Walter Harrison, vice president of the University of Michigan, slams Stephen Chapman (Voice, Jan. 13) because “Chapman erroneously states that African-American students at the University of Michigan are 2 1/2 times more likely to fail to graduate than whites.”
Harrison goes on to say that African-American graduation rates at Michigan are 70 percent, compared with an overall rate of 85 percent for students entering in 1989, implying that these figures prove Chapman’s error.
Either he is incapable of interpreting his own data, or he is deliberately trying to mislead your readers.
According to his figures, 30 percent of African-American students and 15 percent of all students fail to graduate, a ratio of 2-1. But the overall rate includes the African-American students with their lower graduation rate, so the white graduation rate must be higher than 85 percent. Harrison conveniently omits the white graduation rate, but it only needs to be 88 percent (or 12 percent failing to graduate) for Chapman’s statement to be correct.
I am not arguing for or against affirmative action–simply for a little less spin and a little more truth from Vice President Harrison.
