The University of Maryland was slammed for drawing separate categories for Asians and ‘students of colour’ in a graphic, the school says was intended to highlight students who have been underrepresented on campus. 

 The public land-grant research university, in an administrative graphic, separated students into two categories — “students of colour, minus Asians” and “white or Asian students.” The presentation by President Darryll Pines was shared with the student body senate and highlighted the incoming class’ diversity data. 

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The presentation presented data, spanning across five years, with information like total number of applicants, average SAT scores and grade point averages.

However, Twitter users slammed the university for not including Asians in their ‘underrepresented students’ category. 

“Whites and Asians are the two groups that are not considered “underrepresented.” Last year Asian students were 23% of the freshman class,” sociologist and demographer Philip Cohen said, when Twitter users demanded clarification on the last column. 

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“[The university uses] us when they want to be diverse, and then not when they don’t want to,” Anish Kakarla, president of the South Asian Student Association and UMD student, told the student newspaper The Diamondback.

“Wow! That’s crazy!!!! Thanks for sharing! We are actually quite “convenient” for people to use us however they want to use us …” a Twitter user said. 

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“The data in this specific section was intended to show student populations that have historically represented 11 percent or less of our campus community — Black/African Americans, American Indians or Native Alaskans, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander and Hispanics,” the university said in a statement provided to NBC Asian America.

“When we refer to students of color, we include Asian students and Asian Americans,” the university said.