The University of Minnesota recently announced that questions about a person’s past felony convictions or pending criminal charges would be removed from the standard application beginning in the fall of 2017.
Not all questions about a person’s background will be removed, as applicants will still be asked about sexual offenses or past transgressions of academic dishonesty, but the university felt that certain questions about criminal offenses were unnecessary.
“The decision was made that those individuals did not represent a threat to our campus,” said Bob McMaster, vice provost and dean of undergraduate education, adding that prospective students will still be asked if they’ve been found legally responsible for a sexual offense or if they have sexual offense charges pending against them. “As it stands right now, we feel that if someone has been convicted of a sexual offense, we need to know.”
This isn’t the first time the university has removed questions about past criminal offenses from the application. Just last year the university removed questions asking about past misdemeanor offenses, and the applicant’s answer to the question about past felonies was hidden during admission decisions.
However, the school noted that it will continue to ask about felonies and misdemeanors on campus housing applications.
“It’s one thing to admit a student to the University. It’s another thing to have a student in housing with a lot of 18-year-olds and 19-year-olds. That said, there are relatively few who check that box who are [freshmen],” McMaster said.
Unjust Targeting
One of the main reasons for removing the questions about criminal history came from Robert Stewart, a sociology graduate student. Stewart noted that the old system previous unfairly targeted individuals of color.
“The disparities that exist in the criminal justice system are going to directly affect who has to answer ‘yes’ to these questions,” Stewart said.
McMaster confirmed that this line of thinking played some role in the change, noting that the university reviewed past data and its effect on African American applicants. During this review, the University noticed a “dampening effect” on African American males, said McMaster.
This is a great move by the University and one we support. At the end of the day, most of us made some decisions we’re not proud of in our youth, but we learned from those mistakes and did our best to put them behind us. When students are rejected or don’t even apply to college because of a past mistake or misunderstanding, that seriously jeopardizes their future. We’re glad the University is committed to helping students better themselves for the future instead of making them dwell on past mistakes.
