In 2012, if you think having only 3% of your faculty as African American isn't a problem, we have an even bigger problem than I thought.
I think we have a big problem, as well, but I think that you and I have antipodal beliefs as to what the problem actually is.
Your belief appears to be: "Blacks make up 12.6% of the U.S. population, but only 3% of faculty at UConn, so we need to do something to get more black faculty hired." There is an implication that there is an underlying wrong that needs to be redressed.
The problem with your belief is that it irrationally impugns non-black people. Originally, it would have just been white people. But now that Chinese and Indians and Pakastanis and a host of other ethnic groups have been at least as successful as whites, and often even more successful than whites, I suppose it's essentially all non-black people that you are calling out as being responsible for UConn having too few, in your view, black professors.
You, and people who think like you, apparently believe that 40 years of affirmative action haven't been enough. 40 years of favoritism getting into schools and getting jobs and getting tax money for company ownership and so on haven't been enough. You want more. We need to "reach out" and "recruit" black professors, or some other such code that, boiled right down to its naked core, means, "discriminate against people based on the color of their skin or their heritage to exclude those who don't fit our criteria, which in this case, means "black.""
It's not reverse racism that you propose. It's bald-faced racism.
You base your ideology on current numbers - % population vs. % professorships. Should we do that for all groups? If so, we need to round up the Jews, because, I tell you plainly sir, I had many, many Jewish professors during my multiple degree stint at UConn, and they far exceed their paltry 3% population percent in professorial ranks. Should we round up a few of them and fire them? Or, were you thinking only the non-Jewish whites? Hmm? Males? Non-Jewish White Males? Are they the ones who should give up their spots to enact your race-preference plan?
Here are the most recent stats for you: Only half of black males graduate high school. Only 4% of college students are black males, notwithstanding the fact that they are heavily recruited and usually qualify for heavy tuition subsidization. Only a third of black men who begin college obtain their degrees.
Some quick and dirty math tells you that only 1 or 2% of all college graduate - undergraduates mind you - are black males.
Now how many of those then do the 4-6 years required to get a PhD? Even if we say that 1/3 do, which is ridiculous, it means that less than 1% of all folks getting PhDs are black males. But that's just PhD grads. Only a portion of them want to become professors. Figure, generously, 1/2 again, and you're now down below 1/2 of 1 percent of all applicants to professor positions are black males.
So in your world, what percent of professors should be black males? 6.25%? To match their population percent?
Fundamentally, your position is the worst kind of impossible idealism, because it presumes as its basis that the current miserable education performance among blacks is somehow everybody else's fault. Your explanation is based on a combination of structural racism and historical disadvantage.
Your explanation, sadly, ignores the obvious causes of the fact that only 3% of UConn professors are black, which, by the way, is a great exaggeration of what the percentage would be if professors were hired on qualifications alone, and not given a racist preference.
You explanation ignores that affirmative action has now been around for 40 years. It ignores that, despite 40 years of race based preferences for acceptance and hiring, blacks, as a group, are arguably worse off then they have been since slavery ended. It ignores that, like all people, black people make choices, as individuals, and as a culturally distinct group, and that it is the obvious consequence of those choices that bad endings result. You will not legislate, nor change through yet more welfare, the disastrous, dominant black culture, where promiscuity, avoidance of marriage and the family unit, heavy dependence on welfare, tolerance of violence, abuse of drugs, and outright disdain for being educated like whitey all conspire to ensure that, socioeconomically, blacks will not succeed as most define "to succeed."
In short, more money, more preferences, more institutionalized racist selection, more blame of others - these things will not result in there being more qualified black professors. It will result in exactly the opposite, just like it has done for the last 40 or so years - more racism and more handouts will lead to poorer results, as the welfare mentality that has been such a disaster for the black community in the United States is extended and broadened.
If blacks in America want a different result, then, instead of hanging their hats on the notion that it is others keeping them down, they should begin by examining the cause and effect of their own extremely poor decision making.
