Discrimination in College AdmissionsMegan Moon and Zachary Wheeler

One Online Section of ENC 1102 Composition II, College of Arts & Sciences AND one online section of EDF 2085 Intro to Diversity for Educators, College of Education Instructors: Sheila Bolduc-Simpson (SBS) and Dr. Mark Simpson (Dr. S) FINDINGS

When conducting the survey, we asked 30 Florida Gulf Coast University (FGCU) students if they would stay if they found out that FGCU was openly discriminating in the admissions process. The following pie chart shows the amount of students that would still attend and the number of students that would transfer to a different university.   We discovered through the survey that twenty six students would still attend and that four students would transfer out to a different university.However, we also asked whether they approve of discrimination in college admissions and placed the results in the following bar graph.   

As this chart clearly demonstrates, a majority of those surveyed disapproved of any discrimination in the admissions process at colleges and universities at all. When we asked one of the two students that approved of the discrimination why they approved of it, she said, “The universities need to be able to make their group of students more diverse and this is one way to do so.” This was a valid point, however, when we asked a student that disapproved of the discrimination why he disapproves, he gave the common answer by saying, “Colleges and universities need to look at what the student has accomplished and not use race or gender as a way to favor one student over another.”

LITERATURE REVIEW In the case of Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan Law School denied admission to the applicant, Grutter. Once Grutter had found out about being declined from the school she filed a law suit. Grutter filed this law suit on account of being discriminated against by the school based on racial purposes. Grutter’s demographic would be considered as a white Michigan resident. She claims that students that belong to a certain minority group have a greater chance of being accepted by the university. The district courts investigated and decided that the University’s use of race was unlawful and that the school had to view each student by their accomplishments and not race. Not only does this case show discrimination in admissions, but it also shows that discrimination in admissions also takes place in the most prestigious of schools. Vanessa Hodgerson’s article not only gives another example of discrimination in admissions (HODERSON). In this article, a student named Abigail Fisher had her application declined by the University of Texas. Abigail believes that it had to do with her being white and that minorities have an edge of being accepted by major Universities even if they have equal or lesser credentials than applicants that were declined. Abigail decided to sue the university not only for discriminating against her, but for having to go to a less prestigious school and lessen her job prospects for being hired. Discrimination is one of those things that colleges feel the need to do. These schools would rather be culturally diverse than to have the smartest and brightest students possible. Discrimination in college admissions is a very serious problem that could potentially cause someone with great credentials to have lesser job options because they could not beat out a minority, someone of the opposite gender, or even someone of a different religion in the admissions process at a prestigious school.

INTRODUCTION In 2008 Abigail Fisher brought a case forward against the University of Texas at Austin to the Courts. She declared that the University of Texas discriminated against her during her admissions process (Hodgerson). This case was similar to the Supreme Court case Gutter vs. Bollinger that was against the university of Michigan’s admissions system in 2003 (GRUTTER). This was a case that Barbara Gutter got denied admissions into a Law Program based on her race. In both cases they filed under the Equal Protection Clause in the Fourteenth amendment (FREEDMAN). These cases happened with in this century, which makes one question is this becoming more frequent and is there a possibility of this discrimination happening without being reported or looked into. Would students still attend a university if it were caught discriminating against potential university attendees? With this question in mind current students were interviewed for this research to see how they would react if Florida Gulf Coast University was found guilty of this. With one of the goals being To advance the theoretical and applied perspectives in the disciplines of youth development and juvenile justice (Florida). This action research will examine FGCU’s student’s awareness of the university discrimination during admissions and how they would react if their school were found guilty of practicing this.

ABSTRACT This action of research was to examine the awareness of the discrimination in college admissions and its effects on a sample population of Florida Gulf Coast University undergraduate students. This was the topic of research because it is believed that even though college admissions are biased on applicants they would take into their universities that there might be some discrimination throughout the process of college admissions as well. When asked, students would most likely not attend a university if it were discriminating against students. To get these results there was research conducted but analyzing case studies and conducting interviews to five students at Florida Gulf Coast, both male and female and different ages. Throughout this process the findings concluded that there have been cases of college admissions discriminating against their applications and that students most of the time were very appalled and would not continue to promote and stand behind their university if these cases occurred there. One conclusion would be that schools should be less discriminated with their applicants and they should not lower their standards for students that are being recruited for their school’s programs.

METHODSThe researchers’ survey starts out by first introducing why the study is being conducted. Their main focus is to first understand the knowledge of fellow FGCU students about discrimination in college admissions.Each participate was asked to state their full name, their year at FGCU, their major and to state their hometown. The first part of the survey had students complete a small ten question quiz where they were asked if they knew of any cases of discrimination in college admissions and whether it was more prominent with males over females and which parts of the country it was most prevalent. Once the quizzes were completed the participants were asked a serious of questions which their answers were recorded and typed right in front of them. There were nine questions asked identically to each participant, which pertained to Florida or to Florida Gulf Coast University, both angled towards the discrimination in college admissions. For example the first question that was asked to every participant was “Do you believe that there is discrimination in college admissions in the state of Florida?”. Each participant was asked these questions by themselves or away from other participants in this activity, this prevented students plagiarizing each other’s answersThe responses to both the quiz and the interview were recorded down, and they were studied and review for further analysis of this issue.

WORKS CITED"Discrimination Is Obvious." Room For Debate. New York Times, n.d. Web. 8 Apr. 2013."Florida Gulf Coast University." Institute for Youth and Justice Studies. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013."GRUTTER v. BOLLINGER." Grutter v. Bollinger. N.p., n.d. Web.09 Apr. 2013.Hodgerson, Vanessa. "College Discrimination Case Relevant to Small Businesses." The Business Journal. The Jacksonville Journal, 16 Nov. 2012. Web. 31 Mar. 2013."Igor Pak's Blog." Igor Paks Blog. N.p., n.d. Web. 12 Apr. 2013."Why We Should Care About the Abigail Fisher Case | Daily Gazette." Daily Gazette. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2013.

The above findings clearly state that there is definitely discrimination in college admissions and that Florida Gulf Coast University students should be aware of this while apply to undergraduate and graduate schools. The results of the survey also indicate that students are very educated on this issue of discrimination in college admissions and how it can be applied to them and their situations. It can be concluded that more needs to be done with admissions board when students apply for certain programs with in their school. One way to prevent discrimination in college admissions is to either hide or delete the applicant’s race or ethnicity from their application when being viewed and their economic background. This means that the only thing that will be seen would be their credentials. Another way to prevent this would be having personal interviews with each applicant for the program of choice. This would help after narrowing down form the written application to a smaller group to have the personal interview. Each interview should be with multiple people present and be based on the answers given by the applicant whether he or she receives entry or acceptance into their programs.

Summary