Like many universities, Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo (where I work as a physics professor) is deploying a number of diversity and inclusivity initiatives to address problems in these areas on campus, primarily with respect to race. The Cal Poly white paper outlining the initiatives is available here and there is a nice summary by the San Luis Obispo Tribune also available. Initiatives of this kind are particularly pressing for Cal Poly because, amongst the 23 public California State University (CSU) schools, Cal Poly is by far the least diverse CSU campus, as described in this article in the San Luis Obispo Tribune. Cal Poly’s white population fraction far exceeds those of all major public four-year universities in the state, including the highly selective University of California (UC) system.
To compound the problem, Cal Poly also has a history of race-based incidents (Mustang News), including the blackface incident and its fallout in the Spring of 2018 (NY Times). At any other university, these would represent vile and inappropriate behavior, indicative of the ongoing race-based tensions as seen across the country and the world. But, at Cal Poly, the effect is further amplified because, just by raw statistics, the voices of those being attacked are almost completely absent or drowned out.
The big areas being addressed in the various initiatives include 1) transforming campus culture to reduce latent and overt bias, helping Cal Poly become a more welcoming space for everyone, 2) designing outreach programs to highlight educational opportunities at Cal Poly across all demographics in the state, 3) providing more diverse scholarship opportunities for all students who choose to come here, and 4) adjusting admissions procedures to reduce arbitrary financial bias.
Note, race-based admissions criteria are not legal in California because of Proposition 209, so no “quotas” are being met. There is no “reverse discrimination” going on. Indeed, it could be called “de-discrimination” in the sense that it will attempt to remove existing hurdles and to expand upon resources already available. The initiatives represent a near- and long-term strategic effort to transform the demographics of Cal Poly to better reflect those of California, the people served by the CSU system. Again, these efforts are not using race as a criteria, but rather asking “why is Cal Poly so statistically out of line with the rest of the CSU, UCs, and the state itself in terms of its demographics?” There is an obvious systematic bias at Cal Poly that the administration is attempting to rectify. Even if an imperfect work in progress, good on them.
All quite sensible, right? Well, then this happened, as reported by the Mustang News (Cal Poly’s student newspaper):
Fox News incorrectly reports Cal Poly slashing white enrollment and factoring race into admissions
A prominent member of of the College Republicans at Cal Poly, carefully representing herself as a “Cal Poly student” and “Campus Reform Correspondent” (referring to the organization Campus Reform), appeared on Fox News with the headline “Cal Poly plots to reduce white enrollment.” Her affiliation is noteworthy because she does not identify herself as a member of the College Republicans nor a representative of the university. The topic was covered in other outlets as well, some of which I won’t dignify by linking to them. As of July 17, 2018, the original interview has apparently been scrubbed from the internet (still, one can cobble it together from the internet archive). However, it was about as vapid and fact-free as one might expect based on the headline. Now, in fairness, Fox News did actually retract the piece and even issued an apology. After the interview aired, they contacted Cal Poly and did some fact checking.
What do you know? The goal isn’t to conspire to reduce the number of white students on campus. That’s an embarrassing mischaracterization of the issue. When your campus is 60% white and the rest of the public universities in the state are hovering around 35-40% (approximately the same as the state as a whole), a natural byproduct of fair diversification will likely be to reduce the number of white students.
It is important to recognize a few things. First, a big part of the “reduce white enrollment” narrative is that somehow, to accomplish this diversification, Cal Poly will have to lower its standards. This is pretty insulting. However, Cal Poly’s very high, merit-based admission standards will remain the same — indeed, the standards will likely go up. The new strategies will simply widen the range of qualified applicants across the state and increase competition for the finite number of freshman spots available each fall. If some demographics drop because of it, it will be because they weren’t able to compete on a more level playing field.
For example, the recent adjustment to admissions policy involves eliminating the early admissions deadline, as described in this article in the SLO Tribune. Previous admission deadlines arbitrarily favored families that did not require financial aid. Cal Poly’s early admissions system allowed qualified students, already accepted to Cal Poly, to accept an invitation to attend Cal Poly in the fall, a full year before arriving. However, many notifications for federal financial aid are not distributed until the spring of the year of admission. This permitted students who did not require financial aid to take up spots before more- or equally-qualified students who required financial aid could even decide to accept (based entirely on financial reasons).
The early admissions deadline was certainly implemented in good faith to draw the best students in early with a “sure thing.” However, the unintended consequence was to bias against highly qualified students who could not commit for purely financial reasons. From a statistical point of view, white, upper-middle-class students tend not to require financial aid while students of color tend to require it based on the socio-economic conditions in California. Thus, the otherwise good-intentioned early admissions system was intrinsically biased against highly qualified people of color. By deregulating that arbitrary early deadline, more highly qualified students across a wider demographic (who were already admitted and so met existing high admission criteria) were able to accept. Statistically speaking, this will obviously widen the range of accepted qualified California students and will tend to drive the demographics at Cal Poly to reflect that of California. In short, it is increasing merit-based admission by deregulating an arbitrary government rule that squelched competition. Now, obviously the problems of diversity aren’t just financial and this won’t solve the entire issue. However, finances do play a role and have been partly addressed with this policy adjustment.
After the early admission system was suspended in 2016, the incoming class of 2017 was the most ethnically diverse cohort in 20 years, as described in this article from the Mustang News (although still not in line with other CSUs or UCs). In addition, that cohort had the highest incoming average high school GPA scores (3.95/4.00) at that time in Cal Poly’s history (Cal Poly’s insititional Research reports) and SAT/ACT high average scores were consistent with previous recent years.
In summary, Cal Poly’s ethnic demographic is objectively misaligned with the state and with other universities in the state. This points to some systematic or even pathological biases specific to Cal Poly that need to be addressed. Diversity initiatives at Cal Poly are attempting to identify and remove existing barriers students may face when considering Cal Poly as their school of choice. Cal Poly is not lowering admissions standards. To frame the initiatives as a conspiracy trying to reduce the white student population at Cal Poly at the expense of lowering standards is misinformed and irresponsible — exactly the kind of thing we associate with fake news and propaganda. The assertion is so manifestly ridiculous that it did not meet the standards of Fox News, compelling them to remove the piece from their archives and issue an apology. Ironically, the existence of ignorant entities at Cal Poly who willingly frame the problem in that light is indicative of the very problem the initiatives are trying to address.