Losing the War on Affirmative Action
The Chronicle‘s Peter Schmidt writes a new book that goes beyond diversity.By Tim Fernholz, Georgetown University
October 16, 2007
In the last two years, Americans have seen affirmative action policies defeated at every level of government. Now, anti-affirmative action ballot initiatives are slated for five states in the 2008 election. Progressives used to be able to talk about expanding racial equality. Now we’re stuck defending affirmative action each time a challenge crops up. How did the dialogue shift?
The Chronicle of Higher Education’s affirmative action beat reporter, Peter Schmidt, gets to that question in Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action, a book that takes a terse, heavily-reported look at the history and practice of affirmative action in American college admissions. Schmidt’s book is no beach read, since it’s heavily laden with statistics and history, but it is an excellent primer on a perennial campus hot topic.
Schimdt concludes that despite affirmative action, the college admissions system continues to favor white kids, and he argues that it’s time to stop talking about diversity for the sake of diversity and instead seriously discuss class and race.
Attacks against affirmative action began with a series of court cases, starting in 1978 with the Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which forced colleges to justify their admissions practices by emphasizing the value of a diverse student body, rather than the goal, less favored by the court, of remedying past discrimination. Ballot initiatives from California to Michigan in the late 1990s and the recent Supreme Court decision overturning the Seattle public school’s integration plan hurt the ability of education institutions to take race into account, effectively endorsing de facto segregation. In spite of 40 years of affirmative action policy, Schmidt writes that “blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans are less than half as prevalent on the campuses of selective colleges as they are in society.”
Race-conscious admissions policies rested on legal arguments that a critical mass of minority students is necessary for everyone’s good education—that campuses should reflect society at large. But the research supporting these claims is highly disputed, Schmidt writes. In fact, when selective colleges began employing race-conscious admissions in the seventies, they did it because they “saw their minority enrollment numbers as measures of how well they were doing in promoting social justice, social mobility, and racial integration.” Unfortunately, such arguments haven’t stood up in today’s conservative courts. With the legal rationale now resting solely on diversity, affirmative action sits on a weak foundation.
Conservatives like Ward Connerly use divisive rhetoric to install anti-affirmative action policies that deepen racial and socioeconomic inequalities. Connerly, whose work has led to controversial referenda banning affirmative action in California in 1996 and Michigan in 2006, is working to push the 2008 ballot initiatives. Progressives who fight for affirmative action aren’t exactly fighting the establishment anymore; leaders from education, corporations, and the military now affirm their support for affirmative action. Instead, they’re fighting a group of highly organized and sophisticated anti-affirmative action activists.
One of these activists’ favorite arguments is that race-conscious admissions policies favor underqualified minority students over whites—especially poor whites. But Schmidt’s data shows it’s more common for an academically underachieving white applicant, thanks to alumni parents or athletic scholarships, to be a given slot over a more qualified lower-income student, than for a minority student to do so because of affirmative action. Schools accept these sub-par white applicants in the hopes of increasing fundraising through parental giving or alumni-inspiring athletic programs.
In addition to scaling back legacy admission, class-based affirmative action might help remedy both racial and socio-economic imbalances at major universities. There is a severe lack of lower-middle class and working class representation at most elite schools—only 10 percent of students at Harvard or Yale received Pell grants intended for the lower 40 percent of the income distribution. But many conservatives oppose class-based affirmative action precisely because they see it as a cloak for race-conscious admissions, while some racial justice groups worry that it ignores racism.
Schmidt’s book is chock full of disturbing facts: Only 40 percent of financial aid from public four-year universities goes to students with documented financial needs. Colleges often treat students who leave race forms unmarked as multi-racial, despite high odds that they are white. But while these disparate facts are disturbing, the crux of Schmidt’s argument is that there are strong incentives for poor whites and minority groups to unite in favor of affirmative action. Without representatives of these groups in the elite of American society, Schmidt worries that they will be further marginalized. He writes,
[O]ur delusions of meritocracy have left us with an elite [class] whose members, believing they have earned their privileges and owe nothing to society, are either blind to the need for change or unwilling to make any effort to bring it about.
Those efforts should include a focus on financial aid and student support services that help low-income kids succeed in college, as well as secondary school policies that prevent re-segregation and invest in high-quality teachers. It will also take a public education campaign so that voters understand that affirmative action isn’t a threat to qualified students or society. Affirmative action policies were designed to integrate minority groups into our country’s elite and heal the divisions of race. But today, race and class-aware affirmative action can open elite academics to an even wider swath of the population. It’s time for progressives to start looking at the big picture.
Tim Fernholz is editor-in-chief of the Georgetown Voice.
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Comments
The climate produced by the court decisions plus the politicized campaign works to discourage the poor among minorities from applying and making their best effort. The fear generated among the elite produces a double whammy.
Perhaps institutions should develop a point system along the idea of the veterans’ preference in the Civil Service. Except that the points should be developed according to the
— Frank Lorniitzo - Oct 19, 10:29 PM - #statistics gained from the
demography of the applicants. For instance, applicants who report an income below a certain level might have points added to their score in the manner veterans have ten points added to their civil service score. The rationale of course is that the veteran
has lost time developing a carreer compared to a person who did not give time to the service. In a similar manner administrations should calculate loss of advantage due to time lost for various tasks related to being poor.
Using this tactic lessens the
need for mentioning race because it is poverty that generates the race issue.
The elite wealthy who spend time claiming against
affirmative actions should instead work harder at their
studies or profession.
This article assumes that all white kids are rich, and all minority kids are poor. Most minority kids coming to Ivy League schools through affirmative action are in fact upper income. The problem is that non-Asian minority kids are intellectually inferior, and no amount of tinkering with their test scores to make them look smarter is going to remedy that unfortunate fact. As Dr. James Watson would say, admitting black kids into Harvard because they are black, and making them look smart, is not going to make them so. It’s all just a big ball of wishful thinking that makes some folks feel warm and fuzzy.
— John Riley - Oct 20, 07:01 PM - #“Race-conscious admissions policies rested on legal arguments that a critical mass of minority students is necessary for everyone’s good education”
It’s not clear that publically funded universities can discriminate in admissions regardless of the benefit to the university and the students unless the law itself is changed because the law does not allow racial discrimination by the government.
As for the argument concerning lesser-qualified white applicants being admitted, I find that disturbing on the surfaceas well (well, that lesser-qualified students of any race are bring admitted). However, I’m not sure it’s a totally bad thing. Maybe one such student getting in provides scholarships for ten other highly qualified but less-well-off students to attend who would not have been able to otherwise.
I am intrigued by the comment that “ it’s time to stop talking about diversity for the sake of diversity and instead seriously discuss class and race.” It’s easy to attack affirmative action policies legally and morally because it’s not clear what they’re supposed to do.
I find some of the review interesting, but I will not be reading the book on account of Schmidt’s “rich white kids” comment in the subtitle which has disturbing implications. I wish that activists on both sides would leave the racially-charged rhetoric out and talk about expanding equality.
— David - Oct 25, 09:04 PM - #“Race-conscious admissions policies rested on legal arguments that a critical mass of minority students is necessary for everyone’s good education”
It’s not clear that publically funded universities can discriminate in admissions regardless of the benefit to the university and the students unless the law itself is changed because the law does not allow racial discrimination by the government.
As for the argument concerning lesser-qualified white applicants being admitted, I find that disturbing on the surfaceas well (well, that lesser-qualified students of any race are bring admitted). However, I’m not sure it’s a totally bad thing. Maybe one such student getting in provides scholarships for ten other highly qualified but less-well-off students to attend who would not have been able to otherwise.
I am intrigued by the comment that “ it’s time to stop talking about diversity for the sake of diversity and instead seriously discuss class and race.” It’s easy to attack affirmative action policies legally and morally because it’s not clear what they’re supposed to do.
I find some of the review interesting, but I will not be reading the book on account of Schmidt’s “rich white kids” comment in the subtitle which has disturbing implications. I wish that activists on both sides would leave the racially-charged rhetoric out and talk about expanding equality.
— David - Oct 25, 09:05 PM - #It is difficult to leave out “racially-charged rhetoric” if you are talking about expanding quality. I took a Constitutional Law class this semester, and honestly found it difficult to sit through when discussing affirmative action. It seems as if everytime the Black community gets something, “some” of the White community wants to act like they are oppressed and constantly shouting “WOE IS ME!” I am sorry if this sounds too blunt, but I believe this to be true. Most of the affirmative action court cases that we viewed were from White men who felt oppressed. Admittitngly, I disagree with the tactic that some companies use, but I understand that the policy is there for a reason.
I would hate to live in a world where affirmative action is not present. I don’t think people understand why it is in place. Racism has been alive and well for about 300 years and counting. As soon as other minority communities started to gain some confidence and equality, all of a sudden civil suits followed.
Affirmative action will end when racism stops, but since that will never end because of the ignorant and one-sided thinking of others, which leads to institutional racism, then it should continue to staty.
— Preston D. Mitchum - Dec 24, 10:47 PM - #AA book to look at
— vicky Webber - May 19, 08:04 PM - #