A month ago, the United States Supreme Court announced that it would hear a case regarding the use of affirmative action during the admissions process at the University of Texas, provoking a national debate involving several race-related issues that largely haven’t been considered since the Court handed down its Gruttner v. Bollinger decision in 2003.
What that decision essentially said was universities’ “narrowly tailored use of race” in admissions decisions with the intent to increase diversity or attain a “critical mass” of minority students was, in fact, constitutional. The Court anticipated that in due time, race should cease to factor into admissions decisions as the educational gap between minorities and whites closed. They guessed that this would occur perhaps 25 years down the road.
They guessed wrong. Just nine years later, the Court appears to be on the verge of reversing a significant amount of what was said in Gruttner v. Bollinger. You might think that the rationale for the quick turnaround is overwhelming statistical data demonstrating that the educational gap is indeed closing and closing much faster than anticipated. And, you would be wrong. No such data exists. In reality, the Court is revisiting the issue because it got it wrong the first time around.
Affirmative action is patently and inherently racist, there’s no getting around that fact. By definition, affirmative action permits (and even requires) using racial discrimination as a significant factor in determining an outcome, whether that is a college admissions decision or a job opportunity. This line of thinking tends to be toward so-called “reverse discrimination,” but that is not the most serious charge against it.
The real problem with the logic of affirmative action is that it inevitably leads to sweeping generalizations of minorities in America, resulting in the intensification of racial tensions and the heightening of racial awareness in this country. For example, advocates of affirmative action fear that if the Supreme Court were to strike down the practice, the numbers of minorities enrolled in colleges and universities would dwindle.
This seems like a genuine concern, until we look closer at what these people really are saying: They are suggesting that minorities in general will not be statistically competitive with their white peers without the crutch of race-conscious admissions. In this light, affirmative action seems offensive, and it is.
The bottom line is that affirmative action disguises itself with a cloak of racial empathy and sincere altruism, but in fact it is diametrically opposed to the ideal of justice that our Supreme Court professes to uphold.
Don’t get me wrong — intent to increase diversity in places of higher education is not a bad thing. In fact, it has the potential to be a very beneficial thing. However, that intent often goes wrong and becomes convoluted when college administrators pinpoint the incorrect source of this diversity. True diversity has nothing to do with the color of your skin or where your great-great-great-grandparents were born. Rather, it is the product of bringing together people with various backgrounds and life experiences, which allows for a rich exchange of perspectives and ideas on a college campus. Ultimately, diversity has a much stronger correlation with socio-economic background than racial identity.
I can see how a reader could easily misconstrue my position and claim that taking socio-economic background into account is de facto affirmative action. It is not.
The distinction between race and socio-economic background is that race is an empty indication of an individual’s talents or potential, whereas one’s upbringing and perspective on life has tangible value and can add meaningful substance to an application (while race alone cannot). From my point of view, using socio-economic background as a factor when considering an application is not discrimination at all — it is simply another way to gauge the merits of an applicant (similar to consideration of one’s GPA or SAT scores).
What does this mean for the future of college admissions? Well, for starters, university administrators should stop giving preferential treatment to certain students (at the disadvantage of other similarly qualified students) simply on the basis of race.
Does a minority applicant from an affluent suburb offer more “diversity” than an inner city white student? Should white applicants be put at a disadvantage when applying to universities solely because of their ethnic background?
People are generally quick to defend any practice that, on its face, seems to promote racial equality. In the case of affirmative action, however, the practices in place are deceptive in that they appear to be instruments of racial harmony, but in reality, they are innately racially divisive.
What admissions committees should place more value on in future years are essay responses which reflect diversified life experiences and perspectives, rather than simply looking at whether the applicant checked the box with “caucasian” next to it or something else. I believe that we have finally come to the point where we can no longer accept misguided attempts at racial discrimination (like affirmative action) as significant factors in determining who the most qualified applicant is.
After all, this nation has prospered and attained greatness largely because it proudly maintains that it is a meritocracy. We generally believe that a person’s race, gender or religion should never outweigh their intellect, work ethic or creativity. We usually value an individual’s merits over their genetics — except when we don’t.
Henry Downes is a
