On Election Day earlier this month, voters in Arizona passed Proposition 107, a ban on affirmative action programs that give preferential treatment to or discriminate against any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education or public contracting.
Arizona is not the first state to take this path. Since Proposition 209 banning affirmative action was passed in California in 1997, Washington, Michigan and Nebraska have passed similar initiatives. Many private institutions have discontinued affirmative action programs as well.
Calvin Gantt, the director of the Access Opportunity Program at Geneseo, said he doubts that the ongoing debate will affect SUNY any time soon.
“We’re not experiencing the same types of pressures as other states,” Gantt explained.
Illegal immigration is one of the pressures that voters in states like Arizona and California are worried about. Many states also struggle with the question of how long a period of time applicants have to have resided in the U.S. before they become eligible for affirmative action programs.
In spite of these ongoing debates, Gantt doesn’t foresee danger for the AOP at Geneseo. In 1995, the AOP was cut for a one-year period, and the budget for the program has never returned to former levels. More budget cuts are imminent, but Gannt said it is unlikely that the program will be entirely curtailed.
The AOP consists of two separate programs: the Educational Opportunity Program and the Transitional Opportunity Program.
The EOP, sponsored by New York State, is not an affirmative action program. Students in the EOP must demonstrate “historical disadvantagement,” Gantt said. The EOP was initiated in 1968 in order to create campus communities at SUNY campuses that more accurately reflect the demographics of New York state. Today, economic factors including income determine eligibility for the EOP, but racial background on its own does not make one eligible for admission.
About half the students enrolled through the EOP at Geneseo today are of color, and half are not. Many EOP students come from low income or rural areas.
TOP, on the other hand, is an affirmative action program that exists only at Geneseo. In 1985, Geneseo’s administration began to look at the group of students being rejected by both the general admission process and the EOP, and found that the vast majority of these rejected applicants were of color.
“[TOP] is specifically geared towards students of underserved populations; minority students, new immigrants to the U.S. and adult students that are returning back to college,” Gantt said.
While about 11,000 students statewide are eligible for these programs, only about 1,500 are accepted.
“That leaves a huge population of students in the state that are college-eligible, college-ready and meet the guidelines, but can’t get into the program,” said Gantt.
Just this year, Gantt reviewed about 1,400 applications for 35 spots in the EOP. Some of the students who aren’t eligible for the EOP gain access through the TOP.
Graduation and retention rates for AOP students are very good, Gantt said. “I think a lot of that has to do with the nature of the community,” he said. “It’s not a cutthroat environment; I think it’s a collegial community and we build that sense of community for the students.”
This community building starts during the summers preceding each academic year. AOP students are not automatically guaranteed a spot at the college; they must first complete a rigorous academic program over the summer.
“I do think that programs like this, as well as the college, should be reflective of the state and what the state looks like,” Gantt said. “We have students who come from more affluent backgrounds and students who come from less affluent backgrounds. That’s the idea of a state school; it has a wider access point … it’s important to keep that balance between the two.”