The Consortium program helps women and minorities gain preferential access to internships and recruitment opportunities.

by James A. Bacon

Gerritt Jenkins, a married White male, was a first-year student at the Darden School of Business with an interest in making a career in i-banking. But he was frustrated and resentful. His study teammates seemed to be on the fast track for coveted summer internships with big-name companies while he was still spinning his wheels.

One day he took a break from a study session and went down the hall to take a phone call. Two study mates, Diya Bhargava and Monica Hance, followed behind to get a snack but stopped short when they overheard part of his conversation.

“Do you know what I heard last night?” Jenkins was saying. “I was at an i-banking networking event at King Family Vineyards and the managing director said offhandedly, ‘We’re looking to hire one woman and one Black student from Darden this year.’ I couldn’t believe he said that out loud to a group. How am I supposed to feel about that?”

“Like, I know I shouldn’t take this personally, and I should run my own race like you always say, but Monica in my learning team makes more sense now to me, you know?” he continued. “I mean, I love her. Don’t get me wrong, she’s really smart, but everyone at Darden is, right? She’s also Black and a woman. Recruiting is easy for her. Not for me. Nothing is. No wonder they gave her an offer so early.”

The encounter is fictional. The characters and scene were created for “pedagogical reasons” in a June 2024 document, “MBA Recruiting Dynamics,” written to stimulate discussion. The authors were five Darden school officials, one of whom was the then-assistant dean for Global Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. (Her position has been retitled to Chief Connection and Community Officer.)

Yet the story realistically portrays recruiting dynamics at the University of Virginia’s elite business school and the tensions created by programs enacted to give a boost to “historically marginalized” groups. Now White males are the ones who feel marginalized.

Even the supposed beneficiaries can feel self-doubt in the face of such favoritism. The case study described Hance’s reaction to overhearing Jenkins this way: “She was upset. She hadn’t just gotten the job because she was Black and a woman, right? For a millisecond, she panicked, and felt as small as a speck of sand. Had she?”

The case study describes a real-life program, the Consortium, which has created a recruitment pipeline for minorities from 25 top business schools to Fortune 500 companies and major consulting firms.

Does Darden’s participation in the Consortium violate President Donald Trump’s executive order banning Diversity, Equity & Inclusion and racial preferences from higher education? That’s a question that the Office of Civil Rights no doubt will be asking. The Office has demanded that UVA identify which “departments, programs, preferences, preferential systems, and positions/titles/chairs have been eliminated and terminated.”

Unlike many DEI pages on UVA’s website, Darden’s Consortium web page is still live. Although the Consortium’s activities as a private nonprofit are not subject to the executive order, Darden’s partnership with the nonprofit arguably is.

President Jim Ryan has not made public his report to the Board of Visitors listing the changes he implemented to comply with the Trump executive order. But board members apparently thought the report was deficient, for it passed a resolution tightening its supervision of DEI compliance. It is not known if the Consortium program was identified in the report as requiring action.

The “MBA Recruiting Dynamics” case study is remarkably candid in showing how the program works.

Hance steeled herself. She knew that Jenkins was struggling to find a job in i-banking. He’d already been cut from the list of five banks and had only a few interview possibilities left. The fact that Hance would be working at Goldman Sachs that coming summer had made her relationship with Jenkins tense ever since Hance revealed it on the first day their learning team had met.

She had gotten the internship Jenkins had coveted. Hance had earned the offer back in July, before coming to Darden. The opportunity came through her affiliation with the Consortium, a nonprofit educational organization that worked with its 20 member universities and their full-time MBA programs, including Darden, to recruit potential MBA students who were either African American, Hispanic Americans, or Native American, or any students who shared the Consortium’s commitment to principles of diversity and inclusiveness in corporate management.

Hance had applied to become a Consortium fellow at the time of her acceptance to Darden, back in February. The application required her to write additional essays and interview. In June, Consortium fellows met for five days at the Consortium Orientation Program (OP). Usually, they’d meet in a chosen city to attend seminars and network, with travel and lodging paid for by the Consortium. But that year, OP had been virtual because of the pandemic. Many leading tech, consulting, banking, and general management companies were sponsors of the event and sought to recruit the top incoming talent. In addition, Hance had participated in the Forte conference for women and numerous summer recruiting events.

Hance was unsure what interested her the most, and so interviewed with McKinsey, Bain, BCG, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America, Danaher, and Delta. Hance had been somewhat embarrassed when she got offers from every company. “Collecting offers,” her Darden classmates would later derisively call the practice. But Hance hadn’t done anything malicious. She was just trying to figure out her next steps.

Hance remembered a meeting with a mentor at the conference who confided with her on the last day, “If you do get a job, I’d recommend not sharing it with folk at your MBA program. There can be jealousy.”

The Chesterfield, Missouri-based Consortium was founded in in 1966, when “marginalized minorities” truly were marginalized, for the purpose of giving “African American men the business skills to secure positions in American corporations.” In 1970, the organization opened its doors to Hispanics, Native Americans, and women. Today, the Consortium stands as one of the most important channels in the country for recruiting MBA students. The Consortium now claims to have 1,200+ students as members, 60% of whom accept full-time jobs with its corporate partners.

The Consortium’s stated mission is “to enhance diversity and inclusion in global business education and leadership by striving to reduce the significant underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans, in both our member schools’ enrollments and the ranks of global management.”

The MBA diversity pipeline is fragile, explains the Consortium website. “Each year, while approximately 12,000 students enter a top full-time MBA program, only 8% are underrepresented minorities. More than 50% of diverse MBA talent enrolled in top-tier business schools come through the Consortium.”

Darden does have other mechanisms to connect students with employers, including career coaching and more than 400 recruiting events such as career fairs, employer presentations, and networking receptions. Students also can access diversity-focused MBA conferences, including Forte MBA Women’s Leadership Conference, MBA Veterans, and ROMBA for LGBTQ+ professionals.

Darden’s entering class this year was 355 students. Thirty-eight percent identify as women, 23% as a U.S. racial minority, and 11% as LGBTQ+. Thirty percent are international students, 14% served in the military, and 14% were first-generation college students.

Thirty-nine are Consortium members.

James A. Bacon serves on the executive committee of the Jefferson Council.