Emerson Brooks always knew he was set for college at the University of Colorado.
The black 18-year-old earned a 3.2 grade-point average at Denver’s West High School, was becoming fluent in Japanese and was recognized as one of his school’s brightest students. To top it off, his aunt worked with minority students at CU and knew how to get the best financial-aid package for her nephew.
So when it was time to choose between CU or Colorado State University, Brooks said his decision was easy.
He enrolled at CSU.
“I didn’t think CU was a place where I would feel welcomed,” said Brooks, whose academic achievements and ethnicity made him a sought-after student. “I didn’t feel threatened at CSU.”
For more than a decade, black enrollment at CU has stagnated, remaining below 2 percent of the 30,000-student Boulder campus. At the same time, increases in Latino and Asian enrollment have generally outpaced the school’s 11 percent growth since 1995.
CU officials responsible for minority recruitment worry that highly publicized reports of racial prejudice at the state’s flagship campus will send the school’s black-enrollment figures spiraling even lower this fall.
CU officials could not produce enrollment figures for this fall, explaining that they don’t track such numbers until the beginning of the semester.
Last semester, according to the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, 468 black undergraduate and graduate students were enrolled at CU-Boulder.
“Obviously, we’re concerned that issues this past year will impact whether someone chooses CU,” said Christine Yoshinaga- Itano, CU-Boulder’s vice provost and associate vice chancellor for diversity and equity.
Generally speaking, Colorado’s African-American population – and that of most of its public universities – is relatively low. As a percentage, black enrollment at CU’s biggest state competitor, CSU, is not much higher than CU’s. About 2 percent of CSU’s undergraduate and graduate students last spring were black – a total of 469 students.
Still, unlike CU, CSU has seen the number of black students grow in recent years. Since 1995, the number of African-American students at CSU has risen 41 percent.
Incidents on the CU campus during the past school year included several cases of anti-black graffiti, complaints that black students were spit on and instances of violence, providing a difficult backdrop as CU continues to battle low black enrollment.
Beyond that, black students note that the campus is in an overwhelmingly white, upscale city with a tiny minority population and thus lacks a established minority community to make African-American students feel comfortable.
Since 1995 – as CU-Boulder’s overall enrollment increased by more than 3,100 students, including nearly 500 more minorities – black enrollment declined by 54 students, according to the Commission on Higher Education.
Last year, 1.5 percent of CU- Boulder’s student body was black. According to the U.S. Department of Education, African- American students made up roughly 10 percent of college enrollment nationwide.
When talking about CU these days, the school’s black students – including some who plan to attend it this fall – describe an isolating, at times frightening, campus where racial tension is sometimes palpable.
Students said they are harassed at parties, are quizzed about their ethnicity and are made to feel that white students take African-American students’ classroom comments as representative of the black race.
“To me, it seems unfair that white students can just be students, but black students have to be students and activists,” said Emem Ekiko, 20, president of CU-Boulder’s Black Student Alliance. “The pressure becomes overwhelming.”
The need for racially diverse colleges is at a premium, academic experts said. In general, the more diversity a student experiences in college, the easier it will be to engage other cultures in the workplace.
“It goes the other way, too,” said Dean Whitla, director of the National Campus Diversity Project at Harvard University. “African-American kids need those experiences just as much as white kids need them.”
Some black students at CU- Boulder last spring threatened to transfer after complaining that they were menaced and subjected to racial slurs on campus.
At times, the words have spilled into physical violence.
In February, two students – one white, one black – were issued citations after a classroom fistfight in which the white student twice called the black student a six-letter racial slur.
Last month, a 22-year-old black mechanical engineering student suffered a broken jaw during an on-street attack by a nonstudent using racial epithets.
In response, school officials created a program that will teach students to quash racially charged arguments before they turn into all-out brawls.
Other programs are in the works.
Samuel Williams, an 18-year- old incoming freshman from Highlands Ranch, said the changes are positive, but he fears his skin color will make him a target.
“I’m concerned, and I’m vulnerable because I’m black,” said Williams, who had planned to attend Arizona State University but decided to remain closer to home.
At one time, CSU officials worried that black high schoolers nationwide would confuse CU’s racial problems with CSU and stunt the school’s increase in black enrollment. Now, there’s “no question” that CSU has benefited from CU’s problems, said Mary Ontiveros, executive director of admissions at CSU.
“If it happens in Boulder, we usually all suffer because people confuse institutions,” Ontiveros said. “Fortunately, that doesn’t seem to be the case this time.”
As of this month, the Fort Collins school has enrolled 37 more black students over last year.
While acknowledging that her school still has a black student population of only 2 percent, Ontiveros says the enrollment gains CSU has managed to make are in part due to on-campus school programs that target promising black high schoolers early and then follow them through graduation.
Ron Stump, CU’s vice chancellor for student affairs, said his school has done its best to aggressively seek and recruit academically qualified black students, but competition from other universities – including scholarships or financial aid packages – has made the job increasingly difficult.
On-campus issues at CU only exacerbated the issue.
“There’s concern that a few students will be turned off because they see what’s in the newspaper, and we want to fix that,” Stump said. “Unfair or not, they happened at CU.”
As for the on-campus problems, he said, CU is trying to prevent other racially charged outbreaks.
A special student panel is being created to investigate harassment accusations.
And in 2006, all incoming freshmen will be required to attend a “University 101” orientation course that will include discussions on alcohol, academics and race.
Before choosing CSU, Brooks, the West High School graduate, talked at length with his mother about racial problems at CU.
“I always knew she didn’t want me to go there, but she never told me what to do,” said Brooks, who plans to study journalism. “There seemed like there was so much negative stuff going on at CU that you couldn’t ignore it.”
Plus, the gangly teen heard stories that black men on CU’s campus were asked if they played football.
“It’s offensive that the only way someone thinks a black person can get into college is if they play a sport,” Brooks said. “Is that the only way you see me?”
On a recent tour of CSU, Brooks strolled through dormitories and classrooms – and he felt good about his decision to forgo an opportunity at CU.
The more he looked around, the more black faces he saw. Yes, he had found a place where he belonged, he thought.
But just then, a student stopped him to ask a question.
“Do you play on the basketball team?”
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-820-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
