To the editor:

The increase in fall enrollment at KU is excellent news (“For second year in a row, KU sees enrollment rise,” Sept. 26, and “Enrollment boost,” Sept. 29). Yet, the drop in the number of black students in this fall’s freshmen class should temper any celebration. Further, the rise in the number of international students is not a suitable basis for measuring the status of “minority students” or campus “diversity,” and it distorts the context in which we should understand both concepts.

Specifically, internationalizing the discussion of racial/ethnic diversity obscures an ongoing problem, at KU and elsewhere, of recruiting and retaining African Americans and other historically underrepresented domestic racial groups, all of whom have had unique experiences of political, social and economic subordination in the United States. Any democratic society worthy of the description should be judged by how discontented its members remain with the work of extending access and participation to all. We should do no less in judging “progress” at our institutions of higher learning.