Missouri-Columbia to Keep Summer Program for Minorities

COLUMBIA, Mo.

The University of Missouri at Columbia is sticking by its Transitions program for incoming minority students, even as other schools change or eliminate their programs in anticipation of the Supreme Court's decision on the University of Michigan's affirmative action case.

"The Transitions program is specially designed to increase diversity on campus," deputy chancellor Mike Middleton says. "I am committed to continuing these programs until the courts tell us they're inappropriate.

"As of now, the law of the land is that these kinds of programs that consider race and ethnicity for the purpose of enhancing our legitimate and compelling interest in diversity on this campus are appropriate," Middleton says.

Princeton University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently said they would eliminate — or open to all students — summer programs that previously were offered to minority students.

Legal groups opposed to affirmative action had sent those universities letters accusing them of discriminating against White students.

Missouri's Transitions program has been in place since 1994. Up to 35 Black, Hispanic or American Indian students are invited each summer for a six-week program involving math and English classes and cultural and social events.

The university pays the students' room and board and tuition, provides a stipend and offers those who complete the program a $2,500 scholarship.

The students help each other once they join the larger student body in the fall, Middleton said, which helps limit the isolation that minority students often feel on a mostly White campus.

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan has received support from a wide-range of organizations in the Supreme Court case.

In mid-February, Yale University and a group of Black Yale law students joined several other universities in backing the University of Michigan's right to bring race into consideration when deciding which students to admit.