So I figured once enough people asked about it, then I'd post. Here are the top five questions about the recently filed complaint by Black graduate engineering students:
1) Dumi, what do you know about this?
As most of our readers are now aware U of M was named in a complaint to the US Department of Education. The complaint is spearheaded by Simeon Anderson a Black PhD student in Engineering. Prior to his filing of the complaint I did hear that he was working on "something" and he was compiling experiences of Black students at U of M. So when the new story broke I was not surprised, but I was intrigued.
2) Dumi, do you know this guy or are you one of the people who is filing?
Despite my obsession with Blackness and graduate education, I am not one of the filers. I do not know Simeon, but we share a few mutual associates. In the near future I may have an opportunity to learn a bit more about where his head and the heads of other Coalition for Action Against Racism and Discrimination members are at. Right now, I'm still learning.
3)Dumi, have you seen the complaint?
I have seen a version of the complaint, I do not know if it was the complaint that was filed to the US Department of Education, but I have read it a couple of times.
4)Dumi, how you gonna say you saw the complaint but not tell use about it?
Well, because I don't know Simeon (yet) and I know that sometimes discussing non-public things (or items that haven't been FOIA'ed yet) can be counter-productive to the needs of those who filed them. I've contact Simeon, if he'd like me to post the complaint, I will. Remember, I'm not a journalist, I just play one in cyberspace.
5) So what do you think will happen?
This is the most tricky of all the questions that people have asked me. First, I don't have access to all the materials of the complaint nor the statement of all members of the Coalition, so predicting with little data can be dangerous. Man those X years of stats really paid off, huh?
But on the real, I'll be watching the situation closely. It is occurring in a very interesting political climate. I've seen a number of conservative responses to the complaint which essentially boil down to unqualified or underqualified applicant theses. These are always interesting to me because people know nothing about him except his race and that he filed a complaint of discrimination. Somehow the next response is to jump to one of these "theories." It seems to me, before one should advocate these theories, one should have access to his (and others') academic records, maybe that's too much to ask... or as my mom would say "too much like right."
Obviously in the face of MCRI, this stands to create a tense relationship between the U and people of color... particularly in the public eye. So I'm sure that the conservakids will try to use this to spread their messages of anti-race preferences as they campaign to 'give us free' of discrimination.
Lastly, the bar of demonstrating discrimination in the contemporary United States is extremely high. Even if everything Simeon and coalition said is true, the pending investigation will likely not find discrimination- or rather racial discrimination. Oops, well there it is, a prediction. My prediction is honestly based more on the political climate than the facts of the case, so I would not mind being proved wrong.
Aight, those are my five responses to the top five questions. Thoughts?
5 comments:
Thank you Dumi. I know that I have asked you all 5 of these questions personally :-). I am anxious to hear both sides of this argument as I have my own personal reservations about the situation. This will teach me a lot about more than just discrimination in education, which I know firsthand is reality. It will also teach me about some of the dynamics of the career of a graduate student and how that life differs from that of an undergraduate. Being a graduate from the UM's undergrad engineering program, I am deeply concerned with how students are treated in its pre-college, undergrad, and grad programs.
Folks, keep a close watch on The SuperSpade for more coverage of this important news item. See the first story and comment from MCRI here.
enjoyed the read. told some kids on a message board about your page. i'm proud of you.
Chetly,
You say, "First, the students here clearly "expected" more programs and more preferences AFTER admission." Where is that? Please demonstrate it for me. Is the request to be treated fairly and not discriminated against asking for preference? In that case, every person who enters an institution wants the "preference" of equal treatment. On the mismatch point, it really isn't more nuanced than the one word theses that I put forward in the original post. One still does not have the evidence/data (and I know you're a hound for that Chetly) to demonstrate "mismatch" thus it falls back into the pile of underqualified.
Dumi,
I'd like to correct that statement slightly. I don't know that they expected "more preferences," but from their statements and the information I've seen they did (rightfully) expect more programs (support) because U-Mich fraudulently lead them to believe that. Given that the allegation is that they were "guaranteed a PhD slot" when admitted into the graduate program (which only entitled the average person to a Masters unless they qualified for one of the limited PhD spots), I suspect they expected that "preference", although the expectation was fraudulently generated. But it's impossible to be sure they saw this as a preference or in their mind that it was "continuing" (since it was granted before they were admitted), so I'll amend what I said to make that clear. There could be no "fraud" however if they expected nothing specific (other than what they were legally entitled to, like fairness and non-discrimination).
To the extent that they expect fair treatment and non-discrimination, all people are entitled to that and it is not a preference to not discriminate.
Discussing the mis-match hypothesis here is too complex to do justice here (note above I said it wasn't what I was trying to prove here, even though some parts of this story might fit). The point was that U-M has alot to explain here in this case, first in terms of fraud, and second in terms of how it defines certain terms like qualified.
(note reposted due to screening system error, originally posted several days ago)
Chetly-
First thanks for resubmitting your comment. You will notice I have a couple of comment blocks up because of recent spamming of comments. Just a spam blocking technique, not a ideological one ;)
Glad to hear you "ammend" your argument about preferences. If the students say they were "guaranteed" their spots, which are few, then I will defer to them on that, since they know their position better than any of us do or will (at least for now).
Obviously PhD programs in general are constantly attempting to renegotiate the concept of qualified. I can attest to that having set on a PhD admissions committee before, it's not always as easy as it may appear.
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