• The KillerFrogs

One more anti-TCU StarTelegram article

Brog

Full Member
OK, front page Sunday Startlegram, top of page headline: "ANALYSIS: 70 PERCENT OF TCU STUDENTS ARE WHITE!" Someone can no doubt t give us a link to it so you can read the whole thing, but it is the usual Startlegram negative article about a "hometown" institution.
 

Deep Purple

Full Member
OK, front page Sunday Startlegram, top of page headline: "ANALYSIS: 70 PERCENT OF TCU STUDENTS ARE WHITE!" Someone can no doubt t give us a link to it so you can read the whole thing, but it is the usual Startlegram negative article about a "hometown" institution.
Guess what? According to the 2010–2015 American Community Survey by the US Census Bureau, the United States is 73.3% white. So apparently, TCU is more diverse than America.
 

FrogSweep

Active Member
To obtain factual world news, thank God there's still the Wall Street Journal in printed form, and a few on-line sources. For sophomoric local pabulum and sports, there's ST. I'm betting we could get our TCU sports fix from this site, GoFrogs, and a few others. Is there any real reason to subscribe to ST?
 

Frog-in-law1995

Active Member

Oh, I’m sure somewhere they have numbers that reflect the hispanic ethnicity population, but the “73.3% white” statistic was pulled from the wikipedia article on the demography of the U.S., which cites to the 2015 American Community Survey (an ongoing survey conducted by the census bureau) and includes white hispanics. The percentage of white non-hispanics nationwide right now is around 60%. And for the college-age crowd it’s just barely above 50%. I saw a stat somewhere that said by 2019, demographers expect white non-hispanics to be less than 50% among 18-year-olds.
 

ThisIsOurTime

Active Member
OP, this is an apparent update to the original article done by Sarah Smith.
http://www.star-telegram.com/news/local/education/article207914819.html

She actually puts in a small amount of effort in this article. Her main argument is still there needs to be more minorities at TCU. But this time she supports her argument by referencing differences in ethnic percentages between TCU and the city and the country at large. Basically, it is the systemic argument that all institutions should have mirror percentage breakdowns as the society at large. She has a few quotes from various people that confirm this reality.

The article still leaves a whole lot to be desired and missed an opportunity to discuss a number of issues that would have been constructive and more meaningful.

1. An in-depth look at why efforts to recruit more black students have not been successful. This should not just be the efforts of the school but also from the perspective of the student. For example, there may be other things at work that make it easier for certain schools to recruit more black students than others that are more due to things like location.

2. Why can't a private institution be whatever percentage white or whatever ethnicity or race it chooses to be? Why must it conform to the systemic percentage dogma? For example, why is it not ok that a school could be 100% white? Why must all schools and institutions have a similar percentage breakdown to be deemed good and virtuous? Do these rules extend to historically black colleges or other religious universities? Are they showing bias and hypocrisy by targeting only the "perceived white ones?"

3. Where should diversifying a school by ethnicity/race rank in the list of important factors for a school to focus its limited time and resources on? Can opinions vary? Should diversifying a school by ethnicity even be a standard? Is it ok to disagree with the dogma that ethnic diversity is a strength? What if a school chose to make its standard, diversity of thought or getting the highest scoring candidates possible or diversifying based on geography instead of race?

4. What about the paradox of stating that a great school like TCU is expensive but if the costs were reduced the school may no longer be great? After all, those high costs helped make the school great in the first place. Or if you are only reducing the costs for minority students to create this systemic percentage utopia and then by default having to raise the costs of tuition on the other white students, are you really creating a fair system or are you simply replacing one perceived problem with another?

Unfortunately, we didn't get to read about any of these things. Perhaps these are things that have never occurred to Sarah or maybe she has some editorial constraints. Regardless, an opportunity was missed.
 

Dogfrog

Active Member
Here’s Sarah’s bio. She deserves a chance to prove she didn’t ride into town with a satchel full of preexisting biases about Fort Worth. I once lived in Philly and NYC and those cities are not the bastions of race equality they claim to be. Good luck to her.

https://www.smithsarah.com/
 

Eight

Member
Here’s Sarah’s bio. She deserves a chance to prove she didn’t ride into town with a satchel full of preexisting biases about Fort Worth. I once lived in Philly and NYC and those cities are not the bastions of race equality they claim to be. Good luck to her.

https://www.smithsarah.com/

propublica? politico?

curious if she would write such an article in philly about say villanova?

city of philly is 30-40% black so i am sure that is the breakdown on campus right? what about penn? st. jo's? la salle? drexel?
 
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tcudoc

Full Member
I saw the sign, and it opened up my mind
hEE11429C
 

froginaustin

Active Member
I buy the argument that in today's climate any college that wants to prepare students for life as an adult, particularly as a member of the professional work force, should have a big enough number of students that self-identify as African Americans that those students do not feel isolated, or in a fish bowl. How that number would translate into a percentage, I have no idea.

Concerning black men, my story is now about 20 years old and may be dated. When my spouse worked for UTx, she was involved in a concerted effort to recruit a high school black student to UTx's honors program. They seemed good to go until the kid received his acceptance letter from Cal-- he had apparently been on a wait list.

The explanation that passed around in spouse's work group was-- it is very tough to recruit black people that are tip-top academic prospects, because everyone wants them to try to achieve diversity in their student bodies. They'll get offers from the Ivys and equivalent schools on the west coast, and from near-Ivys like Duke and Vandy.

It wouldn't surprise me if TCU really had to hustle (UTx had to, and probably has to) to enroll people such as black National Merit Scholars. Ivy and near-Ivy schools, many if not all of which effectively have need-blind admissions, push hard for those same students.
 
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