverse campus is unquestionably an advantageous circumstance, should racial background become more important?
Here is where the issue becomes even more complicated.
In the 1978 Regents of the University of California v. Bakke Supreme Court case, quota-based systems for admitting students of particular racial backgrounds were deemed unconstitutional, but affirmative action systems were still held to be lawful.
The Supreme Court ruled that by placing too much importance on admitting racially diverse students, more qualified students who do not come from ethnically underrepresented groups could be unfairly denied admittance.
There is no clear solution for this problem, or at least I can’t seem to figure out what it might be. That does not mean, however, that no action should be taken.
The increase in AHANA students this year is a great step forward, but Fairfield’s place on the Little Race/Class Interaction list is still a frightening distinction. Fortunately, it is also the one aspect of this whole issue on which we, as students and the University community, can have the greatest positive effect.
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