Disaggregate the Diaspora, a coalition of student groups advocating for Washington University to use disaggregated demographic data, hosted a town hall, March 25, to receive feedback from the community prior to releasing a survey to collect data about different student identities.

The coalition is composed of four student groups: Association of Black Students (ABS), Association of Latin American Students (ALAS), Asian and Pacific Islanders Demanding Justice (APIDJ) and Queens, United, Elevated, Empowered, and Noteworthy Sisters (QUEENS). They hope that the University will disaggregate the data of various student identity categories such as ethnicity, gender and class.

Disaggregating data entails separating broad categories of data into more specific ones, such as separating the racial label Asian into ethnicities such as Vietnamese, Hmong, Phillipino, etc.

According to sophomore Maurice Wang, a member of Disaggregate the Diaspora and APIDJ, broad data categories do not properly reflect the nuances of the University student body.

“[Asian people] have the most economic disparity of any ethnic group,” Wang said. “Taiwanese Americans or Indian Americans have 70% educational attainment, while Butanese Americans have 9% educational attainment… We’re not a monolith, and no ethnic group is a monolith, and that’s why we started working on [the campaign] initially.”

APIDJ began a campaign to disaggregate the Asian race category in 2019, but due to the pandemic, staff turnover and a lack of communication, data remained aggregated. Disaggregate the Diaspora formed to continue disaggregated data advocacy, expanding their mission to include disaggregating all racial data as well as gender and class data, among other categories.

At the town hall on Thursday, the coalition received feedback from community members, with one member suggesting that they include disaggregating faith-based data as part of their campaign.

Disaggregate the Diaspora plans on releasing an optional survey on Friday to collect more detailed student data.

“Our goal with it is to show Wash. U. it’s not fair to just look at students [using] horribly aggregated groups of race and ethnicity and gender,” Wang said. “With the results of our study, there will be, and we expected there to be, a lot more nuance to students’ identities.”

The coalition plans on utilizing the survey results to later present demands to the University.

“The hope of our survey is to use that going into our petition later in the semester, and for a follow up Op-ed,” Wang said. He added that the group will utilize the results to argue that “there’s a need for this, and if enough students fill it out, there’s also desire from students to do this. It’s not just a couple of groups saying we should do it: Students want to fill it out and want to see the data.”

When asked about potential privacy concerns, Wang pointed out that the University already has the systems in place to securely store student data.

“It’s Wash. U.’s responsibility to keep [data] private, and they already have a lot of information about students that is kept private,” Wang said. “We’re confident Wash. U. can just integrate this disaggregated data into their current aggregated data infrastructure, and it shouldn’t be that hard. If they can already aggregate by very broad categories of ethnicity, they should be able to add more categories.”

He also referenced the success of other schools in disaggregating and publicizing data, pointing out that schools such as Brown University and the University of California system have successfully done so.

“Students can look at the student body breakdown of identity, for instance, and that hasn’t had any privacy concerns,” Wang said.

Mark Kamimura-Jiménez, the dean of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, wrote in a statement to Student Life that he has privacy concerns related to disaggregating data.

“There are many cases where there are such small numbers of students from disaggregated racial categories,” Kamimura-Jiménez wrote. “Their identities may be revealed when associated with other data such as first generation, Pell eligibility, responses to surveys and the like.”

Kamimura-Jiménez also pointed to systemic obstacles to data disaggregation, including the University’s responsibility to report aggregated data to the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS).

“IPEDS is a systemic obstacle, because their data is used across the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) reports and has policy implications,” Kamimura-Jiménez wrote.

“In addition, universities are required to submit data to IPEDS in order to remain Title IV eligible and gain access to federal financial aid funds.”

IPEDS states that schools can collect subcategories of data “as long as the subcategories can be aggregated to the categories indicated in the guidance for purposes of reporting to IPEDS. That is, additional categories can be collected and utilized by the institution, but cannot be reported to IPEDS.”

Kamimura-Jiménez indicated his support for the campaign but emphasized that, in some cases, disaggregating data can lead to the othering of some students.

“It is also important to note that in these cases in order to protect the identification of students, you still see an aggregate category of ‘other,’” he wrote. “We must be conscious of the further marginalization and othering that we create—disaggregating data will need to address the impact of constructing that which we wish to deconstruct.”

Additionally, Kamimura-Jiménez said that disaggregating data could potentially lead to the erasure of some students’ identities.

He pointed to the 2019 Washington University diversity report where “white multiracial” is a racial category, arguing that “this is a form of disaggregation that systematically creates an erasure of mixed race students, an erasure of Asian students, and a forced identification of these students as white rather than Asian or other undetermined racial category.”

Kim Selle, Senior Director of Administration for Admissions & Aid, discussed how the University collects student data.

“Our primary applicant data comes from one of three sources—Common Application, Coalition Application, and the QuestBridge Application…While the data collected by each is very similar, it is collected in various (and sometimes different) ways,” Selle wrote. “As a result, it can make it more challenging to collect and analyze disaggregated data.”

Despite the potential complications disaggregated data may pose to admissions, Selle said the office recognizes its value and hopes to utilize it in the future.

“We understand and value disaggregated data as a tool to show where aggregated data are masking discrepancies, reveal areas where equity needs to be addressed, and to serve as an important tool in advocating for policy changes,” Selle wrote. “As such, we are committed to evaluating, addressing, and implementing procedures to improve our collection and use of disaggregated data. We have started a project in our unit so that we may report on disaggregated data in the future.”

Wang emphasized that the coalition’s advocacy to disaggregate data is especially pertinent in light of the recent increase in anti-Asian violence. He pointed to the Intercollegiate APIDA Coalition, a student-led group created to address anti-Asian violence.

The group recently released a statement to universities in response to anti-Asian violence where they made demands of institutions, one being that “universities must disaggregate data of Asian and Asian American enrollment, graduation, and admissions by ethnicity.”

“[Disaggregating data] certainly isn’t a far-fetched demand or a far-fetched idea, and it’s been done [at other universities],” Wang said. “It would be surprising for me if Wash. U. rejected this.”