{"id":7734,"date":"2017-11-20T08:47:24","date_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:47:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/?p=7734"},"modified":"2017-11-20T08:45:04","modified_gmt":"2017-11-20T14:45:04","slug":"affirmative-action-rhodes-scholarships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/janetheactuary\/2017\/11\/affirmative-action-rhodes-scholarships.html","title":{"rendered":"Affirmative-Action Rhodes Scholarships?"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-7736\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/533\/2017\/11\/1_christ_church_hall_2012-1024x681.jpg\" alt=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/University_of_Oxford#\/media\/File:1_christ_church_hall_2012.jpg;By chensiyuan - chensiyuan, GFDL,\" width=\"1024\" height=\"681\"><\/p>\n<p>So this was a tweet from Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The 32 new Rhodes Scholars picked this weekend constitute a rebuttal to white nationalists. Sixteen selection committees working independently, based only on merit, chose a record 10 blacks, an Alaskan native, several immigrants, plus a transgender man.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Nicholas Kristof (@NickKristof) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NickKristof\/status\/932239965148401664?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">November 19, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>Which motivated me to look into the details; here\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/rhodesscholars-fileshare\/final_winners_bios_2017.pdf\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">the press release<\/a> with the biographies of this year\u2019s awardees.\u00a0 The biographies themselves do not state the students\u2019 race, of course, but there were 9 recipients who were clearly identifiable as black because of some combination of majors in African-American studies, anti-racist activism, membership\/leadership in black\/minority student groups, a specific \u201cfirst\u201d mention (that is, first African-American female to hold the top West Point leadership position) and, in one case,\u00a0identified\u00a0immigration of parents.\u00a0 (Strictly speaking, of course, there\u2019s no reason a white student couldn\u2019t study race issues, but, after all, I\u2019d been clued in by Kristof to look for 10 students.)\u00a0 A 10th student had no such markers but a distinctively \u201cblack\u201d name, JaVaughn.\u00a0 Six further recipients are of presumed Asian ancestry, in one case with a specific reference to a\u00a0migration background, and in the remaining instances, presumed such due to last names (Yang, Chang, Singh, and two Chens).\u00a0 One is identified as having a Middle Eastern (Lebanese) migration background, and one more is Inuit.\u00a0 One of them may or may not be slotted into the \u201cHispanic\u201d bucket, with a Spanish surname (Gonzalez) but no specifically Hispanic markers in his background.\u00a0 Which leaves 14 who are presumed to be white.<\/p>\n<p>(There was, on the other hand, a more or less even mix of men and women, with the bonus transgender activist for good measure.)<\/p>\n<p>This means that 44% of the 32 recipients were white (or 47% if you add in the Lebanese student, who would be \u201cofficially\u201d labelled white), and 31% are black.\u00a0 If one discards the identification of individuals as Hispanic or non-Hispanic, the total population of the United States is 72% white, and 13% black.\u00a0 Mathematically, black students are overrepresented.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Kristof considers the fact that there are sixteen separate selection committees as somehow factoring into the fact that these students were chosen \u201cbased only on merit,\u201d but it seems likely to contribute to just the opposite effect.\u00a0 If one wanted to have a balanced class, it would be much easier to do so taking an overview of the entire group.\u00a0 It would be very easy for any individual selection committee to decide to elect a \u201cspecial\u201d candidate and, in total, produce the result of an imbalance.\u00a0 And, after all, each selection committee must judge not just the overall academic excellence of each applicant, deciding who\u2019s smartest, who had the most academic achievements and honors, but also must <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rhodesscholar.org\/applying-for-the-scholarship\/frequently-asked-questions\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">evaluate other criteria<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>literary and scholastic attainments;<\/li>\n<li>energy to use one\u2019s talents to the full;<\/li>\n<li>truth, courage, devotion to duty, sympathy for and protection of the weak, kindliness, unselfishness and fellowship;<\/li>\n<li>moral force of character and instincts to lead, and to take an interest in one\u2019s fellow beings.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>And it seems that, to each of the selection committees, the anti-racism activism that was almost uniformly a part of the biographies of the black students, was a key factor.\u00a0 For many of the white students, climate change\/environmental activism figured prominently; cases where the students had more \u201ctraditional\u201d interests in learning and research were the minority.<\/p>\n<p>This is, by the way, new, so far as I can tell.\u00a0 The Rhodes website provides <a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanrhodes.org\/news-elect.html\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">biographies<\/a> for recipients back to 2001 (with pictures to eliminate the guesswork about racial identities).\u00a0 For the 2001 selections, 28 of 32 were white, with one black student (interested in foreign policy, no \u201cmarkers\u201d of race except that one of his activities was singing in the gospel choir) and three Asians. Surprisingly, 25 of 32 were male.\u00a0 The students were high achievers of various sorts, with interests in research, music, space exploration, literature and the theater.\u00a0 There\u2019s an aspiring rabbi.\u00a0 There were plenty who were interested in public policy, but more generically, not linked to protest movements or progressive political causes.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot of community service \u2014 one student, for instance, worked with the disabled, another tutored prisoners.<\/p>\n<p>But judging by this two-year comparison, the selection criteria applied by the committees have become much more tilted in favor of activists.\u00a0 Is this an active, intentional decision by the committees, and a directive to emphasize student activism?\u00a0 Or is it a reflection of student activism being more valued and deemed more valuable in 2017 than traditional forms of volunteer service, such as tutoring poor children, or other sorts of talent-development like musical performance or sports?\u00a0 Or did they rejigger the judging criteria to give more weight to activism in order to advantage minority students active in these groups, in order to (over)correct for their prior small numbers?<\/p>\n<p>And, to be clear, the Rhodes Trust can make any determination they want, and it\u2019s none of my business.\u00a0 Is there a possibility that, taken too far,\u00a0it would \u201cdilute the brand\u201d of Rhodes Scholar?\u00a0 Presumably, though I would imagine that there is such a pool of talented young people that, even with an emphasis on selecting activists, they\u2019re still not awarding dummies.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Image: \u201cDining hall at Christ Church. The hall is an important feature of the typical Oxford college, providing a place to both dine and socialise\u201d https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/University_of_Oxford#\/media\/File:1_christ_church_hall_2012.jpg;By chensiyuan \u2013 chensiyuan, GFDL,<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>So this was a tweet from Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist: Which motivated me to look into the details; here\u2019s the press release with the biographies of this year\u2019s awardees.\u00a0 The biographies themselves do not state the students\u2019 race, of course, but there were 9 recipients who were clearly identifiable as black because of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2209,"featured_media":7736,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[788,789,100],"class_list":["post-7734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-rhodes-scholarship","tag-social-justice-activism","tag-universities"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Affirmative-Action Rhodes Scholarships?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"So this was a tweet from Nicholas Kristof, New York Times columnist: Which motivated me to look into the details; 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