UA hosts "Multicultural Journalism Workshop" for high school students this week

Apparently, it's never too early to teach kids that at the University of Alabama, race-consciousness is an ever-present, overriding concern:

Applicants [to the 23rd Annual Multicultural Journalism Workshop] are accepted on the basis of interest in a journalism career and completion of an application that includes a transcript of grades, evidence of high school journalism activities and other writing, and a recommendation from a publications adviser, guidance counselor or professional journalist.

While the focus is on attracting minorities because of their low representation in the media, students who are not a member of a minority group are also eligible to attend. ...

The workshop is one of the oldest of its kind in the country and is part of the University's Minority Journalism Program, which is designed to recruit minorities into the media.

Now, I'm all for recruiting minorities into the journalism profession - with any luck, some of them will turn out to be conservatives, as well - but it appears that the University has chosen the wrong way to do it. For instance, the application form for this week's workshop explicitly required students to provide their race in order for their application to be valid. Presumably, anyone who happened to omit that key bit of information would have been excluded from consideration.

So, why did the Journalism Department find it necessary to inquire into the race of applicants in the first place? The only possible motivations I can think of are 1) to compile a statistical profile of applicants (unlikely as an explanation, but good as an excuse), or 2) to achieve unspecified "diversity objectives" for the program by accepting applicants (and excluding them) on the basis of race. Sadly, I think we know what the real answer is.