The importance of racial statistics to black progress in higher education

The U.S. government collects statistics by race for population, income, wealth, employment, poverty, business enterprise, dime, housing, health status, and for a wide range of other characteristics of our society. Critics of racial classifications argue that the practice prolongs racism and segregation by emphasizing rather than gliding over differences among ethnic groups. But the elimination of racial statistics from government information gathering would seriously restrict the ability of blacks to assess their progress in higher education as well as their ability to determine their status in other important activities in our society. We forget that a major purpose of racial integration was not to force whites to go to school with blacks but rather to help blacks, through the integration process, to achieve social and economic parity with whites. African Americans need reliable information on the extent to which racial integration is taking place.