Racism In Education

In the United States’ current political climate, “racism” is a term thrown around so often that it almost begins to lose its original definition. The same can be said when discussing and analyzing the success rate of minority students in higher education. People are inclined to jump to the conclusion that a faculty member or institution is inherently racist instead of looking at all of the factors involved in a student’s success. The three main factors that I will be covering over the course of this essay are school tuition rates, Affirmative Action policies, and how schools handle discipline. While there are cases of inarguable racism within higher education, an in-depth analysis of the factors stated above will prove that “racism” is not

An article from Heritage.org states that “Affirmative action-induced low grades are a serious problem—as demonstrated by research over the course of the last decade. For example, in one study of top law schools, more than 50 percent of African-American law students (many of whom had been admitted pursuant to affirmative action policies) were in the bottom 10 percent of their class. And the dropout rate among African-American students was more than twice that of their white peers (19.3 percent vs. 8.2 percent)” (Slattery). This information ties directly into the “Hopwood v. Texas ” case of 1996, in which “Texas Legislature adopted the Top 10 Percent Law. Under this law, which affected admissions cycles beginning in 1997, seniors in the top 10 percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to any Texas state university” (Tarlton Law Library). This 10% law has a very similar effect to the Affirmative Action policies mentioned in the Heritage.org article, as both of these are admitting students to colleges who potentially might not be ready for it. Taking a good student from a highschool and sticking them in a college is similar to taking a big fish in a small pond and putting them in the ocean, not all of the fish are going to succeed the way they used to. When these policies admit students who are not able to handle

Based on data from the Civil Rights Data Collection in 2012, the United States Department of Education states that “black students are suspended and expelled at a rate three times greater than white students” (U.S. Department of Education). This is a problem because if a student has been suspended once, they are far less likely to do well in school and are actually much more likely to drop out, thus contributing further to the issue I discussed in the paragraph above. Schools need to treat all of their students fairly in order to give them the best chance at success in higher education. All of these factors truly go hand in hand to serve as obstacles in the way of minority students’