Affirmative action doesn’t work and it’s unconstitutional. The state cannot change destructive culture that inhibits black success. Those who benefit from affirmative action are unqualified.
Do you believe these statements, dear reader? Despite the often cited election of President Obama and the de jure de-segregation of American society, racial minorities still navigate structural and institutional racism today. In this context, affirmative action is necessary to correct for past discrimination, prevent further discrimination and create opportunities that were previously denied to people of color and women. However, the most recent Supreme Court decision (Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action) upheld the right of Michigan citizens to bar the state from using affirmative action in university admissions, which adds Michigan to eight other states that have outlawed affirmative action. In a blistering dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor argues for affirmative action and asserts the importance of dialogue around race. “We ought not sit back and wish away, rather than confront, the racial inequality that exists in our society,” she writes. “It is this view that works harm, by perpetuating the facile notion that what makes race matter is acknowledging the simple truth that race does matter.” This ruling comes within a year of Shelby County v. Holder, the decision that gutted a key part of the Voting Rights Act. These decisions represent an attack on policies meant to correct for past barriers to social mobility and opportunity. Still, most opponents instead see affirmative action as discrimination against white people.
The rhetoric of anti-affirmative action arguments is disconcerting. Phrases like “they’re taking our spots” use language of entitlement and displacement. By naming the spots for college admission as “ours,” affirmative action opponents suggest that those spots should be in their possession and that minority students who benefit from affirmative action are displacing those who really deserve admission. Although until the 20th century, college seats were primarily available only to white, wealthy men, it is in part for this reason that affirmative action exists: to open up college admission to historically marginalized groups and avoid the continued practice of saving those spots for the privileged.
Anti-affirmative action rhetoric of who “deserves” the “spot” is also prevalent at Middlebury. Although Middlebury pledged its support for affirmative action, several faculty and students continue to contest it. According to a number of students of color at Middlebury, two beliefs — that affirmative action threatens existing privilege and that students of color are not qualified for admission — are commonly heard. One writer of this piece, Maya Doig-Acuña, shared that after she was admitted to Middlebury, many of her friends complained, saying: “you’re so lucky — being black makes it so much easier to get into college,” and “affirmative action makes it harder for white people to get into school.” After attending the presentation of “Race, Sex and the Constitution,” another writer, Lily Andrews, has repeatedly heard that “all views deserve to be shared” and that arguments against affirmative action simply represent one benign side in an intellectual debate. If this is true, then racist statements like “students of color are unqualified” are legitimized. When a policy affects real people’s lives, it should not be debated in this way.
Writer Alex Jackman contributes another experience: during a class discussion on affirmative action in the fall, Professor Dry presented an unfair dichotomy to his class: he asked, would you prefer to be a single black student in a classroom at a college that does not practice affirmative action and thereby not be questioned on your admission? Or to be one of several minority students in a classroom at an affirmative action college where white peers were empowered to make assumptions about your intellectual aptitude and how you were accepted? To limit the question of affirmative action in this way is restrictive and dangerous and obscures other possibilities that exist for minority students, what they can offer and how they should be treated. We cannot equate affirmative action with academic ineptitude or create environments where some students are empowered to question their peers’ worthiness. All students work hard to get into colleges and we need a paradigm shift so that we can begin to appreciate this and the value all students bring to the classroom.
Students at Middlebury also tend to overlook ex-nominated forms of affirmative action, namely athletics and legacy. Preference for athletes manifests as coaches choose the students they recruit to be admitted; when it comes to many sports on campus, athletes from white, wealthy schools are privileged. When it comes to legacy, we must remember that Middlebury was exclusively open to white men and although Middlebury is now need-blind for U.S. students, remains most accessible to wealthy, white families with legacies of higher education. One national activist group, Angry White Guys for Affirmative Action, writes, “it is hypocritical and profoundly wrong to call affirmative action for minorities “racism in reverse,” while treating affirmative action for bankers, farmers, white men of power, as entitlements.” It is also ironic that white women — the largest beneficiaries of affirmative action — are at the forefront of protesting this policy.
We support affirmative action because we recognize the ongoing prevalence of hiring and admittance prejudices, the lasting effects of historical barriers to opportunity and the need to take active steps to redress these effects and create greater equity. We need affirmative action because we do not all have the same opportunities. Rather, unequal historical advantage and access to social mobility structure our admissions into elite colleges and obscure the talent and worth of students who cannot put name-brand schools and programs on their applications. Class-based affirmative action is also necessary, but we cannot replace race-based policies because that ignores intersectionality. We value racial diversity in the classroom; however, arguments that defend affirmative action solely because it provides diverse classroom experiences for white students are troubling. There is a progress narrative we have bought into about race: the laws are signed, we elected a black president, so race is no longer an issue. But when we live in a country where the rights of people of color are constantly contested and their lives constantly reexamined, there is still work to do. Affirmative action is not up for debate.
Signed by Alex Jackman ’14 , Lily Andrews ’14, Maya Doig-Acuña ’16, Afi Yellow-Duke ’15, Kya Adetoro ’13, Kate McCreary ’15, Cooper Redpath ’14, Katie Linder ’15, Molly Stuart ’15.5, Jasmine Ross ’16, Marcella Maki ’14, Greta Neubauer ‘14.5, Brita Fisher ’15, Joanna Georgakas ’14, Feliz Baca ’14, Alice Oshima ’15, Katie Willis ’13, Molly McShane ’16.5, Philip Williams ’15, Josh Swartz ’14.5, Elizabeth Dunn, Ally Yanson ’14, Maddie Dai ’14, Ashley Guzman ’13, Jackie Park ’15, Alexander Chaballier ’16.5, Cooper Couch ’14.5.
