Aaliyah Ramos was walking through the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo campus last year when a prospective student approached her.
Ramos was the only black person, the young woman said, that she and her mother had seen that day. They asked about the quality of education and the diversity of the student body.
Ramos, a mechanical engineering student, didn’t want to sugarcoat the truth: Cal Poly long has been predominantly white. But she told the young woman — who also was black — that she didn’t want to discourage her from applying, because that wouldn’t help with diversity at a school where only 0.7% of students are African American — the lowest percentage of any university in the California State system.
Now, after a recent spate of racial incidents — including a white fraternity member appearing in blackface — Ramos is reconsidering her answer….
Read more in the Los Angeles Times.