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Disproportionate Representation

The Greenlining Institute, according to its web site,

is a multi-ethnic advocacy, research, leadership development, and public policy organization whose ultimate goal is to increase the role that low-income and minority Californians play in the civic arena in order to create equitable policies and improve quality of life for all communities.

A cursory glance at its recent STATUS REPORT ON THE DIVERSITY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA MEDICAL STUDENT BODY might lead the unwary reader to conclude that the Greenlining Institute, like other minority advocacy organizations, favors a strict, quota-like proportional representation of minorities in medical school admissions. For example, from the Executive Summary of the Report:

?Our analysis shows that there are insufficient numbers of under- represented minorities (African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans) graduating from the eight medical education programs in the University of California?s five medical school campuses. This report shows, among other findings, that:

1. Underrepresented minorities (URM) comprise 44% of California?s population, but only 17.8% of first-year medical students (2007 entering class) across all eight programs; a 38.2% representation gap....

A pull quote in the margin next to this observation states, in bold italics:

?How can we take care of the health care needs of our communities when we are not even close to representing the demographics of the state??

?Third Year Latino Student,
UC Irvine

In fact, however, I think a good case can be made that the Greenlining Institute does not favor proportional representation, that it actually favors disproportionate representation.

Consider these two ?Key Findings? listed at the very beginning of the report:

FINDING 1
The University of California is failing to train enough physicians of color to meet the present and future health needs of an increasingly diverse state. The disparity between minority representation in California?s population and in the UC medical student body is growing.
....
FINDING 3
The representation of minority groups in the pool of applicants to UC medical school programs is very similar to their representation among the matriculants. This means that schools are accepting students of diverse backgrounds in proportion to the rates at which they apply....

The Greenlining Institute, in short, seems to be disappointed that California medical schools do not accept a higher proportion of minority applicants than are present in their applicant pool. Its report, moreover, says nothing about the relative quality of these applicants. That is, it does not compare the GPAs and MCAT scores of minority applicants (either accepted or rejected) to those of the applicants who are not deemed underrepresented.

Full post as published by Discriminations on November 16, 2008 (boomark / email).