Over the past four years that I have attended UW-Milwaukee, I have noticed that the campus is made up of a wide range of ethnically diverse students and faculty members.  This, based on the data below, is different in comparison to the rest of the schools in the UW system.  An effort called the Milwaukee Commitment, however, is striving for still more diversity on Milwaukee’s campus which will in turn affect how the Admissions department will review student’s applications.

Here are some facts provided by the Milwaukee Commitment stating that in the 2003-04 academic year, UWM enrolled 16% of all the students within the UW school system.  However, when looking at enrollment rates for students of color, UW Milwaukee enrolled 32% of all undergrads in the UW system.  To point out not only the rate of enrollment of minority students but the rate of which they graduate, the figures from 2003 also show that UWM awarded 33% of all bachelor’s degrees to African American students and 52% of all master’s degrees.  These statistics show that UW Milwaukee is more diverse than any other campus in the UW system and is not the one that needs revitalizing. 

Although the facts and figures show this to be the case, somehow UW Milwaukee still is not pleased with the rate of diversity here on campus.  And the changes that are proposed, such as the plan “Phase II” are, in my opinion, going to severely hurt our university.

Phase II is the second part of the plan of the Milwaukee Commitment.  The ideas and goals of Phase II are to enact proposals that would require more students of color and/or disadvantaged backgrounds to be admitted to UW Milwaukee and for more professors of color to be hired to better represent the population within the city of Milwaukee.  This seems to be a great thing to do; however, in pealing back the layers, UWM and its students may find more problems than they will success; making me wonder if we should really be committing to a plan that has so many apparent flaws. 

Although I think that a diverse population is a great thing, I also think that at such a great University we should be looking at merit as opposed to the color of someone’s skin.  The message that is sent out to the students is also a discouraging one.  Consider yourself to be a person of another race besides white.  You know that you do not meet the goals required to get in to UWM yet you are still admitted due to your race.  The message being sent is that you are special because you may be African American and that your grades don’t matter as much as the color of your skin.  You got your acceptance letter in the mail so that UW Milwaukee’s population can appear to be more diverse. 

This is not the best way for Milwaukee to show its concerns and well being for the minority population.  It hurts not only those students but the university as well.  By implementing Phase II, UW Milwaukee will look like they are more concerned with the ethnic backgrounds that are checked on applications than on the success and dedication of its students.  If UW Milwaukee admits more and more ethnically diverse students, that is fine.  However, admitting them because they meet the criteria of a “Phase II” student hardly seems fair. 

Should this be the reason some get accepted over others, I think that UW Milwaukee is going to come under fire in a legal sense.  Take the situation that occurred at the University of Michigan, where Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter were denied admission: they met requirements but were denied due to the fact that the campus needed to meet more diversity with the students they chose to admit.  The United States Supreme Court ruled in this case that the university could not discriminate due to race and that they were in violation of the 14^th Amendment, the equal protection clause.  If UWM starts admitting students among the basis of race, are they not in violation of the 14 ^th amendment as well? 

We were all told growing up, “life isn’t always fair.”  Should we just avoid being fair in the admissions process to make us look better on paper?  Not only does Phase II call for more diversity among students but it also calls for more diversity among faculty.  Does this mean we are going to pass up hiring a perfectly qualified professor for another applicant who might not be as qualified but happens to add another tick mark to the diversity chart?  That hardly seems good for the University.  As a student of UW Milwaukee, I do not care what the ethnicity of my professor is, as long as I’m getting the best education possible for which I am paying and arm and a leg.  I am sure that many of the students at the university feel the same as I do on this issue. 

The idea of the Milwaukee Commitment sounds great at first glance, but taking a step back and viewing it from a student’s perspective, I have come to see that I am only disappointed. The implementation of Phase II shows that the current administration at UWM seems to care more about its diversified appearance than it does the actual well being of its excellent student body, whether it be White, Black, Asian, Native American, Latino, etc.  If UWM is striving for some type of diversified utopia, they may want to reconsider how they go about achieving it.