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Not Enough Race Boxes On UCLA Application (Where It It Is Illegal To Take Race Into Account)

Roger Clegg discusses what he aptly calls ?an odd article? in the Los Angeles Times today ?about the tragic shortage of racial boxes on the UCLA admissions form, and in particular the lack of any ?Middle Eastern? boxes.? This concern is odd, of course, since ?UCLA is not supposed to be considering race or ethnicity at all.?

Raja Abdulhahim?s article begins with the surprise and dismay of 19 year old freshman, Nicole Salame, whose mother was born in Lebanon.

[She] was filling out an application to UCLA last year when she got to the question about race and ethnicity. She thought a mistake had been made.

?I read it five times and was like, where is Middle Eastern?? the freshman recently recalled. ?Is it on the other page, did it get cut off? I thought they forgot.?

Her Lebanese-born mother told her Arabs are considered white, but Salame didn?t believe her. Her high school counselor told her the same thing.

?It did not make sense to me, it?s so far-fetched,? said Salame, who ended up checking ?Other.?

Apparently she?s not along.

ow several UCLA student groups -- including Arabs, Iranians, Afghanis and Armenians -- have launched a campaign to add a Middle Eastern category, with various subgroups, to the University of California admissions application. They hope to emulate the Asian Pacific Coalition's "Count Me In" campaign, which a few years ago successfully lobbied for the inclusion of 23 ethnic categories on the UC application, including Hmong, Pakistani, Native Hawaiian and Samoan.

So, what?s the big deal? Why is micromanaging ethnic identity on an application so important when it is illegal to use that information in the admissions process? One answer the article give is almost insultingly weak and unpersuasive; the other is persuasive, and obnoxious. See if you can tell which is which.

Here?s one:

The UCLA students said having their own ethnic designation goes beyond self-identity and has real implications for the larger Arab and Middle Eastern communities....

[Not collecting the data on admissions forms} can result in the gathering of little or no statistical data on important issues, such as health trends in the community. Voter-approved Proposition 209 bars California's public colleges from considering race in admissions....

It?s easy to see how not knowing how many applicants identify themselves as Afghani or Iranian can have a devastating on California?s health data. Yeah, right.

Here?s the other:

For years the federal government has classified Arab Americans and Middle Easterners as white....

For years the federal government has classified Arab Americans and Middle Easterners as white....

That classification was cemented in the late 1970s when the Office of Management and Budget, a federal agency, listed all Middle Easterners as white.

But in the last few decades there has been a push to establish a separate category as the general population has grown more diverse and because of the possible benefits it could bring.

?Back then, to get rights you needed to be white,? said Yasi Chehroudi, president of the Iranian Student Group, which is helping spearhead the University of California campaign.
?Now it helps to be yourself.?

So, ?back then,? in the old days, ?to get rights you needed to be white,? but now white is the last thing anyone who can pass for a ?minority? wants to be. Might lose out on some ?diversity? benefit [even though that would be illegal in California, thanks to Prop. 209], since all the ?diversity? benefit providers know whites are not, and by definition cannot be, ?diverse.?

UCLA junior Shawn Gabrill certainly knows.

?I feel like when I put down ?white? on an application, they assume my parents finished high school, went to college and that English was my first language,? the 20-year-old English major said. ?And none of these things describe me.?

Of course ?these things? also do not describe millions of whites, but who cares? It?s not real characteristics we?re talking about here, but ?diversity.?

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 31, 2009 (boomark / email).