South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale), March 21, 2007, Wednesday

Copyright 2007 South Florida Sun-Sentinel

South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale)

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News

March 21, 2007 Wednesday

SECTION: STATE AND REGIONAL NEWS

HEADLINE: Ivy League schools drawing more black immigrant students

BYLINE: Alva James-Johnson, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

BODY:

Mar. 21--Javeste Dulcio and her friends have a joke about black students at Cornell University. If you ask them where they're from and they say "America," the next question is: "Really, where are you from?"

That's because a large percentage of black students on campus hail from immigrant homes, said Dulcio, a Miramar resident now studying industrial and labor relations as a junior at Cornell.

Now Dulcio, the U.S.-born daughter of an African-American mother and Haitian father, has statistics to prove it.

A recent study in the American Journal of Education found that black students with immigrant parents accounted for 13 percent of U.S. blacks between the ages of 18 and 19. But the immigrant offspring made up 27 percent of black freshmen at elite colleges and universities and 41 percent at Ivy League schools such as Cornell.

The study, conducted by researchers at Princeton University and the University of Pennsylvania, defined immigrant students as those with at least one parent born abroad. It is an analysis of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Freshmen, which surveyed 1,051 blacks, 998 Asians, 959 whites and 916 Latinos. The study followed the students from 2000 to 2003.

Unlike Latinos and Asians on elite college campuses, who generally reflected the demographic composition of their respective populations, the study found that "black immigrants were over-represented relative to their share in the African-American population."

Once on campus, the students from black immigrant families and their native black counterparts performed roughly at the same level, the study found.

Among immigrant black students at elite colleges and universities, 21 percent came from families that originated in Jamaica, 17 percent Nigeria, 9 percent Haiti, 7 percent Trinidad and Tobago, and 6 percent Ghana.

Such students benefited from affirmative action programs at U.S. colleges that originally sought to address generations of discrimination against blacks in higher education, researchers said. The programs also became an educational ticket for immigrants, women and disabled students, according to the study. The study reached no definitive conclusion on the reasons why children from black immigrant families enrolled at higher levels.

In South Florida, which has one of the most diverse black populations in the country, reaction to the findings was mixed. Some critics questioned whether some selective colleges and universities were favoring immigrant students over African-Americans in their admissions policies.

Andrea Owes, president of the Urban League of Broward County's Young Black Professional Network, said there's a general perception in the United States that blacks from other countries are more motivated than African-Americans. That could lead colleges to discriminate, she said.

Randy Fleischer, a civil rights attorney in Davie, said immigrant minorities might be enrolling at top colleges in higher numbers because they've had fewer experiences with discrimination and are more trusting of white institutions.

"Native minorities may not apply to many private universities because they have a preconception that they will suffer discrimination," he said. "Immigrant minorities do not have that same preconception and could be more open to applying to those same universities, unconcerned about the effects of discrimination."

Dianna Sanderson, a graduate of Boyd Anderson High School in Lauderdale Lakes, said many African-American students at her high school were more interested in historically black colleges than Ivy League schools because of family tradition.

"Their mother may have gone to Spelman, so they're going to Spelman, or a parent went to Clark Atlanta, so they want to go to Clark Atlanta," said Sanderson, born to Jamaican parents. "The kids in homes where education is valued, they're going to college whether they're African-American, Caribbean or Asian, but where they go is a personal choice."

The study's data showed relatively few socio-economic differences between students from immigrant families and other black students.

Students from black immigrant families were more likely to come from two-parent homes, attend private schools and live in integrated neighborhoods, the study found. But the percentage differences were not great enough to be a significant factor in the admissions statistics, according to researchers.

The most significant difference was that fathers of black immigrant children were far more likely to have graduated from college and hold advanced degrees than their native counterparts.

But once on campus, the advantages from high parental education appeared to be erased, researchers said.

"Whatever processes are operating on college campuses to depress academic performance below that of whites with similar characteristic, they function for immigrants as well as natives," the study said.

Alva James-Johnson can be reached at ajjohnson@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4546.

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