mw13,
Since I’m Caucasian, I don’t know what it’s like to be a member of a racial minority. However, as a woman who graduated from an engineering program (bachelors and masters), I can speak to the experience of being a woman in a program where most of the students & the overwhelming majority of teachers/ professors are men. Although I had good grades and test scores, I definitely did experience some prejudice from professors & fellow students who assumed that because I was female I couldn’t do as well as a male student and who sometimes laughed at my questions. However, I was very persistent & had a lot of support at home & b”h succeeded anyways.
My school had even fewer African-American students & no African-American faculty. Given my experience, I’d be surprised if these students didn’t experience some sort of prejudice or discrimination. So those who say that racism/ sexism is dead in universities don’t reflect my experience.
That said, not all students admitted to a program succeed in that program. This is true whether they are admitted through an affirmative action program or not. I knew many students who started engineering prerequisite classes when I did but decided engineering was too difficult or technical for them and switched majors and/ or schools. For what it’s worth, nearly all of these students were Caucasian men.