UCSB has a 47% of Caucasian student population, and only 5% are Latinos. |
Do they really take qualifications into
consideration? Or, are other factors more important when it comes to select
candidates for certain schools in California?
This was it; I finally was going to transfer
to my dream University UCSB. I had all the requirements and a higher than the
required GPA for the “Transfer Admission Guaranteed” contract between UCSB and
MJC, but I was not the typical white surfer student that usually makes it to
get accepted in such university. Was that really a problem? I did not think so;
since I applied with the ”TAG contract” I had my admission guaranteed, right?
Well, for some reason, it wasn’t that way. I did not get accepted.
A friend of mine, who also is a Latina and
who also applied with the TAG having all the qualifications to get accepted,
did not make it either; however, a Caucasian classmate who had a lower GPA and
less qualifications than us, was notified of his acceptance the first day they
released decisions. A great illustration of institutional racism don’t you think
so?
Institutional
racism refers to policies, laws, and institutions that reproduce racial inequalities
(Golash-Boza 184)
One of the many effects of institutional
racism is the persistence of racial segregation in the educational system, and
thus a reproduction of racial and educational inequality between white and
non-white students.
I would like to focus my writing specifically
in UCSB and UCM, since those two campuses are strictly related to my personal
story.
Although UCSB claims to be an “equal
opportunity school” I still do not understand why most Latinos and black
candidates, who have a great personal statement and more qualifications than
required, are not admitted. I believe they have a hidden curriculum, which
obviously favors white people. Another important factor might be symbolic violence, which I think plays
an important role in the UCSB’s acceptance criteria. That is to say, white
people as a dominant group, have the power to establish preferences and norms,
so their interests are unevenly promoted, which affects nonwhite prospective
students.
We definitely need new policies or at least
reinforce the ones that already exist in order to combat institutional racism,
and thus ongoing discrimination in the UC system and in the education system in
general.
I’ve heard joking comments that UCM stands
for UC Mexicans because a 45.6% of the UCM students are Hispanic, while only 14.1% are
white, which I consider is a kind of racial segregation. I believe that all
campuses of the UC system should have the same acceptance criteria regardless
of the prestige and antiquity of each school; after all, it is only one system.
Historically, in the United States “laws
[have] prevented many non-white children from accessing the best educational
opportunities.” Today, there is no law that prevents us from an equal
educational opportunity; however, non-white children still struggle getting
such “equal” educational opportunities at all educational levels. According of
PBS Newshour , for the first time in almost 15 years, the
Department of Education reported a pattern of Inequality by Race in Public
Schools.
Historically, the majority of nonwhite
students have attended schools with a high percentage of nonwhite students and
a low percentage of whites, and vise versa. The persistence of racial
segregation in the UC system is due to the institutional racism that clearly
exists among the system, and in the educational system in general. Unfortunately,
little has been done to prevent it. As it is stated in chapter 8 of the Race
& Racisms text, “this high level of racial segregation is often associated
with poverty: in 2001, 88 percent of the schools that were over 90 percent
non-white were also majority-poor” (Golash-Boza 213) As a general rule,
children who live in a low-income neighborhood will attend a low quality school
because of the unequal school funding.
The school system
The school system
in the US is funded mostly by local property
taxes, which means that the poorer the neighborhood, the less funds the school
district is going to have, and thus the educational level is going to be lower.
It is a reproduction of social inequality that affects all educational levels
from preschool to college.
45.6% of the UCM students are Hispanic, while only 14.1% are white. |
White privilege seems to be playing a big role when it comes to education. Whites have an unfair advantage when it comes to getting accepted into the top universities. It is unfair to you and others who are in the same position who have the qualifications to not get accepted, but i feel that events like this happen so often that is now seem as the norm.
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