CAMPUS

“Diversity” in Michigan Application Faces Criticism

The college admissions essay seems to be the part of a prospective student’s portfolio that creates the most anxiety. Message boards are devoted towards tackling the admissions essay and private tutors are hired to assist in crafting the perfect response that college admissions officers desire. 

Applicants to U-M, however, face a unique challenge in the admissions process. Because of the university’s commitment to sustaining diversity especially after the passage of a statewide affirmative action ban in 2006, applicants must complete an essay focused on their ability to bring diversity to the U-M campus.

Some critics have claimed that the university’s essay questions are highly politicized since diversity is such a vague term. They think that the university’s definition of diversity is simply a code for affirmative action. 

On January 13, Ann Kirkland, an assistant professor for women’s studies and political science, presented the politics behind the university’s “diversity” essay questions. Her research focused on two questions for applicants that enrolled at U-M in fall 2004, one year after the Gratz v. Bollinger decision which compelled the university to eliminate its controversial points system. The first question asked what “[the applicant] as an individual would bring to the campus community” since “Michigan is committed to building… a widely diverse educational community.” The second question asked applicants “to describe an experience where cultural diversity – or lack thereof – made a difference to [the applicant].” Applicants were compelled to select one of these questions.

Kirkland claimed that the idea of diversity is highly contentious. While most think that a specific group is diverse simply because of skin color, she explained that there are other important definitions of the word.

“There is a broader way to describe differences among people. Most people use ‘diversity’ to mean race, but they do not talk about disability or gender. Gender and even culture were mentioned by very few applicants,” she said. 

After analyzing 176 essays from the class of 2008, Kirkland determined that there were a variety of themes that applicants addressed while answering either of the questions concerning diversity. 

“One concept of diversity that I noticed was an idea I call ‘racial representationalism.’ Applicants would claim that since they were a member of a certain minority group, they would bring diversity to campus. Obviously white applicants did not write this way,” she said.

Another response included the concept of “war movie diversity,” where applicants would list and describe their friends with different traits and experiences. Just as there is the stereotypical African-American, white Southerner, and Italian soldier in the typical war movie, so do applicants show that their personal identity contributes to diversity at U-M.

Surprisingly, some low-income minority applicants and some high-income white applicants expressed some cynicism towards the diversity question. While no one said that the diversity questions were a sham, the applicants seriously criticized the question’s underlying assumptions. 

“These applicants stated that diversity seems great, but there is some underlying tension between groups. They claim that the environment may look diverse, but it may be segregated,” Kirkland said. 

Kirkland’s research will be fully complete by the end of the semester. Even though her research is being funded by the National Center for Institutional Diversity (NCID), she hopes that her research will create discussion within NCID and the U-M admissions office.

“Hopefully my results will be the start of a well-meaning dialogue about diversity. I can’t think of another word that has undergone such a transformation,” she said.

Adam Pascarella is a junior at the University of Michigan. This article originally appeared in the January 20, 2009 issue of the Michigan Review.