"In 1968, black students at Brown University and Pembroke College walked out of classes and marched to the Congdon Street Baptist Church to protest the low number of black students enrolled at the institution and the lack of support those who were enrolled received.
Today, black students have many of the same concerns.
On Wednesday, the 50th anniversary of the walkout, black students at Brown plan to once again walk off campus to the Congdon Street Baptist Church, where they will stay until the university commits to a list of demands.
A central demand of the students who staged the 1968 walkout was to increase black enrollment at Brown to at least 11 percent, which was the percentage of the black population of the U.S. at the time." …
http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20181204/walkout-planned-to-protest-enrollment-practices-at-brown-university
“eliminating questions about a student’s criminal and disciplinary history in the admissions process.”
Although some of the student demands seem reasonable, or are at least worth discussing, this one strikes me as a very bad idea.
I see pros and cons to that @TheBigChef FWIW, common app is removing the criminal history questions starting next year, I expect that might be where this demand got a foothold…
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/08/common-app-criminal-history-question/567242/
I agree with removing criminal and disciplinary history. Great that the Common App is removing it!
CCtoAlaska, it’s easy to dismiss “disciplinary history” in general terms, less so when you think in terms of specifics. For example, should the applicant who was disciplined four times in HS for cheating on final exams have to report that to colleges to which he/she is applying? How about the two week suspension the other one got for beating up the kid on spectrum in the locker room?
With respect to criminal history, perhaps some non-violent crimes such as low level drug possession need not be reported, but an across-the board-rule regarding crimes seems extreme to me. Would you want a convicted rapist living in the same dorm as your kid? How about a convicted arsonist?
Disciplinary history remains.
I could see a ‘criminal in the last 12 months’ inquiry.
It will be interesting to see how many schools keep or add a criminal history question in their supplement materials…some currently ask.
Even disciplinary history reporting is not straightforward…our state does not allow high schools to put disciplinary history on transcripts, and many GCs won’t address it in their recs. So student is on their own when answering the current disciplinary history questions on the common app, or any app.
@TheBigChef they don’t have to consider it for admission, though. In my city you are not allowed to ask for criminal history in the job application process - you can still make employment contingent on a clean record or a record clean of violent offenses. Schools can ask for this information later, say, as a prerequisite to residing in the dorms or making matriculation contingent on the successful completion of a background check that shows no violent offenses. In some areas/schools, nearly all the teens have some kind of encounter with the law or with the school disciplinary process. We have to roll back the effects of that in some way. This is a good start.