Colleges and universities around the country foster racial separatism under the guise of "cultural diversity," according to a new study released by a civil-rights group.
"Amidst all the hue and cry over affirmative-action programs, little attention has been given to the color-conscious policies of … colleges that permit or encourage – and, oftentimes, fund – a balkanized campus environment," said the non-partisan New York Civil Rights Coalition in an executive summary of the study.
"While proclaiming their dedication to a phenomenon of so-called 'ethnic identity,' 'choice' and 'diversity,' the officials of many colleges regard the self-segregation of minority students on their campuses as supportive of their efforts to foster the comfort of a culturally, economically, geographically and racially diverse group of students," the summary said. "Stripped of its paternalism, their policies and funding actually support a new form of ethnic and racial segregation in higher education. They proudly and increasingly pursue a segregationist agenda."
Michael Meyers, the group's executive director, criticized what he calls "the official campus apartheid policies of college authorities." He also accused college officials of "political cowardice" and "segregationist, racial arrogance" in their alleged retreat from integration.
He said the 28-page report "can be a useful handbook to all college leaders – students, faculty, administrators and trustees who want to do something about the prevalence and cult of racial separatism on their campuses."
The report is entitled, "Stigma of Inclusion: Racial Paternalism and Separatism in Higher Education."
About 50 private colleges nationwide were studied, the group said, including Amherst College in Massachusetts; George Washington University in Washington, D.C.; Princeton University in New Jersey; Stanford University in California; and Yale University in Connecticut.
Researchers examined the bulletins, course catalogs, publications and websites of the colleges and universities "to ascertain the ways [the schools] spoke of (and treated) minority students, and how they described their own programs and services geared for students of color," said the group in a statement.
"… These institutions of higher education generally practiced ethnic cheerleading and fostered racial separatism in the guise of embracing 'cultural diversity,'" the statement said.
Harvard undergraduate Ramin Afshar-Mohajer and University of New York Law School student Evelyn Sung conducted the research for the study.
Bob Ludwig, a spokesman for George Washington University, disagreed with the study's conclusions. He said whites, as well as minorities, could take advantage of the school's programs, including a multicultural facility.
"White students, as well as multicultural students, use the Multicultural Student Services Center," he told WorldNetDaily. "It's available to anyone."
Ludwig denied the center was "segregationist," noting that it was "very popular on campus."
Paul Statt, a spokesman for Amherst, said everything the report mentioned regarding his school "was accurate," but officials declined comment.
"There is nothing we feel requires any defense," Statt told WorldNetDaily.
The civil-rights group said it found that colleges have created special administrative positions and "'minority' offices that strengthen separatist campus organizations." Also, academic institutions "organize separate events and programs for minority students, including, in some instances, separate orientations and 'minority weekends.'"
Also, the group found that minority-student organizations endorsed by the colleges "encourage minority students' separatism in an effort to promote 'group-identity.'" The study added that institutions "target and treat minority students as in need of remedial services, just because they're students of color on a predominantly white campus."
"Separatism in all its forms, but especially when it is aided and abetted by college and university officials and resources, is a betrayal to the purposes of higher education," said Meyers.
He said those purposes included the removal of "narrow constrictions of the mind, [to] extirpate prejudice and remove barriers to the open pursuit of knowledge."
Meyers added that "separatist housing, stilted courses and ethnic cheerleading programs disseminate poisonous stereotypes and falsehoods about race and ethnicity."
"Although they claim to have minorities' interests at heart," said Meyers, "these colleges in fact take the civil-rights movement giant steps backward."
Even small declines in enrollment of minority students at major colleges are sometimes seen as potentially problematic.
The Boston Globe reported Oct. 19 that black enrollment at Harvard had fallen slightly last year for the first time in two decades, after leading private-school enrollment of blacks for 20 years.
Ted Cross, editor of the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, said Harvard's fall to second place was significant because the university had set "the nation's gold standard" in the acceptance rate of black freshmen for the last two decades.
He blamed a rift between Harvard's white president, Lawrence H. Summers, and black studies professor Cornel West. The latter left last year for Princeton after Summers dismissed West's recent hip-hop CD as "an embarrassment to Harvard."
Meanwhile, Stanford University boasted in October that it now has the highest level of enrollment for admitted black students among the nation's top-ranked undergraduate programs, pointing out that 12.5 percent of the college's enrollment consists of blacks.
In Norman, Okla., officials at the University of Oklahoma last month formed a diversity task force to bring more diversity and curb falling minority enrollment. The panel is comprised of white and minority student and faculty leaders, and is focused on recruiting more minority students to the institution.
And at Clemson University in South Carolina, school officials recently brought together people from the surrounding community to "discuss ways to increase the value of cultural differences on campus," The Greenville News reported Nov. 14.
The issue of race and ethnicity on campus has been limited largely to conflicts over admission standards.
Many academics favor using affirmative-action programs to boost the numbers of minorities attending college campuses, but others argue the practice unfairly discriminates against equally or better qualified white applicants. Also, critics of affirmative action say it sends the message to minorities that they can't make it on their own.
In May 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an affirmative-action case, letting stand a lower-court ruling that found diversity was an adequate reason to justify race-based admission policies.
Earlier this month, however, justices agreed to decide if minorities can be given a boost to get into universities. The court will tell universities how much weight, if any, they may assign to an applicant's race.