During a presentation by the University of Maryland president on Wednesday afternoon, one graphic meant to show admission and enrollment statistics excluded Asian students from the "Students of Color" group.
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The graphic, presented by University of Maryland president Darryll Pines during the university senate "State of the Campus" report, shows new freshman admission and enrollment from fall 2017 through fall 2021. However, the graphic separated students into two groups: "Students of Color, minus Asian" and "White or Asian Students."
A University of Maryland spokesperson told Fox News that the graphic was meant to refer to "student populations that are considered underrepresented on our campus."
"During his annual State of the Campus address, President Pines shared information about the demographics of the freshman class, including information about the diversity of the class. The data in this specific section of the slide refers to student populations that are considered underrepresented on our campus," the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson clarified that "Asian students are students of color."
Steve Sin, a University of Maryland employee, tweeted the categorization brought back negative memories.
Kenny Xu, "Inconvenient Minority" author and president of Color Us United told Fox News universities should not be using "categories for color."
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"I don't think the university should have categories for color at all. it's ridiculous to say, OK, we're going to try to boost equity only for the minorities that we prefer," Xu said. "That is Blacks and Latinos. And then, of course, use that to exclude Asian-Americans and Whites from all sides. If it were up to me, we need to eliminate race for admissions, period. We need to eliminate racial categorization from the system. I don't think it provides any of the right incentives."