Comparing Black Population Growth Overall

This graph compares the growth of the George Mason Black student population to that of Fairfax County’s Black resident population from 1974 to 1989. Each data point indicates by what percent a given year’s population increased since 1974. Numbers were calculated in Google Sheets using the formula (current year’s population - population in 1974) / population in 1974 x 100. The graph was generated in Google Sheets.

Normally, an increase in black enrollment at a university could be attributed more simply to a similar increase in the black population in the surrounding area to the university itself. To investigate this, we have plotted the percentage increase of the black population of GMU against the percentage increase in the black population of Fairfax County from 1974 to 1989.

As this graph indicates, the populations grew at similar rates around the start of the sampling period from 1974 to 1976, and only slightly more substantial increases for GMU in the window from 1977 to 1982. However, the difference between the two became much more noticeable from 1983 onwards. This can reasonably be interpreted to be caused by the 1983 revisions to the Virginia Plan for Equal Opportunity (VPEO), as that marks the beginning of this immense trend upwards for the increase in black population growth at GMU. while the broader Fairfax County black population’s growth has a more expected, linear trend upwards over this entire sixteen-year period.

Another point to note from this graph is the window from 1978 to 1982, after the first version of the VPEO was put into action. There is a small but noticeable bump up in 1977 specifically for the GMU population growth, but for the rest of that window it returns to only a slightly larger rate of growth than the broader Fairfax County, including the only time on this chart where the rate of growth decreases for either population, from 1981 to 1982 at GMU. This can be taken to mean that the 1978 version of the VPEO was largely ineffective at its intended purpose, prompting the much more successful 1983 revisions.