A self-proclaimed American conservative think tank has released a research study on Oklahoma University which, the group says, shows that the school practices discrimination in admissions based on racial features.
The group claims that it has 'found evidence' of racial discrimination in university's law, undergraduate, and medical school admissions. It says the university gave preference to many 'underrepresented minorities' over those who were qualified but did not belong to minority ethnic groups. It also claims that the schools gave 'preferential treatment for American Indian applicants as well.'
The data used to come to this conclusion has been directly obtained from the university. According to the university's student newspaper The Oklahoma Daily, the admission data is from the 2005 to 2006 academic school year.
Using this data, the group compared the medians of SAT scores and GPAs of prospective students and came to the conclusion that if an African American applicant 60 percent chance of admission into the university's law school, then an identically credentialed American Indian applicant would have only a 39 percent chance of admission, a Hispanic applicant only 24 percent, a white applicant only 22 percent, and an Asian American applicant only a 15 percent chance.
"We looked at test scores and grades and tried to control for as many variables as we could," said Roger Clegg, president of the Center for Equal Opportunity.
"From that information, we calculated how heavily race and ethnicity were being used."
The study claims during the 2005-2006 academic year, "OU Law rejected two American Indians, nine Asian Americans, one African American, eight Hispanics and 105 whites despite higher test scores and grades compared to the median African American admittee."
The university has expressed its dismay over not asking any additional information from it but solely depending on a single year's data.
"It is unfortunate that the university was not contacted or provided an opportunity to participate in the [Center for Equal Opportunity] study," said Catherine Bishop, vice president for OU Public Affairs in an email to The Oklahoma Daily.
Bishop said the study has misunderstood the context of the admissions, and had it reached out to the university, officials could have clarified the admission decisions.
As the whole nation is awaiting the verdict in the Fisher vs. UT-Austin, Oklahoma is getting ready to decide the fate of Affirmative Action in the November ballot. The state question 759 will give the citizens power to decide whether to ban it.
