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BY BENJAMIN BRADLOW

In print | March 3, 2005

In response to legal threats to Haverford and to evolving educational policy concerns, the head deans, multicultural deans and presidents of Bryn Mawr, Haverford and Swarthmore decided to open applications to the Summer Tri-Co Institute to all first-year students.

An e-mail signed by Dean of the College Bob Gross ’62, Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Darryl Smaw and their counterparts at Haverford and Bryn Mawr was sent to alumni of Tri-Co last Thursday detailing the decision. In the e-mail, obtained by The Phoenix, the deans said that the decision was primarily based on an evolving philosophy as to the purpose of the program, as well as the need to comply with recent Supreme Court cases about the use of race in college admissions.

“We believe that a more inclusive learning context would strengthen, as it broadens, the educational impact of the program. So for the first time this year all first-year students will be invited to apply. This change will also insure that the program is consistent with the recent Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action,” the deans said in the e-mail.

According to Smaw, Haverford received a letter from the Center for Equal Opportunity in the summer putting the school on notice that it could face legal consequences for hosting a program with admissions standards restricted to certain racial groups. “There is the implied intention to sue,” he said.

Smaw said the Tri-College schools were expecting to have to make such a choice at some point, but once Haverford was challenged, all three schools had to respond. “We knew that a decision had to be made,” he said. “Once Haverford received its letter, we knew the program itself was being challenged.”

He saw little room for debate about the legality of the Tri-Co program as it exists now. “The program is not in compliance with the letter of the law,” he said.

At Tuesday’s Student Council meeting, council members, members of the Swarthmore African Students Society and other guests expressed frustration primarily with the way the decision to open Tri-Co was made. Most complaints centered around the apparent lack of any student involvement in the decision.

Campus Relations Representative Joella Fink ‘07 argued that without an open decision-making process, it would be hard for students to obtain accurate information about the decision. "Since there’s no transparency, there’s no dissemination of information," she said.

Gross argued that though the deans did not directly consult with students, they did consider student opinion. “The multicultural deans are certainly not unaware of student opinion both for and against [the decision],” he said. “To say students are not involved is inaccurate.” He added that feedback from Tri-Co alumni were also included in making the decision. “They’ve given out evaluations and feedback and those were taken into consideration,” he said.

Smaw said that the administration had no choice but to change the program because of the legal challenge. “There was no deliberate attempt to exclude anyone,” he said. “It was almost a moot point that we had to get it done.”

According to SASS President Jaky Joseph ’06, at a meeting for the five closed support groups on campus held earlier Tuesday night, many aired similar concerns about the process behind the decision. “We echoed the same concerns that the Student Council has about the decision-making,” said Joseph. The five groups are SASS, the Swarthmore Queer Union, Enlace, the Swarthmore Asian Organization and COLORS.

Joseph and SASS Vice President Lorpu Jones ’06 said that the groups plan to release an official statement on the issue and that while there was near-unanimous disagreement with the process, members of the closed groups held varying opinions about the decision itself. “All five of us have different opinions … It will impact us very differently,” Jones said.

Gross described the action taken by the Center for Equal Opportunity as part of a push by conservative groups to target colleges and universities. “There have been right-wing legal groups that have been … looking for programs in higher education that confer benefit exclusively on the basis of race,” he said.

He pointed to the fact that a number of schools dropped or changed programs similar to Tri-Co immediately after the Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan in the summer of 2003, including Yale University, Brown University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In an article published in The Boston Globe on Sept. 8, 2003, Haverford Dean Joseph Tolliver reportedly said that, at that time, the Tri-Co schools were considering opening up Tri-Co to all students. However, the program for this year’s incoming first-years was not open. Tolliver was unavailable for comment.

Appointments Chair Ethan Ucker ’07 argued that Swarthmore had other options besides opening up the program, such as pulling out of the Tri-College arrangement and hosting a closed program by itself. “There are a lot of things that could be done, and this seems like those were discounted,” he said.

Smaw argued that it would not make sense to replicate a program that was open to legal action being taken against it. “If the challenge to our Tri-Co program was based on race, how could we develop a program that would mirror the Tri-Co program?” he said.

Gross said that Swarthmore could not abandon the Tri-College relationship so easily. “It is, in a sense, the signature program of the Tri-College collaboration,” he said. “We are trying to preserve the consortium as best we can.” He added that because Swarthmore had passed on its responsibility to host Tri-Co this year due to construction on Parrish Hall, the college has to fulfill its obligation to the other two schools to continue participating in and hosting the program.

Gross and Smaw emphasized that the changes will not mean a major substantive change to the program. ÒThere will not be a major shift in the focus of the program,Ó Smaw said. ÒThe one difference will be that there will be white students included in the program.Ó

General Counsel for CEO Roger Clegg, who is responsible for sending more than 100 letters to universities and colleges, including the one to Haverford, argued that schools should not sponsor any programs that exclude based on race. ÒItÕs illegal to have programs that have a blanket prohibition against people of certain races participating,Ó he said.

Beyond the legal ramifications of a program like Tri-Co, he said that closed programs are a bad educational policy. ÒI donÕt think that itÕs a good idea to encourage segregation, or to encourage students to isolate themselves on the basis of their skin color or to define, or identify themselves solely on the basis of their skin color,Ó he said. ÒIt doesnÕt make educational or policy sense.Ó He said that he approved of the deansÕ decision to open Tri-Co. ÒI think that it is a great decision É I think it will be a better program because of that,Ó he said.

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