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Balz-Dobie fails the diversity test

Merits of honors residences aside, the dorm is grossly unrepresentative

Viewpoint writer Tsering Say recently argued Balz-Dobie should no longer house a community of first-year Echols Scholars. Her argument was twofold: assembling honors students in one dorm both promotes elitism and limits diversity. Recently, a pair of current Balz-Dobie residents wrote an op-ed defending Balz-Dobie, citing data from a non-compulsory, anonymous survey sent to the dorm’s residents via their senior resident. They argue the survey results demonstrate the dorm’s residents are not as homogeneous as Say depicts them.

We are divided over whether an honors dorm should exist. However, we all think the survey results are alarming, particularly the finding that more than 40 percent of respondents reported a household income of at least $200,000. It’s hard to argue a dorm is socioeconomically diverse when nearly half of its residents have household incomes that, according to the 2014 U.S. Census, would place them in the top 6 percent of families.

Balz-Dobie clearly has a long way to go to be more representative of students with different backgrounds. But it may be dishonest to portray this issue as unique to an honors dorm. The University as a whole leaves a lot to be desired when it comes to socioeconomic diversity. In 2005, students’ median family income was more than $120,000 — the number is likely higher now, given that it had increased each year before. A New America Foundation report from three years ago also found the University is one of the least socioeconomically diverse public schools.

While we may not be able to conclusively compare the economic statuses of those in Balz-Dobie and students living elsewhere, we can certainly conclude the racial demographics of the dorm are deeply troubling. The dorm’s survey shows 63 percent of respondents are white, 3 percent are black, less than 1 percent are Hispanic, 25 percent are Asian and 8 percent are biracial (with no apparent option in the survey for other racial categories). In contrast, the class of 2020, according to the University’s data, is 57 percent white, 7 percent African-American, 6 percent Hispanic and 14 percent Asian, with several other racial categories as options on the University’s survey as well. If the dorm were an accurate representation of the University’s student body, it would have six times the Hispanic students, more than double the number of black students and less than half the number of Asian students it currently does.

The University’s ongoing struggle with diversity becomes even worse in its honors dorm. Balz-Dobie doesn’t only reflect the University’s lamentable demographic problems — it intensifies them.

To make other direct comparisons between honors and non-honors dorms, we would need data about the household income distributions of the latter. When asked, Jackson Nell, chair of the resident staff program, said he did not have such data available. However, the data we have from the Balz-Dobie dorm survey does suggest the dorm is not socioeconomically diverse. The next step for Housing and Residence Life is to assess household income levels of non-honors students to determine if lack of socioeconomic diversity is particularly an honors dorm problem. More importantly, the next step for the University’s honors programs is to reevaluate the entire selection process itself — and why, exactly, honors students so dramatically misrepresent the demographics of our school.

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