Although about 15 universities throughout the nation have decided to close or alter minority-only summer programs and scholarships, Northwestern administrators said they plan to keep the university’s programs open.
Some schools, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton University and Iowa State University, changed their programs in response to complaints from the Center for Equal Opportunity, an organization that opposes affirmative action and says minority-only programs are discriminatory.
NU has two summer programs aimed at black and Latino students: the Summer Academic Workshop for students in all areas of study and Excel for incoming engineering students. There also are several summer programs open to all first-year students, including the Freshman Urban Program and Project Wildcat.
Center for Equal Opportunity general counsel Roger Clegg said the center has sent out about 30 letters warning institutions to change their programs or face review by the U.S. Office of Civil Rights. About half of the schools have responded with modifications, although a few others are being investigated by the office of civil rights for refusing to change.
“The (office of civil rights) has issued a statement that says racially exclusive programs are ‘extremely difficult to defend,'” Clegg said. “We agree with that and we think that any good lawyer would agree with that.”
Stephen Fisher, associate provost for undergraduate education, said NU hasn’t received any complaints to his knowledge, and administrators are not planning to modify SAW unless the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the University of Michigan affirmative action case mandates a change.
“A lot will depend on the nature of the ruling of the Supreme Court and the various kinds of legal decisions that flow from that,” he said. “We’ve been happy with SAW as it’s run so far, but we certainly want to be in compliance with the law.”
Lupita Temiquel, coordinator of Hispanic/Latino Student Services, said this year’s program will be no different from those in past years.
“Everything is a go,” Temiquel said. “The SAW program is scheduled to happen as planned. We are starting interviews for counselors in the next weeks — we are not doing anything differently.”
NU might have fewer legal worries than other institutions with summer programs strictly for specific minority groups. Fisher said although program recruitment is limited to blacks and Latinos, he doesn’t think a white or Asian student who expressed interest in the program would be turned away.
“If someone came and said ‘I want to go,'” Fisher said, “we’d certainly consider it.”
Juanita Flores, a Weinberg sophomore who attended the program in 2001 and is applying to be a counselor this year, said students other than blacks and Latinos have participated in previous SAW programs.
“The program is definitely open and very diverse,” she said. “It’s not only African-American and Hispanic students who come — we have a lot of international students and students from different backgrounds.”
Flores said she’d be disappointed if administrators decided to stop offering the SAW program because of legal concerns.
“The SAW program was a door and an opportunity for me,” she said. “I don’t know where I’d be today without it.”
Minority summer programs generally are designed to help students who might have been economically disadvantaged or went through lower-quality school systems adjust to college life as well as help minority students form a sense of community. But the center has said such programs are illegal because they discriminate on the basis of race.
“I think that it’s perfectly fine to design programs to provide additional opportunities to students who might not have had opportunities but I think students like that come in all colors,” Clegg said. “I don’t think it’s right or legal for a university to assume that every white kid or Asian kid or Arab-American kid grew up in a mansion … or to assume every black kid grew up in a ghetto.”
