For more than half a century, admission policies at a number of Universities have placed an emphasis on minority recruitment. For too long before that, minorities had a difficult time gaining admission to top universities and in response, affirmative action programs were put in place to close the gap between minority students and their white counterparts.
That may be changing.
For the first time, two non-elite British universities, Essex and Aston Universities, are targeting white male students. According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, white males are now a minority at 1 in 10 British schools. They report that in 2016-17, only 27% of the UK’s new students were white males, down 30% from just ten years earlier.
So are some schools now going full speed ahead with reversing affirmative action policies? Sort of. It’s not like the recruit of black students or women students are being put aside, but there is a renewed interesting in actually recruiting white males, the demographic that in years past would have far exceeded a normal quota.
Some are confused by the idea, thinking it is racist, as a study from Kings College in England stated: “We found that people were quite uncomfortable with the idea of running a targeted activity with this group, in a way that we’ve not encountered, for example, targeting young black African men. We had quite a lot of people saying, ‘This isn’t going to be a white-only event, is it?'” But that doesn’t seem to be the goal. The goal appears to be to even things out somewhat, to make sure that universities remain cultural melting pots.
So far the trend does not appear to have crossed the pond to US schools, but are these studies in the United Kingdom the proverbial canary in the coal mine? Have we gone too far in minority recruitment to the detriment of white men?
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
