March 29, 1999

Timothy Barnekov
School of Urban Affairs and Public Policy
Graham Hall
University of Delaware

Dear Prof. Barnekov et al.:

Thank you for sending me a copy of your letter to President Roselle. Although it is not clear why you would write to him rather than to the DAS directly with criticisms of our survey, I appreciate your interest in the survey.

Your explicit criticism is that the survey's sample was small and so the survey can't "be used to generalize anything beyond the sample drawn." In fact, as you doubtless know, a relatively low response rate is perfectly typical for such surveys and is certainly no reason to dismiss the results out of hand, as you do.

Your letter makes it hard to doubt, moreover, that you would not be making an issue of the survey's methodology if the survey's results had shown that most UD faculty support race and gender preferences. Indeed, your letter suggests that you yourself not only favor preferences but also believe that the University uses them. This latter belief seems implicit in your concern with determining whether any "declines" in student and faculty quality are "measurable" and due to "the implementation of policies."

Although we may differ on many issues, I agree with your concern for finding the truth. DAS would like to know, first, whether the majority of faculty is correct in thinking that the University does use race and gender preferences in student admissions and faculty hiring. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly), the administration will not say. As you suggest, "in the absence of . . . information" it is hard to debate any changes in policy.

The DAS wishes to remind you, however, that treating different races differently in employment and education is illegal under federal and state civil rights laws and, as demonstrated by the recent verdict in Wilmington against Mayor Sills, can subject defendants to large punitive fines.

Thank you for writing.

Sincerely,

Linda S. Gottfredson
President

cc: President David Roselle
Dean Dan Rich
Deborah Auger, Robert Warren, Norma Gaines-Hanks, Edward Ratledge, Eric Jacobson, Maria Aristiqueta, Donna Bacon, James Flynn, Kathyrn Denhardt, Jerome Lewis, Jeffrey Raffel, Karen Curtis, Danilo Yanich, Lance Freeman, Margar et Wilder, Terry Schooley, Leslie Cooksy, Raheemah Jabbar-Bey, Gwen Brown