(In) "Grade Gap/Future Gap: Addressing Racial Disparities in L&S [Letters & Science] Introductory Courses." Departments were instructed to implement strategic action plans to “eliminate racial grade gaps by 2014.”As the article notes, most teachers of these intro courses are on short-term contracts. They are therefore very susceptible to administrative pressure to equalize grades across groups.
UW-Madison is going through all these contortions because the administration can’t or won’t acknowledge a simple fact: some groups of admitted students are significantly less well prepared for college work.
I predict the end result of this policy and its likely sequelae in higher level courses will be recruiters avoiding minority graduates from UWMadison as their grades will not reflect their accomplishments.
