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DURHAM — Echoing the concerns of black undergraduates at Duke University, some African-American alumni of the school have expressed outrage over a report that black students there are disproportionally more likely to switch from tough majors to easier ones.
“We are deeply troubled and offended by the recent study emanating from faculty members at our alma mater,” 17 black alumni wrote in a letter to The Herald-Sun.
The alumni, including those who received master’s and doctoral degrees at the school, called the unpublished study by Duke faculty members “misguided scholarship” whose results and methodology are “both flawed and incorrect” and based on “problematic premises [that result in] problematic conclusions.”
“We cannot sit idly by and allow this slander to be (mis)labeled as truth,” the alumni wrote.
The paper, “What Happens After Enrollment: An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Differences in GPA and Major Choice,” looked at two Duke freshman classes in their first, second and fourth years of college.
It found that among students who initially expressed an interest in majoring in economics, engineering and the natural sciences, a significantly greater percentage of black students ended up switching their majors to the humanities or another social science.
The authors of the paper suggested that the switch to what are considered easier, less rigorous majors was predominantly responsible for why the grade-point averages of black undergraduates ultimately mirrored the GPAs of white students as they progressed through school.
The paper’s authors — professors Peter Arcidiacono and Kenneth Spencer, and graduate student Esteban Aucejo — argue that their work calls into question other studies that play down the academic difficulties initially experienced by those who benefit from race-conscious admission policies.
The paper is included in a brief submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court by opponents of affirmative action. The court is considering whether to hear a lawsuit challenging race-conscious admissions the university of Texas.
News of the paper drew angry responses from members of Duke’s Black Student Alliance.
In an email sent to the state chapter of the NAACP, officers of the alliance wrote that “the implications and intentions of this research … are hurtful and alienating,” and questioned both the scholarship and why the university administration had done nothing to ameliorate any possible effects of what the researchers had noted.
About three dozen members of the alliance, including a few white students, silently protested the study Sunday evening outside Duke Chapel after the university’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. service.
They passed out fliers posing the question “Duke: A hostile environment for its black students?” and held signs that said, among other things, “Does GPA have a color?”
The students have called on the university administration to provide “a complete public account” of Duke’s “effort to ensure an optimal learning environment for black students” and “provide a public affirmation of the university’s commitment to diversity, as well as its full support for policies and programs that promote the success of black students.”
