With numbers that only make up 6 percent of the total student body population, Black students will be affected the most.
When people want to stop being called racist, they should really just stop doing racist stuff. Case in point, the Trump Administration. Ever since the current administration took office they have been gunning for one of the conservative America’s biggest boogeymen, Affirmative Action.
Even though there have been dozens of studies speaking to how the program, which first started in the 1960s to increase minority enrollment at predominantly white institutions, has largely failed at its goal, every Tom, Dick and Donald will attack it whenever they need to galvanize their base and create a cloud of distraction to obscure their incompetence.
On Tuesday it was announced that Texas Tech, whose men’s basketball team just suffered a heartbreaking loss to the University of Virginia at the NCAA championship game, would comply with the Trump administration and will no longer use race as a factor to determine who does, and does not, get into its medical school.
According to collegefactual.com, Texas Tech University is ranked #566 in the nation in terms of on-campus diversity, which is considered above average. Though students who identify as Hispanic make up nearly 25 percent of the overall undergraduate student body, Black students make up a disrespectfully irrelevant tally of 6.4 percent.
Currently, white students make up 58.6 percent of undergrads at the university. As is often the case when historic precedent is reversed for political clout, African-American students will be disproportionately affected by this decision. Especially so considering the paltry number of black students who attend the school, which is located in Lubbock, Texas.
The agreement ends a long probe by the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which looked into Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center’s use of race in admission, which stemmed from a complaint in 2004.
The agreement, which Texas Tech agreed to in February, stipulates that the medical school will “discontinue all consideration of an applicant’s race and/or national origin” in admissions. The school is also required to revise by September all admissions and recruiting materials so they don’t include race as a factor.
In a letter agreeing to the resolution, the university insisted that it believes its admission process is in compliance with standards set by the Supreme Court, but that it was nonetheless willing to sign the agreement “in an effort to resolve this matter and focus on educating future health care providers.”
Texas Tech believes its old policy was in accordance with the law and the Supreme Court. However, they agreed to the measure to resolve the matter and move on. The agreement leaves open the possibility that the university will again use race in admission in the future.
The Trump administration is separately investigating whether Harvard and Yale are discriminating against Asian-American applicants in their use of race in admissions. Last year, the administration scrapped Obama-era guidance calling on school superintendents and colleges to consider race when trying to diversify their campuses.
