WWU President: 'We will not waste a moment's time' responding to ‘extremist media’ and ‘hate mongers’
President Bruce Shepard's said his university needs to be less white in the years ahead.
Says WWU doesn't and won't consider race in admissions.
In an email to faculty and students, Shepard promises to "not waste a moment's time responding to extremist media."
Western Washington University (WWU)’s President Bruce Shepard finally commented on the controversy surrounding his comments calling the number of white students on campus a “failure.”
“We will not waste a moment’s time responding to extremist media and the hate mongers they pander to,” Shepard said in a lengthy email obtained by Campus Reform. The email was sent to WWU’s faculty and students by Shepard and the student body president.
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“Western does not consider race in admissions; not at all and nor will it. Still, the term ‘white’ can strike sparks,” the email reads. “As was carefully explained in the blog, the word choice was intentional, intended to provoke attention to some basic demographics facts of life: for Washington, for Western.”
In the fall of 2013, 25.4 percent of the freshmen class was classified as students of color, all but doubling the amount of minority students admitted in 2001.
The state of Washington is home to 81.6 percent white people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Aside from this campuswide email, WWU has remained silent on the issue, directing those on Twitter or calling into the office to Shepard’s January blog post, the same one Campus Reform quoted in the original article.
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