Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Don't label me
The Daily Cal weighs in on multi-racial boxes.
UC Regent Ward Connerly’s proposal to add a “multiracial” check-box to UC admissions applications is a poor attempt to solve a larger problem: the U.S. Department of Education categorizes students under only one ethnicity.
Well, let's just keep in mind that we are UC, and not the U.S. Department of Education. It seems more likely to me that we'd be able to convince the Department of Education to accept "Multi-racial" than to convince them to start accepting multiple ethnicities. Again, I'm going to keep breaking from tradition and propose another solution: Press for both. If we only get "accept multi-racial," then we can use that. If we get everything we want, then woohoo. There's no reason to react with such hostility to this proposal, just because Ward likes it.
When the regents vote on this proposal tomorrow, they must turn it down—there are better ways to serve multiracial applicants than by simply placing them all in one umbrella category.
This argument would hold some water, except that multiracial applicants already have to be placed in one umbrella category. I don't see how picking a new, more accurate umbrella category is going to cost useful information.
Labeling all individuals who consider themselves part of more than one race with the term “multiracial” completely ignores the diversity of their multiple heritages.
Labelling all individuals of asian descent "Asian" ignores the diversity of various asian heritages. Labelling all individuals of European descent "White" ignores the diversity of various European heritages. Etc. Racial categories are already horrendously imprecise. Arguing that this new policy is imprecise is silly.
Everyone from the Multi-Cultural Students Union to ASUC to By Any Means Necessary has come out in opposition to this proposal...
They say that as if it's a good thing to be on the BAMN's side.
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