Georgia School May Factor Race Back In

Almost five years after the University of Georgia eliminated race as a factor in its admissions decisions, a faculty committee has recommended reinstating it in hopes of enrolling more black students.

Since an appeals court ruling in favor of three white women who were denied admission, the university has selected college freshmen purely on the basis of academic performance. That period has seen the percentage of black incoming freshmen drop from between 5.5% and 7% to a low this year of 4.5%.

The faculty committee was reacting to the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 2003 ruling in a University of Michigan case that said race can be a factor in admissions decisions. University of Georgia President Michael Adams said on Thursday that he had not seen the committee recommendation, but that he was alarmed at the dwindling minority presence at Georgia’s most selective public university.

“I was very concerned -- almost distressed -- about the freshman enrollment numbers this year,” he said. “We’ve all got to do a better job.”

Already selective, the university became more so with the advent of Georgia’s HOPE scholarship program, which pays full tuition for eligible students who attend state institutions. The 2003 freshman class boasted an average combined SAT score of 1,212, a full 228 points above the state average.

This fall, 418 black applicants were accepted and 202 black students enrolled, making up 4.5% of a class that numbered 4,495. Georgia’s population is 28.7% black, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

The faculty recommendation, first reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, would add consideration of racial, linguistic, experiential and geographic diversity for applicants who were academically neither strong enough to be automatically admitted nor weak enough to be denied.

If the new policy is in place by February, it could be applied to the next class of incoming freshmen. The university is also considering creating an office of minority recruitment, hiring an image consultant and increasing the amount of need-based aid available.

Since a ruling by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in 2001, the university has tried “every lawful method to achieve a diverse student body,” said Sheldon Steinbach, the general counsel for the American Council on Education, an organization of universities that favors affirmative action.

“They still want to participate in the ball game and they want to win,” Steinbach said. “They know that there are barriers, historical and current, that make recruitment of minority students difficult, many of which are sociological. Minority students like to go where their relatives go to school.”

On campus, some students hoped the faculty recommendation would not become school policy.

“It takes away from the students that worked their butts off to get there,” said Andrew Dill, 21, who is white and heads the campus’ College Republicans, the largest college Republican organization in the country. “It’s not about the color of your skin. It’s about working hard in high school,” Dill said.

The university, located in Athens about 60 miles northeast of Atlanta, does have image problems among black high school students, said Kyle Blalock, a 19-year-old sophomore, who is black. To black high school students drawn to the social and cultural life at colleges in Atlanta, a move to Athens means “basically school and nothing else,” he said.

“All I heard is ‘UGA is not where you want to be, because they’re not trying to cultivate the African American mind,’ ” he said. It was a false impression, Blalock said he realized when he arrived at school.

“It’s all about historical things in the South, how Athens once was,” he said.