Are College Professors Less Supportive of Black Students?

"Are black students more trouble than white students?" would get to the heart of the matter.  And we all know the answer to that

The Gallup organization, perhaps America’s most respected surveyor of public opinion, recently conducted its annual Alumni Survey of nearly 20,000 adults who attended college, slightly more than 1,600 of whom graduated between 2010 and 2019. Presumably most of these respondents are in their twenties or early thirties. When asked, 63% of white or Hispanic students agreed or strongly agreed with the statement “My professors at [University name] cared about me as a person,” compared with only 44% of Black students.

This seems broadly consistent with other evidence, including news accounts of campus protest demonstrations, that suggest that Black students feel less satisfied with their college experience than other students. I would note, however, that those truly most dissatisfied with their treatment by professors are those who explicitly disagree with the statement above—not believing their university’s professors “cared about me as a person.” Here, the racial differences are far less apparent. Only 19% of Blacks, compared with 16% of whites (and 14% of Hispanics), disagreed or strongly disagreed with the statement Gallup posed to respondents. Among students who seem likely to be most dissatisfied with the way they are treated by professors, the racial differences are not very large, indeed possibly not even statistically significantly different at a high level of confidence (I did not see that information).

As a social scientist aware of pitfalls of making generalizations about phenomena based on very limited data, I have grave reservations about concluding “survey results show that Blacks are treated significantly different than whites by their professors.” There are other factors that the Gallup survey did not evaluate, as lead author Jessica Harlan acknowledged during a brief interview. For example, incomes of Black Americans on average are significantly lower than that of whites. Do professors tend on average to show less empathy and concern for lower income students, independent of their race? Numerous studies show that, probably because of affirmative action policies, Black students have lower average admission test scores than white students. If these tests measure something useful, as many believe, might the closer rapport observed between professors and white students be a function of differences in prior educational preparation and performance rather than race?

Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor asserted nearly a decade ago that well intended policies designed to narrow racial disparities often have undesirable academic consequences, leading to a mismatch of students with the institution that they attend. Sander and Taylor claimed, with considerable evidence supporting them, that some Black students are much worse off attending prestigious schools to which they are admitted rather than very good but somewhat less selective admission schools for which they had comparable qualifications relative to other students.

One of the advantages of teaching for well over a half a century is that one gets some sense of attitudinal change over time. If asked in, say, 1970, “Do you think some professors are not particularly cordial to Black students because of preconceived opinions about their likely performance simply based on race?” I probably would have answered “yes.”

Since then, however, universities have devoted huge resources to reducing racial disparities. Universities have high level administrators responsible for “diversity and inclusion.” If asked today the same question as stated above, I would answer “rarely, and, in fact, some professors sympathetic to Black resentment of racial disparities would probably show special encouragement and attention to Black students.” Perhaps those perceptions are wrong, but they nonetheless make me suspicious of blanket claims that “Professors care less about Black students.”

Gallup is providing a useful service with its alumni surveys, originally started in partnership with Purdue University. I think the information that Gallup has gleaned should encourage more high quality research where racial factors are evaluated along with a host of other considerations influencing professorial reaction to students.

Putting racial disparities aside, roughly 40% of full time students seeking bachelor’s degrees do not graduate from college in six years. Arguably, this is a national scandal, wasting vast human resources and causing much needless despair for college dropouts. The issue, however, probably goes far beyond race, and involves, for example, in some cases general faculty indifference to students in an era of Publish or Perish. More research is needed.

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The problem with rescinding admission tests

As the country reckons with the reverberations of the May 25 murder of George Floyd, students nationwide are calling attention to their classmates’ racially offensive social media posts and asking for action. In response, colleges and universities are launching investigations, imposing discipline, and — for graduating high school seniors preparing to attend college in the fall — rescinding offers of admission.

It is easy to understand the anger. Many of the targeted posts are flatly racist. Even so,  colleges and universities should only rescind a student’s admission in narrow circumstances — if the post is a true threat of violence, for example, or falls into one of the carefully defined categories of unprotected speech.

This feels counterintuitive, as civil liberties principles often do in application. People are angry; the speech is ugly. Setting aside the legal questions, why shouldn’t a college revoke an offer of admission because it believes the student to have racist views?

Because rescinding admission lets both the college and the student off easy.

Colleges and universities are uniquely prepared to introduce students to the worldviews and experiences of others who have lived lives very different from their own — indeed, they are designed to do so. Confronting new ideas and reevaluating one’s own is the point of a liberal arts education. For many, this will be transformative. For those students who have authored racist social media posts, it may be especially so. Rescinding admission stops the educational process before it has started.

It is true that there is no guarantee that a college education will change a young person’s mind on matters of race or discrimination. But it is far more likely to do so than the other life paths available to a newly exposed and embittered 18-year-old. It is also true that granting a student who is a determined racist an opportunity for human understanding may represent far more generosity than he or she has afforded black Americans. But there is demonstrative power in allowing a young racist to realize as much, and to learn why his or her words offended and hurt others. A college education may serve as a powerful “call-in,” and colleges are well-equipped to do more lasting work than a social media call-out. 

Daily life at college after being identified as the author of offensive social media posts may well be difficult. Social sanctions against racism are real and powerful. But that’s how freedom of expression works. There’s no right to be free from offense; likewise, there’s no right to be free from criticism. Free speech protects racist speech. It also protects identification and criticism of racist speech. The student’s beliefs will be challenged, and if the student remains committed to racism, it will not be because that commitment was without serious consequences.

What about the law?

For enrolled students, the legal analysis is straightforward. The First Amendment protects a great deal of speech that many find deeply offensive, including hateful speech. This is for good reason: we can’t trust those in power to define what speech may be punished without critically endangering dissent.

Public universities are bound by the First Amendment. They can’t punish a student for a racist Snapchat post unless it falls into one of the carefully defined categories of unprotected speech. Likewise, the many private universities that make clear promises of freedom of expression to their students can’t abandon those promises in the face of criticism without rendering them worthless.

Racist speech is not uniformly protected. Colleges and universities that receive federal funding are legally obligated under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act to prohibit and take action against discriminatory racial harassment, properly defined. Again, this standard is high for a reason; a lower standard would endanger a great deal of artistic and political expression, including speech intended to criticize racism. The racism contained in many of the social media posts targeted over the last few weeks would not meet it.

What about offers of admission? As I noted a few years back in discussing Harvard’s rescission of admission offers to students who had participated in a Facebook memes group that included racist and sexually explicit images, enrollment is a contractual agreement between college and student. The college may condition an offer of admission on certain standards being met prior to formal enrollment or the payment and acceptance of a tuition payment. Harvard, for example, reportedly warned the admitted students that the College “reserves the right to withdraw an offer of admission under various conditions including if an admitted student engages in behavior that brings into question his or her honesty, maturity, or moral character.”

These are broad provisions, and there is a question about whether they would be lawful if maintained by a public college or university bound by the First Amendment instead of a private institution like Harvard. Some applications of a clause like this by a private institution might also raise questions of law. But in either case, once the student has matriculated, his or her speech from then on should be judged by the First Amendment (at public institutions) or the institution’s promises of free expression (at private colleges and universities).

The fundamental question is how we should treat young adults who have expressed hateful views. Shunning them may be a rational individual response, and is itself an expressive or associational act protected by the First Amendment. But institutions committed to education should not allow themselves that easy out, or deny such a student a chance to actually examine his or her own views. As one university’s recent statement sagely noted, “Education is a daily confrontation with ignorance.” If we stop believing in the power of words and education to change minds and push us further along towards greater understanding, tolerance, and a more perfect union, democracy is in real trouble. Like democracy itself, the First Amendment isn’t easy, but the alternatives are worse.

A college shouldn’t change its mind about a student before the student has had a chance to change her mind about the world.

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Supreme Court Hands Huge Victory to Families on School Choice

In a 5-4 decision Tuesday, the Supreme Court held that families have a right to seek the best educational opportunities for their children, by preventing states from blocking the participation of religiously affiliated schools in state school choice programs.

In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue, the court ruled that the application of a “no-aid” provision in Montana’s Constitution violated the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, since it barred state tax credit scholarships from being used at private religious schools.

In a huge win for families, the high court held that states cannot apply the no-aid provision to discriminate against religious schools by excluding them from private school choice programs.

In 2002, the court’s ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris held that the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution did not block parents from choosing schools that are the best fit for their children, including religious schools.

Tuesday’s decision in Espinoza removed the largest state constitutional obstacle by holding that so-called Blaine Amendments cannot be used to deny choice to parents.

Under the U.S. Constitution, states no longer may prevent parents from choosing religious schools if they are participating in a school choice program.

“A state need not subsidize private education. But once a State decides to do so, it cannot disqualify some private schools simply because they are religious,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion of the court in Espinoza.

This decision struck a blow to the notoriously anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment in Montana’s Constitution that sanctioned explicit discrimination against religious schools in funding. Montana’s discrimination hurt families who have a wide variety of values and preferences when it comes to their children’s education.

As the Supreme Court had previously noted, Blaine Amendments have an “ignoble” history. The amendments are named after Sen. James G. Blaine of Maine, who in 1875 sought a federal constitutional prohibition of aid to “sectarian” schools.

“Consideration of the amendment arose at a time of pervasive hostility to the Catholic Church and to Catholics in general, and it was an open secret that sectarian was code for Catholic,” Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in the court’s Mitchell v. Helms decision in 2000.

As Jarrett Stepman and one of us, Lindsey Burke, wrote previously in the Journal of School Choice:

Catholics sought to establish their own schools, and proposed that funding should follow, as it had to the common school (proto-public schools).

Supporters of the common school movement perceived a threat to its mission in such proposals. … Against this backdrop, Blaine [Amendments] sought to prevent aid to Catholic schooling as part of a wider reaction to increased Catholic immigration.

Blaine’s effort to amend the U.S. Constitution failed in 1875, but his effort still served as a major impediment to school choice, continuing to thwart modern-day school choice programs in the 21st century.

That’s because 37 states went on to adopt similar amendments, sometimes referred to as “baby Blaine Amendments.” Prior to today’s ruling, in states such as Montana, many of these state Blaine Amendments and similar “compelled support” clauses restricted or outright prohibited the use of taxpayer funds at private religious schools.

This timeline shows when states adopted Blaine Amendments and similar “compelled support” clauses.

The Supreme Court made it clear Tuesday that the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution prohibits discrimination against religious schools on the basis of their religious status—a status that provides families with more education options that best meet the needs of their children.

The high court said that if states create a publicly available benefit, such as a scholarship program, they must allow religious schools to participate. The states that have Blaine Amendments in place are now prohibited from excluding religious school options.

In Mitchell v. Helms, Thomas wrote of Blaine Amendments: “This doctrine, born of bigotry, should be buried now.” On Tuesday, the Supreme Court’s decision in Espinoza took us one step closer to achieving that goal.

Now is the time for states to cast aside these 19th-century rules rooted in prejudice that unfairly punish religious families, students, and schools. The Constitution requires states to provide a level playing field for religious and secular education.

The legal impediment to school choice programs is now gone, and it’s up to state legislatures to move forward advancing education choice.

The court made it clear that policymakers across the country now have the power to enact robust school choice programs. They should do just that.

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