“This year, our incoming freshman class looks to have seven percent black/African American and 15 percent Hispanic students for the New York campus, and so we are seeing our efforts to have a more diverse incoming class show steady improvement,” Knoll-Finn said.
Abbott also said that the university is actively trying to increase the enrollment of students from African-American, Latinx, Native American and South East Asian — Burmese, Cambodian, Hmong, Laotian, Thai and Vietnamese — backgrounds.
According to Parker, universities like NYU have every right to act affirmatively and target underrepresented communities.
“What the court has said is that diversity is recognized as being what’s called a compelling governmental interest,” Parker said. “That means that universities and colleges can take steps to create diverse learning environments in their schools.”
Parker explained that the consideration of race during the admissions process is legal as long as its inclusion does not negatively impact the majority of students. He also said that when deeming affirmative action policies acceptable, courts will check how often universities analyze their policies and if there are other practices that can create achieve the same effect.
Abbott confirmed that along with race and ethnicity, NYU also considers whether a student is choosing an underrepresented major, has the potential to be a star athlete or is the child of alumni, among other factors.
“I would note, however, that just because a college or university acts affirmatively for any particular student doesn’t mean other students are discriminated against,” Abbott said. “Every student has her/his own unique story to tell and will hopefully bring something compelling to the table beyond good grades and test scores — which simply are not enough to warrant a space at any selective college or university.”
www.theguardian.com
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