SPOKANE, Wash.
Despite eight years of effort, minority enrollment is still down at Washington colleges and universities after voters passed an initiative outlawing racial preferences in admissions.
Black, Hispanic and American Indian students are less likely to go from high school to college, and more likely to drop out, than their White peers. And fewer than 5 percent of faculty members in the state are members of any of those ethnic groups.
Yet minority groups are the fastest-growing segments of the population, expected to grow from 22 percent to 28 percent of Washington’s total by 2020.
“I think there has been progress, it’s just been slow progress,” says Ricardo Sanchez, an associate director of education policy for the state’s Higher Education Coordinating Board. “People are feeling more and more the need to do better.”
A draft report by the HEC looked at Washington’s diversity efforts since the passage of Initiative 200 in 1998, and recommended improvements.
Educators gathered Monday night at Spokane Falls Community College to discuss the report, the first in a series of forums statewide.
