The New Complexion of Retention Services

Attacks against race-sensitive admission policies are prompting many campuses to refocus retention programs that once targeted minority students

By Michele N-K Collison

While opponents of affirmative action programs wage their very public battle to dismantle university programs that consider race as a factor in admissions, colleges and universities around the country are quietly modifying their retention programs for minority students so that these initiatives do not meet a similar fate.
Several administrators say universities are dropping race as a criteria for participating in cultural and academic programs that were created to increase the chances
that Black, Latino, and Native American
students would graduate from traditionally White universities.
"Universities are quietly modifying programs that might make obvious targets," says Isaac Colbert, senior associate dean for graduate studies at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who believes many universities are still committed to building and maintaining environments where students feel comfortable.
From the outset, many of the retention programs — although targeted to Blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans — have always accepted White students, administrators say.  MIT's program to increase the number of minority students in graduate science and engineering programs, for example, has always admitted some White students, Colbert says. But the university decided to drop racial language from descriptions and advertising of the program.
"In the current climate, you can't say this program is for Black, Hispanic, or Native American students," says S. Gordon Moore Jr., director of the Georgia Institute of Technology's Office of Minority Education.
Like MIT, Moore says White students have always been a part of Georgia Tech's program. Still, many university attorneys have advised administrators to change the language of their minority retention programs so that the initiatives are not perceived as discriminating on the basis of race.
"It's changed the whole way we had to approach our program," Moore says. "But we're trying to position ourselves so we don't ever feel the wrath of anti-affirmative action groups."