Students favor diversity, dispute ways to achieve it

An overwhelming 86 percent of students said diversity has positive affects on higher education, but the same students were sharply divided on the benefits of affirmative action at the University, according to initial results of The Michigan Daily Student Survey.

Forty-four percent of respondents said they disagreed with the statement that "affirmative action positively contributes to the quality of higher education," while 38 percent agreed.

Echoing the results of the survey, LSA sophomore Nicole McCarthy said that while diversity is important, she does not believe affirmative action is the best method to achieve its goals.

SARAH SCHENK/Daily LSA sophomore Jungsam Sohn and LSA first-year student Jessica Shim eat dinner at West Quad dining hall last night, where many students say people segregate into ethnically based groups during meals.

"It's very important in a college, especially for students who come from a one-type-person kind of city," McCarthy said. "I think that the people who want to be helped by affirmative action end up being hurt by it."

Initial survey results - of a sample representing 87 percent of the student population - show that the race of the respondents can affect their perceptions of diversity at the University. Only 22 percent of self-identified white students compared to 50 percent non-whites students - who identified themselves as black, Asian or Latino/a - responded that the University was "not diverse enough."

LSA junior Shaila Bhatt said the University is a change from her hometown community.

"I grew up in an almost all-white environment," Bhatt said. "Now, I don't have the same stereotypes as I did."

Thirty percent of respondents who identified themselves as liberals said yes when asked whether they thought affirmative action had achieved the goal of providing equal opportunities for women or minorities, while 61 percent of conservative students said yes.

Students' response to the question of whether underrepresented minorities added to diversity at the University varied based on their political affiliations, race and gender.

About 58 percent of self-identified liberal respondents said members of underrepresented races contribute "a lot" to diversity while only 30 percent of conservative students believed the same.

Only 43 percent of white respondents said underrepresented race adds "a lot" to diversity compared with 61 percent of non-white respondents.

LSA first-year student Geoffrey Stanton said a person's race should not matter as much as their personality when it comes to evaluating their impact on the campus' diversity.

"Diversity does not exist on the level of the skin, but rather on the level of personalities," Stanton said. "There's more to someone's diversity than their gender or skin."

Significant differences in response also appeared in survey results between male and female students.

Only 37 percent of males respondents said diversity contributed "a lot" to a better college experience compared with 55 percent of females.

LSA first-year student Matthew Burt said diversity helped improve the learning experience at the University.

"I think it's important to have people of all different backgrounds in the classroom," Burt said. "It makes for a better learning environment."

Political affiliation also appears to affect the perception of the influence of diversity on the college experience. Almost 62 percent of respondents who identified themselves as liberals said diversity improves the college experience "a lot" while less than 25 percent of conservatives said the same.

Politics, gender and race also affected the view of diversity's benefits in the classroom.

Only 35 percent of white respondents thought diversity improved their classroom experience "a lot" while 60 percent of non-white students thought so.

About 51 percent of females gave the same answer, compared to 30 percent of males, while 56 percent of liberals said classroom experience was improved "a lot" compared to less than 23 percent of conservative students.

Regardless of the benefits in the classroom, many students said diversity eluded most people in their social lives.

"When it comes to the classroom, it's diverse," Bhatt said. "But when it come to who people hang out with socially, it's very segregated."

04-20-99