Support System

This morning I read this article this article about a paper regarding a study of Duke University students who matriculated in 2001 and 2002. This study found that Black students who entered the university intending to major in engineering, economic, or one of the natural sciences switched majors to the social sciences at a much higher rate than did White students. The study also found that White women made such changes much more often than White men. The paper’s authors came to the following conclusions:

• Black students switching to easier majors is the reason why Black undergraduate GPAs and White undergraduate GPAs are similar.
  
• “Attempts to increase representation [of minorities] at elite universities through the use of affirmative action may come at a cost of perpetuating underrepresentation of blacks in the natural sciences and engineering.”

Not only are these conclusions wrong, but they are inherently racist and naïve. The first conclusion requires the assumption that White students are smarter than Black students and that, given equal scenarios, White students will outperform their Black classmates. Without the belief that White people are smarter than Black people, the first conclusion could not have been concluded.

The second conclusion ignores the largely unrecognized challenge to Black and Latino science students—unfounded expectation. I’ve been through this. Many of my friends have been through this. I know for a fact that this challenge exists for thousands of students at campuses all across this country. The brown-skinned engineering or science student is viewed skeptically from the first day of class freshman year. Professors assume he/she lacks the intelligence and work ethic to make it through the curriculum. Classmates assume he/she is lacks the qualifications to be in the same classes and major. Advisors steer students into the humanities. It happens every year.

When I was in college, I learned that it was tradition for Black and Latino freshmen to post their SAT scores on their dorm room doors so that their White dorm mates would accept them. I’m sure this particular tradition is not a nationwide thing, but it speaks to the mindset of students at the so-called elite universities. And it provides a glimpse at the preexisting assumptions these kids bring with them to college.

One thing about engineering and the natural sciences that those who did not study in those fields often overlook is that successful students in those majors rarely work alone. Peer assistance is encouraged and often necessary. For this to happen, peers must be willing to work with each other. Black and Latino students often have trouble finding White and Asian students willing to work with them. A close friend of mine was a chemical engineering student. As a junior, he took a class that had only eleven students; the other ten were all White or Asian. They would not let him participate in their weekly study group because “Black people never have anything to contribute.” Another friend at a different university was told he wasn’t welcome at a study group because the professor would think the group was cheating if my friend had earned a good grade. Another friend at yet another university was accused by her professor of cheating after he discovered she had earned the highest grade on a midterm exam.

Most administrators, faculty, and students have no idea these things go on. They are subtle and seemingly small. And each particular instance appears to be isolated. Seeing the big picture, it seems, requires living through the experience day by day, year by year. And our friends in the humanities apparently never experience similar circumstances. Those of us who live through it often think we are the only ones. It’s one of those things that few realize is an epidemic.

The administrators of that study, I am certain, have no idea this is a problem. Teachers want the best for their students. College kids aren’t racist. The university wants everyone to succeed. These are universally believed untruths. But perception shapes reality. And the reality is that very few Black and Latino science and engineering students at America’s so-called elite universities have an academic support system. We’re out there alone even though nobody thinks we are.