_Honors Program is Racist and Classist_
Honors students get a lounge, the smallest classes, and close personal care from advisors that know their names. They get the best professors. In addition, honors students can now take out books from the library for the entire year, something the university only allows masters students to do.
Students might not care about library privileges, but being in Honors brings tangible benefits that lead to better jobs and higher status.
Yet the honors program brings these privileges–and others–to a group that is statistically whiter and more class-privileged than the general student body.
Institutionally, Temple Honors Program is predisposed to be more white and middle class than the general student body. Some of the methods used to choose honors students–such as SAT scores–have been tied to race and class repeatedly, but never to success, intelligence, or hard work.
Individuals in Honors don’t want this to be the case, and this is not an indictment of anyone who works for the program. But radical institutional changes are needed to correct these injustices. Let’s start by dropping the SATs campus-wide.
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