Emmert's column gets misleading headline

Kayla Webley
2005-02-24
The Daily

The message of UW President Mark Emmert's guest column in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer yesterday was misconstrued by an erroneous headline that read, "Everyone benefits from I-200."

The headline was supposed to be "Changing Initiative 200 is a worthy cause."

The P-I ran the wrong headline in the print edition and later corrected the error in the online edition of the column.

Rusty Barcelo, vice president of the Office of Minority Affairs, said she was concerned readers would see the gaffe in the headline and automatically misinterpret the article.

"I thought it was unfortunate because people would misconstrue the message the president was trying to convey," Barcelo said. "I hope that they went on to read and understand the true meaning of president's message."

Emmert said he was disappointed the article had run with the wrong headline but said that he appreciated the paper's efforts to correct the mistake.

"I was obviously disappointed and frustrated that the headline didn't reflect the content of the piece," said Emmert. "But the P-I, in a series of e-mails and conversations, has been really terrific with their response. I greatly appreciate their effort to get it right."

According to Kimberly Mills, the P-I's associate editorial page editor, the piece will run again in today's edition with the correct headline.

In his column, Emmert affirmed how diversity affects and changes the UW, specifically citing minorities' impact on the quality of research and curriculum.

"University research changes when women and minorities ask new kinds of questions," he wrote. "The same is true of the curriculum, as many UW faculty members will attest."

The column also stated that benefits of a diverse campus are far reaching because "universities are both laboratories and engines of diversity for society at large."

Emmert said that though the UW has made progress -- shown by percentages of the class of 2008's previously "underrepresented" minority groups being at or slightly above pre-I-200 levels -- difficulties persist and the work is far from finished.

According to the column, removing I-200 restrictions would give the UW the ability to consider how race and ethnicity shape the student body.

"The Supreme Court laid down very narrow guidelines for the use of this tool," Emmert wrote. "It must be only one factor among many, it can carry no assigned 'score,' it requires comprehensive review of every single student and it precludes numerical goals or quotas for minority students."