Chen Leads Affirmative Action Debate

Author: Yvonne Chen

For almost 25 years affirmative action has seen a long assault on its legitimacy and methods, particularly as it relates to higher education.
Since the 1978 Regents of the University of California vs. Bakke decision, which set a standard for race-based admissions, America has been hearing about the argument surrounding affirmative action in one form or another. Now the Supreme Court has agreed to rule on the constitutionality of the University of Michigan's use of affirmative action, for which the Bush administration has filed a "friend of the court" brief opposing the University's policies.
The two cases, Gratz vs. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, challenge the use of race in law school and undergraduate admissions at the University of Michigan. Both plaintiffs argue that they have been discriminated against because the university uses a point system, in which race is used as a "plus factor" in its admissions assessment.
In both cases, 10 lawyers from the Center for Individual Rights, a firm involved in a nationwide campaign of lawsuits aiming to dismantle affirmative action, are representing the plaintiffs pro bono. In effect, media coverage of the Supreme Court case has given college communities across the nation a chance to learn about this complex issue beyond its surface trappings and to discuss the likely consequences of the Supreme Court decision on American society.
This piece attempts to begin such a conversation at Middlebury.
Fairness is at the crux of the affirmative action debate. Many people seem to disagree on the meaning of fairness. In fact, many opponents of affirmative action would argue that merit involves test scores and grades, quantitative information about one's qualifications. Any preference given to an applicant based on race is "reverse discrimination."
In reality, admissions offices use additional factors such as race, gender, athletic ability, legacy status, musical ability, personal history and geography to determine "merit." They do not use quotas, timetables or separate application pools because they are illegal. While numbers serve as a guide of reference, they do not judge intrinsic values such as love of learning and individual's capacity to succeed. In fact the University of Michigan gives "plus points" for residents of Michigan's Upper Peninsula and children of alumni along with a list of other non-academic factors.
A 1998 study by William Bowen and Derek Bok, former presidents of Princeton and Harvard Universities, looked at 23 highly selective colleges including the University of Michigan and found that test scores and grades predict only 15-20 percent of the variance of academic achievement among all students and an even smaller percentage among black students.
Hence, the controversy around affirmative action asks not so much why a daughter of a generous alum or an all-star hockey player are more worthy than other quantitatively qualified applicants -- but why a black, Latino or Native American student is as morally worthy of preference in admissions by default of his or her race.
Given this nation's history of discrimination against racial minorities and its value in serving the needs of society, I argue that race is probably equally, if not more, important as other non-academic "plus factors."Minorities have suffered both socio-economically and psychologically from the continuing effects of prejudice.
Today racial gaps of all kinds still exist, including gaps in SAT scores, socio-economic status, life satisfaction, average earnings and attitudes towards the importance of diversity itself. Affirmative action, therefore, "creates opportunities for members of historically under-represented groups to be drawn into various walks of life from which they might otherwise be shut out," as noted by Gerhard Casper, president of Stanford University.
As for the future of affirmative action, that poses a difficult question, which will prove momentous to answer in the upcoming Supreme Court case. The alternatives to race-sensitive admissions, however, appear grim. Bowen and Bok's study predicts that a color-blind standard would dramatically reduce the number of black matriculants at the most selective campuses to less than two percent and in selective graduate schools to less than one percent.
Conversely, race-blind admissions would raise the likelihood that a white student would get accepted from 25 percent to 27 percent. State systems in California, Texas and Florida which are barred from the use of race, admit the top graduating seniors of every high school -- the top four percent in California, the top 10 percent in Texas and the top 20 percent in Florida.
A recent Harvard study finds, however, that these alternative percent plans have proven unsuccessful in maintaining previous levels of racial and ethnic diversity on campuses. In ending I ask, would society be better off if "qualified" white applicants are substituted for minority students?
I invite anyone who is interested in having a truly intellectual conversation about this very important issue to discuss it in greater depth. Here's one option: let's meet next Wednesday for dinner at Ross.

Yvonne Chen is a sophomore political science major from Queens, New York.