Black students at Duke upset over study (finding more black students drop out of hard majors)

Herald-Sun ^ | January 12, 2012 | Neil Offen

[reaganaut1]

DURHAM — Black students at Duke University are angry over a university research paper that found African-American undergraduates at the school are disproportionally more likely to switch from tough majors to easier ones.

“The implications and intentions of this research at the hands of our very own prestigious faculty, seemingly without a genuine concern for proactively furthering the well-being of the black community is hurtful and alienating,” wrote the officers of Duke’s Black Student Alliance in an email sent to the state NAACP.

The letter from Nana Asante, president of the alliance, challenged the faculty members involved in the research and the university administration to consider “what image has this … report portrayed to the rest of the country, namely our peer institutions, about Duke and its black students?”

The unpublished report, “What Happens After Enrollment? An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Differences in GPA and Major Choice,” looked at the Duke freshman classes that matriculated in 2001 and 2002, in their first, second and fourth years of college.

It found that among students who initially expressed an interest in majoring in economics, engineering and the natural sciences, 54 percent of black men and 51 percent of black women ended up switching to the humanities or another social science.

By comparison, 33 percent of white women and just 8 percent of white men made the switch to majors that are considered less rigorous, require less study and have easier grading standards.

According to the paper, 68 percent of Duke’s black students but less than 55 percent of white students ended up majoring in the humanities or social sciences other than economics.

[DoughtyOne]

I think the best reason to do away with affirmative action, is because it should never have been implemented in the first place.

You don’t make things right by making things biased in a new direction.

You make things right by providing equal earned opportunity.

If blacks didn’t attend college on a representative basis, then I think it would have been reasonable to research why, and put in place things to help, “IF” it could be shown bias or something unreasonable stood in their way.

Look, if 10% of college students were white, and the white populace made up 70% of the college age kids, I think it would be reasoned to try to find out why. By the same token, if 10% of the populace is black, I would like to think 7 to 13% of the college students were black.

If it could be shown that blacks didn’t attend based in large part on choice, then nothing should be done even if their participation got down to zero percent.

I also support hiring on the merits. Whatever scores and qualifications stand out, that person should get the position. We cannot compete with people from all over the world, if we’re not hiring the best and brightest.

Barack Obama is the best example of that I know of.

[Forward the Light Brigade]

MLK to his credit was against Affirmative Action—reluctantly he agreed with the understanding that it should last only 10 years. It should have been done in 1973.

[DoughtyOne]

I wasn’t aware of that. Thanks for the mention.

My take has been that King wouldn’t approve of a lot of things that took place since his death.

I think he’d have a quite a bit to say to blacks today, not all of it very nice.

The out of wedlock birth rates and amount of abortions taking place would bother him IMO. They have sold their birthright.

Look many whites have done this as well, so I’m not singling out blacks other than to address the people whose plight King wanted to improve.

Things being introduced in the early 60s that he might have thought were going to help, have instead been a blight on his people. It’s really to bad too

[Forward the Light Brigade]

Look what the race husslers did to poor Bill Cosby when he pointed out that Blacks should go to school and learn to speak right. MLK was about getting a chance—an equal chance—not an edge and a fist full of dollars.

[DoughtyOne]

I agree. And as for Bill Cosby, someone desperately needed to say what he did. Too many black leaders and parents have failed their next generation.