I will preface by saying that there are two points that I'd like to make:

• There is no reason we, as a community and institution, can't address bigger issues and smaller issues at the same time. People have been presenting this false dichotomy consistently throughout this debate and it's just flat out wrong.
• No one (that I know of) is suggesting that renaming Tillman is a panacea for race/diversity issues at Clemson. To suggest otherwise is a misleading straw man argument.

I can't believe the answer is so obvious, and here I was thinking there was some bigger issue within society causing those numbers.

Of course it's not so simple or obvious, but /u/Sound_of_Science asked for data and logic to the exclusion of narrative history. This is, of course, absurd, but I did the best I could on short notice when confronted with a ridiculous debate constraint.

If you had read my other reply in the same thread you'd have seen a more fleshed out summary of "bigger issue[s] within society causing those numbers":

but it is meaningless without knowing why those numbers are different. Does Clemson not accept as many minorities as they should? Or do minorities perform more poorly in high school and thus do not qualify for entry to Clemson? Or do minorities have more financial strain that prevents them from affording enrollment at Clemson? It could be a number of other reasons or any combination of them.

I'm not sure if it's meaningless, but you're quite right that it's almost certainly a combination of factors.

Allow me to rewind a little.

In the wake of desegregation, southern whites flocked toward private schools. This trend persists to this day. When I came to Clemson (from Pennsylvania) I was shocked at how many in-state and adjacent students attended private schools. Where I came from, children of prominent politicians and the absurdly wealthy went to private school. It was exceptional and exceptionally expensive. In SC, NC, GA it was/is apparently pretty normal. This general tactic was a practical (and legal) response to avoid actually integrating. Simultaneous to the shift toward privatization, funding for public schools (at least at the state-level) was largely retracted and has stayed consistently low across the south. This exacerbated an existing educational lag and made many public school systems (that were marginal to begin with) downright dysfunctional. As you might expect, the worst schools were generally in areas with larger-than-average black populations (see "Corridor of Shame"). South Carolina has done very little to help blacks and possibly/probably actively worked to set them up for failure by systematically undermining the educational system along economic instead of blatantly racial lines. So, while you may correlate poor performance to income and test scores, you have to understand that higher income and test scores are often preceded by educational opportunities that accumulate over generations. Certainly, we can't lay all the blame for the disparities at the feet of white South Carolinians, but... a significant amount can be traced back to policies that were unquestionably driven by racism and institutional injustice.

Without specifics, though, we can't be sure what needs improvement and what we should address.

So do nothing because we're unsure what's the most efficacious pursuit? We are sitting here exchanging comments about a clear and specific issue that (at least some people believe) needs improvement! Whether or not you think the name should change is up to you, but, perhaps, at least, try not to be so quick to dismiss the argument and shut down the conversation

We could add the thesis from The New Jim Crow into the mix as well:

In the book Alexander deals primarily with the issue of the current mass levels of incarceration in the United States (with 5% of the world's population, the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world's prisoners) and what she perceives as societal repression of African-American men and, to a lesser degree, Latino men. She discusses the social consequences of various policies for people of color, as well as for the US population as a whole. According to Alexander, the majority of young black men in large American cities are "warehoused in prisons," their labor no longer needed in the globalized economy. Alexander maintains that many young black men, once they are labeled as "felons," become trapped in a second-class status that they find difficult to escape. The conventional point of view holds that discrimination has mostly ended with the Civil rights movement reforms of the 1960s. However, Alexander claims the U.S. criminal justice system uses the “War on Drugs” as a primary tool for enforcing traditional, as well as new, modes of discrimination and repression. From Wikipedia because I'm lazy.

So, yeah, there are other dynamics and bigger issues but their existence doesn't preclude us from addressing the symptoms or focusing the low-hanging fruit first. Can't always swing for the fences.

If we rename Tillman hall then more blacks will want to attend/will be able to afford Clemson. [/sarcasm]

You're implying that even if we renamed Tillman, there will continue to be financial and cultural barriers? In other words, "why bother changing the name if black students aren't going to be able to afford Clemson and won't like it here anyway?" If that's your message, I have to admit it sounds like an incredibly shitty attitude.

Certainly there are black students who have the financial means to attend Clemson but who are going elsewhere for any number of reasons. Why add another reason to the list when it costs nothing to remove a reason. Similarly, it costs SC nothing to remove the confederate flag from the state grounds (which has lead to long-standing boycott). Nothing to lose and everything to gain. Yet, we're stubbornly resisting the change because...? And please don't say "denying history" or some such. That argument has so little merit, it's an insult to both our intelligences. I could opine on what I think the reasons are, but it really doesn't matter when the benefits outweigh the costs no matter how we look at it.