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Business Schools And Discrimination: Do Numbers Matter?

Inside Higher Ed reports today that the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, has rejoined the Consortium, a group of businesses and business schools whose mission

is to enhance diversity in business education and leadership by helping to reduce the serious underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in both our member schools? enrollments and the ranks of management.

According to a statement from Berkeley?s Haas,

The Haas School of Business originally joined The Consortium in 1993, but withdrew in 2003 as a consequence of Proposition 209, which prohibits public institutions from participating in programs that give preferential treatment on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin. At that time, The Consortium awarded fellowships to African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans. But it expanded its mission in 2005 to include all US citizens and permanent residents who demonstrate a commitment to The Consortium?s mission of advancing diversity and inclusion in US business schools and corporations. This change made it possible for the Haas School to rejoin The Consortium while meeting the requirements of California law.

For the sake of argument let us stipulate that a private organization has the right to award racially restrictive scholarships, as well as the right to limit its awards to those who agree with its mission. (Whether or not contributions to such an organization should be tax exempt, however, is a quite different matter.) Let us also applaud Haas for leaving the group because its policy of awarding those racially restrictive scholarships conflicted with the California constitution, as amended by Prop. 209. I assume the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan, also a member, was never so meticulous.

There is an interesting question, however, of whether the Consortium?s change in the description of its policy ? as we?ve seen, it now says it continues to recruit from ?underrepresented groups? but also now from ?other persons? who share its mission of increasing the number of business students and leaders from those ?underrepresented groups? ? represents a meaningful change. Has the verbal change in policy resulted in an actual change in practice? Does Haas know? Does it care?

According to a statement by Cornell?s Johnson School of Business upon joining the Consortium,

the consortium also awards more than $12 million in full-tuition, merit-based MBA fellowships annually and has been instrumental in assisting more than 5,500 underrepresented minority students earn their MBAs and advance their careers in corporate America.

How many of those awards have gone, say, to white males since 2005, when the Consortium ostensibly changed its policy. Again, does Haas know? Does it care?

Indeed, is it really possible for a white male to demonstrate to the Consortium?s satisfaction that he could do more to accomplish its mission of reducing the number of ?underrepresented? minorities when a grant to him, and a place in a favored business school, would by definition not be going to a member of one of the ?underrepresented groups??

I believe stated allegiance to the principle of colorblindness is important, and I do not believe ?underrepresentation? is proof of discrimination. But most of the defenders of racial preference ? and I believe all of its most vociferous defenders ? do not believe that. I wonder what those defenders would say about an organization that piously (or shrewdly, to avoid litigation) gave an official nod to colorblindness but whose actual practice remained as racially and ethnically exclusive as it had always been, which I suspect (but don?t know) to be the case with the Consortium.

Does Haas teach its students to care about such questions?

Full post as published by Discriminations on March 31, 2010 (boomark / email).