The article, "What Price Diversity?", that Kerry Emanuel wrote for the most recent issue of the Faculty Newsletter (Vol. X, No. 3, p. 12) is cause for concern. In that article, Professor Emanuel, of Course 12, argues that "the very best universities [presumably including MIT] must admit marginally qualified or underqualified students" to satisfy affirmative-action policies. In making his argument, however, Professor Emanuel misuses statistics and asserts untrue stereotypes about MIT students.

Professor Emanuel’s article is troubling in many ways. He cites SAT statistics and graduation rates to show that a nationwide achievement disparity exists between white and Asian students and students in underrepresented minority groups. We do not contest his observation. However, in the same paragraph, Professor Emanuel cites the overrepresentation of historically disadvantaged minority groups among students required to withdraw from MIT from 1990 to 1995. He presents this statistic as if to support his argument that MIT has been admitting underrepresented-minority students who would not be qualified for admission if race were ignored.

Professor Emanuel is mistaken. According to Dean of Admissions Marilee Jones, the underrepresented-minority students admitted to MIT are statistically identical to white and Asian students, with the exception of their scores on national standardized tests. Underrepresented minorities may account for more than their share of required withdrawals from MIT, but so few students are required to withdraw for academic reasons that this observation is statistically meaningless. It would also be quite a presumption to assume that any disparity in required withdrawals is due exclusively to innate talent. Professor Emanuel’s arguments based on required-withdrawal statistics are flimsy: According to Dean Leo Osgood, on average less than 1.5 percent of MIT’s student body is required to withdraw each year, and, though Professor Emanuel did not say so, most of these students ultimately return to MIT and graduate. Professor Emanuel’s argument is unconvincing, especially because of the observable fact that qualifications of students admitted to MIT do not differ significantly by race.

Furthermore, nationwide student statistics imply very little about MIT students. Regardless of their racial group, MIT students do not comprise representative cross-sections of their respective groups across the country. Moreover, national standardized tests are not known for accuracy in predicting relative achievement of students in different racial groups; neither are they noted for capacity to distinguish ability levels well in the upper range of scores. Therefore, Professor Emanuel’s statements about the intellectual talents of MIT students cannot be convincingly supported by national statistical trends.

Were "What Price Diversity?" written by someone other than an MIT professor, one might attribute the flimsiness of the argument to a feeble understanding of the process of dispassionate inquiry. However, since he is an MIT professor, it is difficult to believe that this explanation could apply to Professor Emanuel. One presumes that his professional work meets a higher standard than that of his political tirades. Thus one is left to wonder what would lead a professional scientist to write a piece so fraught with unconvincing arguments.

For the academic year ending in 1996, Professor Emanuel served as chairman of the Committee on Academic Performance (CAP), which decides cases of academic warning and required withdrawal from the Institute. This troubling fact did not make it into the Professor’s article. While it is far from clear that Professor Emanuel’s CAP made any improper decisions, given the insinuations of his article there is some ground for concern that CAP may have done so. Therefore, MIT now has no choice but to take responsible action to address this possibility. MIT should ask itself whether any students were improperly required to withdraw during Professor Emanuel’s tenure as CAP chairman. Moreover, whether or not Professor Emanuel is prejudiced, his article underscores the necessity of ensuring that persons of prejudice are not able to exercise power over students. The faculty should review its selection procedures to ensure that professors selected for committee chairmanships will exercise their duties with fairness and objectivity.

Professor Emanuel’s article implied more than simply that a national achievement disparity exists between students of different races. He implied that MIT students of underrepresented minority groups are less qualified than their white and Asian classmates to attend MIT. As a professor, Kerry Emanuel’s job is to teach MIT students, not to insinuate that they do not belong here. As a former chairman of CAP, he should know that a required withdrawal can happen for a variety of reasons other than deficiencies in the student’s intellect.

Professor Emanuel claims that "the high failure rate and overrepresentation of minorities among poorer students cannot help but give non-minorities the mistaken notion that minorities are intellectually inferior." Fortunately, we have an English word to sum that "mistaken notion" up neatly: the word is prejudice. Our response to Professor Emanuel is that the statistics need not engender prejudice. Prejudice comes from ignorance, and ignorance can be countered through education. Luckily, education is what MIT is all about.