(c) Copyright by
Kenneth R. Conklin, Ph.D.
January 2, 2012
Are ethnic Hawaiians really underrepresented in the student population at University of Hawaii? Should special efforts therefore be made to recruit and support them: e.g., affirmative action in the Admissions Department along with free tuition, tutoring and counseling not given to other ethnic groups? What are the actual data regarding the percentages of Hawaii's 5 most numerous ethnic groups at each of UH's 10 campuses, and how do those percentages compare with the percentages of those 5 groups in the population of the State of Hawaii?
The ethnic Hawaiian grievance industry is very skilled at twisting data to make it look like ethnic Hawaiians have the worst statistics among all Hawaii's ethnic groups for nearly every disease (breast cancer, heart disease, diabetes) and nearly every social malady (low income, drug abuse, incarceration). One main way of twisting data is to ignore the fact that ethnic Hawaiians are, on average, 16 years younger than everyone else (hence lower income and violent crime). Another main way of twisting data is to count everyone with any small fraction of native ancestry as a full tally mark for "Hawaiian" for some bad thing but not to award any tally mark to the other races which comprise part or most of his ancestry (hence grossly inflated counting of how many Hawaiians suffer bad things and undercounting of other races). For detailed analysis of these techniques of statistical malpractice, begin on a recently published webpage which then leads to greater detail on other webpages: "Ethnic Hawaiians Disproportionately Incarcerated? Not!" at
http://tinyurl.com/b47ea9c
But another example of how the Hawaiian grievance industry twists data can be found in the claim that ethnic Hawaiians are underrepresented in the student population at the University of Hawaii. Bills have been submitted in the legislature every year for a long time demanding free tuition and special race-based recruiting and counseling for ethnic Hawaiians, based partly on the claim that they are underrepresented among the student population.
The grievance industry points out that only 15% of students at UH Manoa are ethnic Hawaiian, which is less than the percentage of ethnic Hawaiians in the population of Hawaii. But what nobody mentions is that EVERY ethnic group of students at UH Manoa (and all the community colleges too) appears to have a lower percentage of students than that group's percentage of the state's population, because a very large number of students (nearly one-third!) are counted as either "other" or "mixed", thereby short-counting every ethnic group by comparison to the full-count method used by the U.S. Census Bureau.
At UH Manoa, 31% of all the students are classified as "other" or "mixed", which means that they fail to get counted among the identified racial groups. Those meaningless categories are large percentages on all ten campuses. So, of course, every racial group ends up being "underrepresented" at UH, when a casual viewer looks at the data. Nearly all racial groups on nearly all ten UH campuses actually have a far worse amount of "underrepresentation" than ethnic Hawaiians. In fact it turns out that when each race's percentage of students is compared against the percentage of that race in the state's population, and then the amount of "underrepresentation" is compared among the races, ethnic Hawaiians in fact are hugely or greatly OVERrepresented on nearly every campus by comparison with all other races who, on most campuses, are appropriately represented, or somewhat or greatly underrepresented.
The term "minority group" has a peculiar meaning in Hawaii which is used to discriminate against Caucasians. In Hawaii, every ethnicity is a minority, including Caucasians. If major racial groups are considered, then Census 2010 Summary File 1 reports FOR RACE ALONE (i.e., "pure" race) that 38.6% are Asian, 24.7% are Caucasian, 10.7 are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander; and for race alone or in combination (i.e., everyone who has at least some heritage from that race whether "pure" or "mixed") 57.4% are Asian, 41.5 % are Caucasian, and 26.2% are Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander. See
http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/census/Census_2010/demographic/demo_profile/2010demoprof_state_hi.pdf
Caucasians are clearly a minority. But Caucasians are never given the special treatment or "affirmative action" which other minorities enjoy. When colleges use affirmative action to recruit minorities, or give scholarships to "underrepresented minorities," Caucasians are routinely ignored even though they are sometimes far more underrepresented in the student body than other groups. It turns out that ethnic Hawaiians are hugely OVERrepresented, even though they are the recipients of a tremendous public relations campaign portraying them as underrepresented. Charitable organizations and scholarship programs give special consideration to ethnic Hawaiians even though they are the beneficiaries of many millions of dollars given to them annually for college tuition, and perhaps also room and board, by Kamehameha Schools and other institutions which single out ethnic Hawaiians exclusively for such largesse.
One demographic group in the U.S. is identified as "Asian American and Pacific Islanders." May is Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month -- a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders throughout the United States. OAPIA is the "Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs" in Washington D.C., where it's appropriate to single out and pay special attention to that group because they are a small minority. But in Hawaii nearly 90% of our people are Asian or Pacific Islander (including those of mixed heritage), while only a couple percent are Black or Native American. Thus, paying special attention or giving special benefits to "Asians and Pacific Islanders" in Hawaii has exclusion of Caucasians as its major practical effect.
The University of Hawaii at Manoa has an Office of Student Equity, Excellence and Diversity (SEED) headquartered at the Queen Liliʻuokalani Center for Student Services. According to its webpage SEED "administers, coordinates, and provides programs that support students with disabilities (KOKUA), native Hawaiians (Kuaʻana and Nā Pua Noʻeau), underrepresented ethnic groups (OMSS), women (Women’s Center), academic scholars and underprepared disadvantaged students (COP and GEAR UP), senior citizens and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex students (LGBTI) at UH Mānoa."
http://www.studentaffairs.manoa.hawaii.edu/departments/seed.php
The only ethnic group specifically mentioned in that mission statement is "Hawaiians." For many years the head of SEED has been Amy Agbayani. Dr. Agbayani is herself 100% Filipina, and Filipinos are generally an underrepresented minority at UH. Nevertheless the group she has championed most vigorously for affirmative action is ethnic Hawaiians, despite the fact that they are the most hugely overrepresented group at all ten campuses combined. Perhaps the favoritism to ethnic Hawaiians, even at the expense of her own race, is due to the fact that ethnic Hawaiians are treated as the state racial pet or mascot, similar to our special affection for the nene goose, the Hawaiian monk seal, Kamehameha butterfly, etc. Hawaii is in love with all things "indigenous."
www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/hawnsasmascots.html
Recently it was reported that a $9.2 Million donation has been given to the UH Foundation to support research and teaching in specific areas. Margot Schrire, Director of Communications for the University of Hawaii Foundation, says "[Among other things] This gift will fund scholarships up to full tuition, for up to four consecutive years to undergraduate students in any area of study at any campus in the University of Hawai'i System. Recipients must be full-time, undergraduate students and show academic promise. Preference may be given to students in underrepresented groups as determined by the University. ... many students, particularly our underrepresented groups, find the transition from affordable community colleges to the more expensive baccalaureate institutions, overwhelming." This quote came from a lengthy article about the $9.2 Million grant posted by Schrire in Hawaii Reporter online newspaper at
http://www.hawaiireporter.com/?p=245181
The generous donor of $9.2 Million specifies that there should be a preference "given to students in underrepresented groups as determined by the University." With people like Amy Agbayani in charge of determining which groups are underrepresented, there's no doubt that most of the money will go to ethnic Hawaiians even though they are greatly OVERrepresented and receive lavish funding from institutions like Kamehameha Schools which already give millions annually to ethnic Hawaiians exclusively. Generous donors should be more careful to define the criteria for who should receive charity rather than leaving such decisions to bureaucrats skilled at twisting data to serve their predilections.
About ten years ago I wrote a webpage based on information from Census 2000 and UH enrollment for Fall 2002; with the title "Ethnic Representation Among Students at the University of Hawai'i Compared With Ethnic Representation In The Population of the State of Hawai'i -- Implications for Affirmative Action and Diversity Recruitment Incentives (The Inappropriateness of Race-Based Tuition Waivers for Ethnic Hawaiians)"
https://www.angelfire.com/hi2/hawaiiansovereignty/UHstudentethnicity.html
It's time to update the data and do the analysis again. Below are the following: (1) A list of the top seven ethnic groups in Hawaii according to Census 2010, showing for each one the number of people identifying themselves as being of that race alone, the number claiming that race either alone or in combination with other races, and the corresponding percentages of Hawaii's total population; (2) University of Hawaii Institutional Research and Analysis Office, data for UH Hawaii at Manoa for Fall 2012, allowing comparison with pie graph data for UH Manoa to verify that data in the pie graphs closely track data from IRAO; (3) Discussion of issues to consider in judging whether a racial group is over- or under- represented on any particular campus, such as how to determine whether the population of the campus "community" should be the entire state, one entire island, or only a portion of one island; (4) Racial enrollment data for each of the ten campuses in the UH system as shown in pie graphs provided on the webpage for each campus, with conclusions about over- or under- representation of each race in the student population of each campus..
The obvious conclusions from looking at demographic data for each of the ten campuses in the UH system are:
Ethnic Hawaiians are the most OVERrepresented ethnic group on each and every campus. Some of those levels of overrepresentation are HUGE.
Filipinos are sometimes overrepresented and sometimes underrepresented.
Caucasians are appropriately represented on most campuses, somewhat underrepresented on two and somewhat overrepresented on one.
Japanese are appropriately represented on most campuses, somewhat underrepresented on one and greatly underrepresented on two. This evidence about Japanese is contrary to a common misperception that the UH system is overrun by Japanese.
Chinese are somewhat underrepresented on one campus, greatly underrepresented on one campus, and hugely underrepresented on five more (There are a total of ten campuses). Among the five races with largest populations in Hawaii, Chinese are clearly the most in need of special attention in recruiting and support. Chinese were also by far the most underrepresented ten years ago as shown on the webpage analysis done at that time. But Amy Agbayani and other "affirmative action" zealots gave little or no attention to Chinese during that decade and probably for decades before that. There have been no bills in the legislature proposing tuition waivers for ethnic Chinese, even though there have been numerous bills for many years proposing tuition waivers for the greatly OVERrepresented ethnic Hawaiians.
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U.S. Census 2010 data (self-reported by people filling out decennial Census form) as found on the State of Hawaii Department of Business Economic Development and Tourism (DBEDT) website in various tables collected at
http://hawaii.gov/dbedt/info/census/Census_2010/SF2/index_html
Note that percentages add up to more than 100% because people of mixed race were allowed to self-report or conceal any or all of their heritages. Probably the most flagrant example of concealing multiple heritages is visible in the fact that 80,337 residents of Hawaii declared themselves to be solely Native Hawaiian; i.e. "pure" Native Hawaiian. That's obviously false. Nearly all of them have other races in their heritages, and perhaps most of them have more than 50% of their heritage from other races. But because of racial activism, or instructions from their political leaders and benefit-providers at OHA and Kamehameha Schools, they decided to suppress their non-native heritages in order to grossly inflate the number of "pure Hawaiians."
State of Hawaii total population = 1,360,301
** Ken Conklin's note: Race alone (i.e., "pure") is provided only to satisfy curiosity, but the figures that will be used in this webpage are for race alone or in any combination (i.e., "pure" or "mixed" in any quantum). The reason is that Native Hawaiian race alone as reported in Census 2010 is more than 80,000 [and also in Census 2000 previously] which is far higher than the 2,000 - 3,000 widely estimated, because of racial pride and pressure from OHA and Kamehameha Schools on low quantum ethnic Hawaiians to report Hawaiian as their only race in order to inflate the numbers for political purposes.
** Ken Conklin's note: Population figures for Korean, and Black, are provided to satisfy curiosity, but will not be used on this webpage because the pie graphs for each UH campus do not account for those two groups identifiably but account for those two groups only by including them in "mixed" or "other."
Caucasian
race alone = 336,599 = 24.7%
race alone or in any combination = 564,323 = 41.5%
Filipino
race alone = 197,497 = 14.5%
race alone or in any combination = 342,095 = 25.1%
Japanese
race alone = 185,502 = 13.6%
race alone or in any combination = 312,292 = 23.0%
Native Hawaiian
race alone = 80,337 = 5.9%
race alone or in any combination = 289,970 = 21.3%
Chinese
race alone = 54,955 = 4.0%
race alone or in any combination = 199,751 = 14.1%
Korean
race alone = 24,203 = 1.8%
race alone or in any combination = 48,699 = 3.6%
Black or African American
race alone = 21,424 = 1.6%
race alone or in any combination = 38,820 = 2.9%
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University of Hawaii Institutional Research and Analysis Office
Data for UH Hawaii at Manoa for Fall 2012
[Corresponding data for each of the ten campuses can be found on that webpage by making choices in the pulldown menus in the upper left corner]
** Caution: Mixed race (2 or more) = 2686 = 13.1%
** Caution: Mixed Asian = 1589 = 7.8%
** Caution: Category name is "Native Hawaiian or Part-Hawaiian" but all other racial groups specify only the race alone and APPARENTLY do not include mixed race.
Total enrollment = 20,426
Caucasian = 5,086 = 24.9%
Filipino = 1,615 = 7.9%
Japanese = 2419 = 11.8%
Native Hawaiian = 2918 = 14.3%
Chinese = 1424 = 7.0 %
Korean = 696 = 3.4%
Black or African American = 282 = 1.4%
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The University of Hawaii provides a demographics webpage for each of the ten campuses in its system. On each of those webpages is a pie graph displaying the percentage of each of the major races in its student population. The information from each pie graph can be found in more detail at the website of Institutional Research and Analysis Office, as shown above for the flagship Manoa campus. However, the pie graph is easily accessible and visually attractive for anyone who looks, whereas the IRAO data are hard to find and unattractive to look at. The pie graph is the face shown to the public which creates public opinion about racial diversity on each campus.
The percentages below were displayed in December 2012, presumably based on data collected from student questionnaires from the previous year or two. Thus the campus data are not precisely comparable to Census 2010 data collected on April 1, 2010; but close enough to draw some obvious conclusions about which races are overrepresented or underrepresented on each campus.
A more significant difficulty in interpreting the data is that the UH campuses, particularly the community colleges, serve student populations whose racial characteristics are not the same as for the State of Hawaii as a whole. For example, the student population at Maui Community College is probably drawn mostly from residents of Maui, although some of the students come from other islands or even from mainland U.S. or other nations. In judging whether a racial group is underrepresented at Maui Community College it might be better to use the Census 2010 data for Maui rather than Census 2010 data for Hawaii as a whole. Various campuses have special programs (such as Astronomy or advanced Hawaiian language) not available on other campuses, therefore drawing students from throughout Hawaii and perhaps from the mainland U.S. and even foreign nations. Some of those programs might also have special appeal to specific racial groups and draw those races from throughout Hawaii, thereby reducing the appropriateness of comparing racial data for that campus against racial data for the island or portion of island where the campus is located.
The concept of using Census racial data limited to Maui to judge which groups are underrepresented at Maui Community College is not entirely valid for reasons explained above. But that was merely one example selected for no particular reason. The corresponding concept for other campuses is even more problematic. The flagship campus at Manoa draws a far higher proportion of international students than the other campuses. Windward Community College serves primarily students who live in Ko'olaupoko (Waimanalo, Kailua, Kane'ohe, Kahalu'u) and Ko'olauloa (Ka'a'awa through Hau'ula, Sunset Beach, Hale'iwa, Wai'alua); however, students in parts of Ko'olauloa might find it more convenient to take the H2/H1 expressway to attend one of the other community colleges than to drive the winding, slow coastal road to Windward Community College -- a 2-lane road occasionally closed for hours on account of accidents or flooding. Thus it's difficult to choose which Census districts and tracts whose data should be consolidated to represent the "community" served by Windward Community College. There are similar problems for data analysis at all UH campuses.
Another notable difference between Census race data and UH campus race data is that the percentages for "race alone or in combination with other races" in the Census data add up to 128.6% just for the top 6 races! That's because many Hawaii people are of mixed race and chose to exercise their option to mark more than one box in the race question on the census form. That excess above 100% would be significantly larger if everyone (especially ethnic Hawaiians) honestly marked all the race boxes they're entitled to mark.
By contrast the race percentages for each UH campus add up to exactly 100%, or 101% due to rounding. That's because each student is assigned only to a single race. And two of those "races" are "mixed" and "other", which together account for 25% to 32% at most campuses. That's outrageous! It's tempting to divide and distribute the "mixed" percentage among the actual races in proportion to the percentages overtly reported, but that should not be done because some races might be more disposed to mixing than others. "Other", of course, refers to races not specifically named in the pie graphs; but there again, we have no way to know how many "other" also have a portion of their heritage from one of the named races but were not counted there because UH chooses to report only a single race for each student.
For all the reasons above, and because I don't want to spend months of labor on this project, I shall use only the statewide race data from Census 2010 to compare against the race data for individual campuses. When the percentages for a campus have large discrepancies from the percentages in Census 2010, it will be quite obvious that those racial groups are significantly overrepresented or underrepresented on that campus.
FOR EACH RACE AT EACH CAMPUS, THE NUMBERS LISTED ARE IN THE FOLLOWING ORDER SHOWN HORIZONTALLY:
RACE NAME; PERCENTAGE OF THAT RACE IN CAMPUS STUDENT POPULATION; FRACTION SHOWING CAMPUS PERCENTAGE OVER CENSUS 2010 HAWAII PERCENTAGE; QUOTIENT TIMES 100 FROM THAT FRACTION SHOWING WHETHER THAT RACE IS OVERREPRESENTED (LARGE NUMBER) OR UNDERREPRESENTED (SMALL NUMBER) ON THAT CAMPUS AND BY WHAT MAGNITUDE
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UH flagship Manoa campus pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/manoa.html
Caucasian 24% 24/42 = 57
Filipino 9% 9/25 = 36
Japanese 12% 12/23 = 52
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 15% 15/21 = 71
Chinese 7% 7/14 = 50
Pacific Islander 2%
Mixed 13%
All other 18%
Average of quotients: (57+36+52+71+50)/5 = 53
Significantly overrepresented: Hawaiian (71)
Significantly underrepresented: Filipino (36)
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Windward Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/windward.html
Caucasian 18% 18/42 = 43
Filipino 3% 3/25 = 12
Japanese 5% 5/23 = 22
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 50% 50/21 = 238
Chinese 1% 1/14 = 7
Pacific Islander 3%
Mixed 12%
All other 9%
Average of quotients: (43+12+22+238+7)/5 = 64
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (238)
Greatly underrepresented: Filipino (12)
Hugely underrepresented: Chinese (7)
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Leeward Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/leeward.html
Caucasian 10% 10/42 = 23
Filipino 20% 20/25 = 80
Japanese 7% 7/23 = 30
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 29% 29/21 = 138
Chinese 1% 1/14 = 7
Pacific Islander 3%
Mixed 15%
All other 16%
Average of quotients (23+80+30+138+7)/5 = 56
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (138)
Somewhat overrepresented: Filipino (80)
Somewhat underrepresented: Japanese (30) and Caucasian (23)
Hugely underrepresented: Chinese (7)
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West O'ahu Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/westoahu.html
Caucasian 14% 14/42 = 33
Filipino 18% 18/25 = 72
Japanese 9% 9/23 = 39
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 28% 28/21 = 133
Chinese 3% 3/14 = 21
Pacific Islander 3%
Mixed 13%
All other 13%
Average of quotients (33+72+39+133+21)/5 = 60
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (133)
Somewhat overrepresented: Filipino (72)
Greatly underrepresented: Caucasian (33), Japanese (39), Chinese (21)
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Kapi'olani Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/kapiolani.html
Caucasian 12% 12/42 = 29
Filipino 11% 11/25 = 44
Japanese 15% 15/23 = 65
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 18% 18/21 = 85
Chinese 10% 10/14 = 71
Pacific Islander 2%
Mixed 12%
All other 20%
Average of quotients (29+44+65+85+71)/5 = 59
Somewhat overrepresented: Hawaiian (85)
Somewhat underrepresented: Caucasian (29)
----------------
Honolulu Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/honolulu.html
Caucasian 9% 9/42 = 21
Filipino 21% 21/25 = 84
Japanese 8% 8/23 = 35
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 26% 26/21 = 124
Chinese 5% 5/14 = 36
Pacific Islander 4%
Mixed 12%
All other 16%
Average of quotients (21+84+35+124+36)/5 = 60
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (124)
Somewhat overrepresented: Filipino (84)
Somewhat underrepresented: Caucasian (21)
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Kaua'i Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/kauai.html
Caucasian 17% 17/42 = 40
Filipino 22% 22/25 = 88
Japanese 3% 3/23 = 13
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 34% 34/21 = 162
Chinese 1% 1/14 = 7
Pacific Islander 2%
Mixed 13%
All other 9%
Average of quotients (40+88+13+162+7)/5 = 62
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (162)
Somewhat overrepresented: Filipino (88)
Greatly underrepresented: Japanese (13)
Hugely underrepresented: Chinese (7)
------------
Maui Community College pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/maui.html
Caucasian 20% 20/42 = 47
Filipino 20% 20/25 = 80
Japanese 3% 3/23 = 13
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 37% 37/21 = 176
Chinese 1% 1/14 = 7
Pacific Islander 2%
Mixed 8%
All other 9%
Average of quotients (47+80+13+176+7)/5 = 65
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (176)
Somewhat overrepresented: Filipino (80)
Greatly underrepresented: Japanese (13)
Hugely underrepresented: Chinese (7)
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Hawaii Community College (Hilo) pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/hawaii.html
Caucasian 17% 17/42 = 40
Filipino 8% 8/25 = 32
Japanese 6% 6/23 = 26
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 46% 46/21 = 219
Chinese <1% 1/14 = less than 7
Pacific Islander 3%
Mixed 13%
All other 7%
Average of quotients (40+32+26+219+7)/5 = 65
Hugely overrepresented: Hawaiian (219)
Hugely underrepresented: Chinese (less than 7)
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University of Hawaii at Hilo pie graph shown at
http://www.hawaii.edu/campuses/hilo.html
Caucasian 27% 27/42 = 64
Filipino 6% 6/25 = 24
Japanese 9% 9/23 = 39
Native Hawaiian/Part-Hawaiian 24% 24/21 = 114
Chinese 3% 3/14 = 21
Pacific Islander 6%
Mixed 13%
All other 13%
Average of quotients (64+24+39+114+21)/5 = 52
Greatly overrepresented: Hawaiian (114)
Somewhat underrepresented: Filipino (24) and Chinese (21)
===========================
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Ken_Conklin@yahoo.com
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