There are many regards in which I’m not a traditional Democrat. One of those regards was, a few years ago, opposition to affirmative action, particularly in institutions of higher education. Quotas place an abstract sense of fairness over the realities of qualifications. School quotas for blacks, latinos, women, etc. result in less-qualified applicants people accepted, which benefits neither the school nor the individual, who ends up in an institution that’s out of their league. We don’t place quotas on Nobel Prizes—we select the most qualified individual for each award, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, race, religion, etc. Given that acceptance to schools is all about academic performance, why allow people to cheat? And another thing—why do all the admission applications say “we don’t discriminate on the basis of race, region, creed, age, sex, etc.”? That’s clearly a lie for any university that practices affirmative action.
Anyhow, that’s all what I once believed. Then came Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger, argued before the Supreme Court in April 2003 and decided in June of 2004. These lawsuits were brought by students who were denied admission to the University of Michigan, the latter to the law school, in specific. They were academically well qualified students who believed it was unfair that considerably less qualified students were accepted by virtue of their race. I changed my mind about affirmative action, at least as regards public universities, when I read these decisions.
The central element of the rulings was this: quotas are unconstitutional, point systems are not. The University of Michigan uses a 150 point scale; admission is awarded to applicants to garner 100 points. These points are applied for GPA, SAT scores, extracurriculars, etc. They can also be applied to legacy students, talented athletes, or applicants from rich families likely to contribute to the school. They may also be employed, along a scale, for “diversity points,” to applicants whose backgrounds would enrich the student body—that could be their race, religion, country of origin, or other defining personal traits.
The key difference between Gratz (which the university won) and Grutter (which the university’s law school lost) was that the law school assigned an automatic twenty points to any minority, which gives an enormous advantage to an entire class of people, rather than judging each applicant as an individuals.
Everybody who has applied to colleges knows how important it is to use every available advantage. Letters of recommendations are good, yes, but far better to get one from your Congressman than your father. Why? Because we judge that should make a difference, it should constitute a finger on the scale. Codifying this in a point system only formalizes what we’d like to exist already.
But that’s not what convinced me of the need for affirmative action in higher education. Instead, I considered the purpose of the institution. Public universities do not exist, and should not exist, for taking the very smartest 18-year-olds in the state and making them smarter still. Doing this takes the individuals who have had the greatest opportunities in life and gives them more opportunities still. It increases the divide between the haves and the have-nots. The purpose of public higher education should be to lift up everybody. In a utilitarian sense, it’s far better to take the diamonds in the rough—smart kids who had the misfortune to be born into a poor family in an underfunded school district—and allow them to better themselves and, in turn, enrich their families and communities. I think it is good and right that we recognize that universities serve a much larger purpose than merely stuffing facts into kids’ heads. We should strive to create a rich and varied community for them to occupy for their time in college.
“Affirmative action” doesn’t mean “accepting unqualified black kids.” It is the act of choosing to provide some advantage to individuals with traits that are considered advantageous to a school or its students. That trait might be wealth, it might be military service, it might be age, it might be sex, or it might be race.
I continue to think that quotas generally constitute mere racism, if race-based, or mere foolishness if based on other traits. Recognition of the value of a varied student body—value to the school, to the student body, and to the state that funds the school—just makes good sense.
I agree in principle with much of what you’ve said here. I also like your concept that:
“In a utilitarian sense, it’s far better to take the diamonds in the rough—smart kids who had the misfortune to be born into a poor family in an underfunded school district—and allow them to better themselves and, in turn, enrich their families and communities.”
Of course the reality of Affirmative Action in college admission policies is that neither family income levels nor the funding level of the school district in which a student has been educated is considered as a factor. Perhaps it should be. What do you think?
I don’t know—I haven’t thought through the concept of doing that, though at first blush it seems worthwhile to take that into consideration to some extent, however limited. To be fair, though, I think that both family income and school funding are probably taken into account to a certain extent.
Universities surely know, based on recommendations and academic background, the sort of economic situation that a student comes from. A kid who gets a recommendation from Edgar Bronfman and went to Phillips Andover is probably wealthy. Universities maintain huge fundraising databases; I speculate that they check applicants against that list to see if they’re closely related to any major donors. I likewise speculate that there’s some sense of responsibility to geographic diversity. I bet UVa makes sure that they get a good number of students from Southwest Virginia, Southside, the Shenandoah Valley, etc., perhaps weighting with a point system. This is wise—it ensures that legislators from those regions continue to fund UVa. This, though in only a broad sense, does adjust for the funding of schools in these regions.
Neither of these things are as fine-grained as what you propose here, but I have to wonder if they’re doing the trick.
I remember (all those years ago) requesting application information from UVA and then right after that I somehow also started to get mailings for prospective students from the UVA black students association.
I thought it was especially funny because I’m white, I made the request via mail, and at no point did I ever indicate ethnicity.
In my life I have done a 360 on affirmative action, and it’s taken me about 15 years to get back where I started. While I still see this in grayscale, to take DisgustedDem’s point further, any system that uses race or gender as a marker for disadvantage, without considering the child’s other challenges in life, strikes me as arbitrary and, as a graduate of Mr. Jefferson’s University, grossly offensive.
Child A, born in Appalachia to Scots-Irish parents lacking high school diplomas, and Child B, born in the Richmond projects to African-American parents also lacking high school diplomas, face the same quantifiable challenges in life — schools that are grossly under-performing (and under-funded) compared to those attended by white children in Roanoke or black children in Henrico.
I am all for giving some break to kids based on immutable factors like race, but I think it is a tragedy to do so without some equitable treatment for that geographically- and economically-challenged girl from the holler who is bright and will succeed — given the chance.
But here’s where I really struggle. In my mind, one goal of a great university is to make the brightest brighter, and I admit my bias is influenced by Jefferson’s notion of encouraging a meritocracy. In neither case is it the child’s fault to have been born in poverty or in wealth.
We will never be able to totally adjust for affluence, nor should we. But in my mind, the surest way to provide every child with the chance to succeed is provided all of them with same opportunity for a pre-K thru 12 education. And this is where I admire Govs. Warner and Kaine so much, and where I very much hope, for my children and others, that they succeed.
Curious, reading your thoughtful comment and re-reading my post makes me want to clarify something. My post comes across as indicating that I have my mind made up on the topic. I certainly don’t. I really admire the merit-based approach of purely academic admissions, in part because I’m vain enough to believe that, under those circumstanced, I’d have been accepted to more schools than I was and in part because I’m just idealistic like that. Your comments well reflect my own uncertainty on the matter.
Waldo — You have switched Gratz and Grutter, and thus confused some of the analysis that follows. Gratz dealt with the University of Michigan’s undergrad admissions policy, where they gave a 20-point bump to minorities; that policy was held to violate the Constitution. Grutter dealt with the Law School’s admissions policy, where the Law School declared that it had a goal of having a critical mass of minority members because it wanted a diverse student body, but did not prescribe a particular decision-making process for the Admissions Committee. That was held to be constitutional.
Both cases were 5-4; you had Breyer, Ginsburg, Stevens and Souter against Rehnquist, Thomas, Scalia and Kennedy, with Justice O’Connor swinging back and forth. She wrote the concurrence in Gratz, striking down the 20-point bump, and she wrote the majority opinion in Grutter, sustaining the “diversity is an important interest and you can consider race to get there” rule.
Her decision came down to two points — that having a diverse student body in a law school is a “compelling state interest,” pursuit of which is a worthy goal that we should encourage; and that the University must make its admissions decision based on an individualized determination of the merits of a particular candidate for admission, but that it is entitled to consider the race of the applicant, because of the virtue of having a diverse student body..
It is important to note that O’Connor is no longer there, and Thomas and Scalia, and to a lesser extent Rehnquist and Kennedy were openly scornful of her reasoning that upheld the law school’s rationale. There is every reason to think that Alito does not buy her holding that diversity is an important interest, so one wonders whether there are still 5 votes for her position.
Which now leads to an interesting question that perhaps only a lawyer could appreciate — the Court has held, 5-4, having a “critical mass” of minority members is a “compelling state interest.” If the decision had had only 4 votes for that rationale, with one Justice joining in the result to uphold the law school’s plan but using other logic, that would NOT constitute an “opinion of the court” that needs to be respected. But that 5th vote now means that it IS an “opinion of the court,” and justices are supposed to defer to it as though it is settled law, and not vote to reverse it just because if they had been on the Court in 2003 they would have held the other way. That means that if Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts want to overturn it, they would have to say, “We have looked at this issue in light of new facts, or new judicial caselaw in other areas, or in the light of experience that it has turned out to be unworkable, and we now vote to reverse ourselves.” It would not be enough for Alito to come on and say, “If I had been here in 2003, I would have voted the other way, but I wasn’t, so I’m going to do it now.” The difference between the two positions comes down to respect for precedent. There was a lot of talk about that in Alito’s and Roberts’ confirmation hearings, but usually with Roe v. Wade as the subtext. Both said some variant of, “I’ll respect precedent.” But you never know until you see how they actually vote.
There are two other facts that you need to realize in considering the Michigan Law School paln.
First, the Law School’s official policy was that race was not the only aspect of diversity in which it was interested. As Justice O’Connor wrote, “To the contrary, the 1992 policy makes clear ‘[t]here are many possible bases for diversity admissions,’ and provides examples of admittees who have lived or traveled widely abroad, are fluent in several languages, have overcome personal adversity and family hardship, have exceptional records of extensive community service, and have had successful careers in other fields.” The Law School defined “diversity” broadly.
Second, though the opinion did not discuss this, the reality is that there is no real correlation between either high LSAT scores or high undergraduate grades and either success in Law School or success in law. Thus the University of Michigan Law School’s record of graduating its enrollees is pretty good, no matter the race of the enrollee. It is very selective, and virtually anyone who makes it past the first cut is highly likely to do well in law school. So you are right — this is NOT about admitting unqualified people. It is about whether it is OK for a state school to say, “Out of this pool of 1,000 qualified applicants, we are going to choose the 300 that give us the best mix in our student body to enable students to learn from the life experiences of one another.”
Disclaimer here — I am a graduate — LONG before this policy was developed — of Michigan Law School.
D’oh. I had a feeling I’d do that. :) I’ve switched them around now, and I hope that I have them straight now. Unfortunately, we didn’t write a brief on these cases for my constitutional law class. I’d know them a lot better if we had.
I stumbled around that point, while you make it quite succinctly. The supply of qualified students vastly exceeds the available spaces in the overwhelming majority of public universities. This puts universities in a position where they are able to select students based on criteria other than those that are purely academic in nature. Though I wish that there was space in our public universities for all students who desire to better themselves, so long as we have this shortage of supply, I think it’s good and right for them to, as you put it, create a good mix that enables students to learn from the life experiences of one another.
Great post on the topic. I’m in the same boat; on principle I don’t believe a system of quotas is fair or equitable, but likewise the university system isn’t and shouldn’t be about taking the smartest students and making them better.
The points system has it’s faults to be sure, but being able to take a cross-section of society and applying the talents and benefits of a university setting to them is a tricky process.
It will never be perfect, and probably best left to universities to decide for themselves how to resolve, case-by-case, with certain guiding principles in mind.
I do not understand why the best of the best should be barred from receiving “more opportunities still.” So we want to shackle the most talented to give others a chance? I grew up with my family just above the poverty line and have managed to do quite well for myself regardless. Disclaimer: I am a white male attending a public university.
Besides, if one is going to believe in affirmative action, they’ve screwed up the idea anyway by not getting to the root of the cause enough. Poverty dictates the level of education one typically has through public schools, not race. And growing up in rural Georgia told me that poor whites need just as much “aid” as anyone else…though I vehemently disagree that the government should throw their hat in the ring regarding the subject.
As a black woman who came of age in the time of integration, I used to struggle with whether or not AA was really needed. Some 20 years ago, I left the cocoon of working for the government – where all were treated equally based on merit – and entered private industry. For the first time, I met resistance based purely on the fact that I was black. In 2006, I still see the same resistance to inclusion of blacks. My alma mater, ODU, has the same number of black professors/instructors in the accounting department today as it did when I graduated in 1981: zero. I am the sole black in so many organizations, have served as the first black in certain positions – such is the state of affairs that I see today. Margaret Edds has an article in today’s VP about the lack of women (who are the largest beneficiary of AA) and minorities in the General Assemby and that no woman or minority has been elected to statewide office since 1989.
To me, the real purpose of AA is to get institutions to open the doors to qualified candidates. My own experience tells me that left to their own devices, people will chose what they are comfortable with – someone who looks like them, and presumably, believes like them. In most cases, it is not malicious; rather, it just is. Over the years, I’ve had conversations with my white clients who employ no blacks in their businesses. For the most part, they never even noticed that there were no black employees. I believe the subconcious racism in our society allows people to make choices without even realizing they are doing so. And because of that, AA is sorely needed.
Let me address the issue of economics. Yes, ppor whites and poor blacks each have a difficult time moving up the ladder. But poor whites have the benefit of being white. Take a poor white person and send them to UVA and they will be accepted into society. Take a poor black person and send them to UVA and they will still struggle with acceptance. Because at the end of the day, the black person is still black.
I’ve spent many years working in the area of race relations but my campaign last year taught me an awful lesson: racism will never disappear in America because politics is so much about race. We are having this conversation because Miller played the race card. As long as there is a perceived advantage to doing so, politicians will continue to play the race card. And it’s a shame.
Vivian, I greatly respect your view, but (I think) where we depart is the role of government vis-a-vis private actions. Waldo’s thread began with a discussion of the practices of state-supported universities.
I can speak from experience about poor whites, and I would respectfully suggest that, at least with regard to education, it is no real benefit to be poor but white.
Your point about acceptance in society I will concede, at least in some circles. And I have to say that the perception in some of those circles that AA gives a leg up to black children but not otherwise similarly situated white ones merely fosters increased tension, either jealousy or worse.
The great thing about this debate is our common heartfelt desire to end up in the same place. The accident of our DNA has set us upon separate paths to that place. I am encouraged that when we reach it, we will be able to look back upon those journeys and challenge the assumptions we made. And I hope that day is very soon.
Waldo,
You may have turned me around on this issue, as naively equated Affirmative Action with quotas, which is evidently an over simplification. Your point about the public service of the (public) University system is particularly moving, but I would go a step further to state the AA in the Universities is a vital link to enacting social mobility. A key part of the American Dream is a child born into poverty may one day become President. While social scientists point out that this rarely happens, we want to believe it can and Affirmative Action bridges the gap of circumstance for a motivated sector of the disadvantaged in our society.
They certainly should not be barred. But when presented with a false dichotomy — giving the fortunate more opportunities or giving the less fortunate more opportunities — I believe that the latter would have greater societal benefits. Happily, we’re not faced with this dichotomy. So I conclude that we would do well to remember that the purpose of public institutions of learning is to benefit the entirety of the public, and to avoid exacerbating a generations-old intellectual split between the haves and the have-nots.
But, no, I do not support a Harrison Bergeron vision of the thing.
I used to believe that, but I don’t any longer.
It is absolutely true that we must get at the root causes of poverty. But we cannot only get at the root causes. That’s almost always a cop-out to avoid the awkwardness of dealing with the problems as we see them.
Imagine an orphaned child wandering into a church during a blizzard. She asks if she might sleep in a pew. A nun proposes that they give the child some food and some warm clothes. But the priest nixes it. “No, no,” he says, “we’re not getting at the root of the cause here. What we need to do is lobby our congressman for increased funding for social services programs.” And he sends the child back out into the snow.
Everybody must do what they can. Universities can, when permitted to choose from all students qualified for admission, favor those students for whom admission would be a life-changing experience, and opportunity of a magnitude well beyond any afforded anybody in their family’s history.
It’s true that we cannot treat symptoms and expect the problem to be cured. But we can’t use that as an excuse to turn a blind eye to injustice.
Institutions of higher learning discriminate. They have to. I saw a stat in the Cavalier Daily last week that said UVA now accepts somewhere around one-third of its applicants. You can’t accept everybody who applies, so there must be some logical basis for discriminating among them. What we’re struggling with is whether a person’s skin color should be one of those factors.
If it is wrong to deny a person admission purely based on their skin color, then it cannot be right to accept a person purely based on their skin color.
Mr. Snook makes an excellent point regarding UM-Law’s graduation rates. Has anybody looked at those rates for undergraduate institutions? I haven’t checked the data lately, but the last time I looked it up for UVA, African-Americans lagged far behind the student body as a whole — and UVA does much better than most other schools. Nationwide, the statistics ain’t pretty. What’s essentially happening (not to all, obviously, but to many more people than it should be) is that a black student who could succeed quite well at, say, N.C. State, is getting accepted to UNC and failing to graduate. How does this help them advance in society?
The sooner we get to a pure meritocracy in academic admissions, the better off we’ll all be.
I resent and have always been deeply offended by those who through words and deeds give aid and comfort to those who would seek to leave in place the systemic racial and economic stratification of our nation. It is why I have chosen to devote myself to politics and to aid the election of candidates I deem exemplary in their understanding of the basics of how class and race operate in our society.
Affirmative Action is one of those litmus test issues that I, as a voter, need to be comfortable with to pull the lever for someone.
The first paid campaign job I ever held was in Virginia on delegate Amundson’s race for re-election in 2001. As field director for a candidate you can learn all you need to know about the character of a person. Kris not only is well-read and well-spoken, she gets it. I was impressed with her then and to this day remain proud of the quality of her leadership. Before I consented to join her campaign, I checked her record. She has sponsored legislation reforming felony disenfranchisement laws and the death penalty. For me, if she understands that, the rest is easy.
The discussion on the blog so-far has been good regarding Affirmative Action, but it misses a few points. Gratz and Grutter miss the significance of discrimination and cloak a lot of their disagreements with point systems in the like with the “rhetoric of color-blindness” which seeks to cloak the discrimination it allows to remain in place. In a society in which there are more black men in prison, parole or probation than in college, any discussion about diversity and Affirmative Action must be grounded in that central reality. Race and class advantage people across the board, especially when they come into contact with the criminal justice system.
In an educational venue excessive credentializing by admissions boards that ostensibly weigh applicants based on merit are really weighing applicants in large part on class. Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres in their tome the Miners Canary and other articles persuasively make this argument.
The long-range studies performed on Law School graduates are firm when they state LSAT’s and undergraduate grades are poor predictors of academic performance and career success. What passes for merit is simply another form of class affinity that advantages the upper classes.
Moreover, in the University systems which have abandoned conventional Affirmative Action for a supposedly Color-Blind form of admission, the numbers of minority applicants decline precipitously. This only gives strength to the contention that too many unqualified minority admits were selected. It is false and belies the strength of minority applicants that seek admission to competitive schools and ignores the appalling history of racial exclusion practiced at such venerated institutions as the University of Virginia.
For 125 years, the University of Virginia discriminated against African Americans by excluding them without regard to academic merit. Its graduates, the children of the Commonwealth elite, benefited from the discrimination through chattel slavery and Jim Crow segregation. They systematically disenfranchised African Americans and non-minority women. 125 years of discrimination deserve 125 years of equality, period.
I am glad you’ve come around to a more moderate position on Affirmative Action Waldo. However, I am troubled that you’ve also chosen to support Jim Webb for the Senate. His recent comments regarding Affirmative Action are troubling for a man of his years who came of age during a period of civil rights activism. His comments “Affirmative action, which originally sought to repair the state-induced damage to blacks from slavery and its aftermath, has within one generation brought about a permeating state-sponsored racism that is as odious as the Jim Crow laws it sought to countermand” are troubling to me and cannot be reconciled with what I know and value. I don’t feel that Jim is a racist, but I don’t feel that he understands race.
That, among other issues is why Kris Amundson, Toddy Puller and several African American legislators endorsed Harris Miller for Senate. I concede that I don’t live in Virginia anymore, but I am still concerned about what happens in the Commonwealth. I feel that Virginia Democrats can do better than Jim Webb and can strike a blow for equal opportunity at the same time by supporting Harris Miller.
Waldo, I enjoy your blog and believe it provides thoughtful debate on a wide range of issues. Thanks for the service you provide.
Trevor, that’s the third comment that you’ve written on this site, and the third time that you have completely invented a position for me and then criticized me for holding that position. In the past you’ve branded me a racist; now you’ve settled for claiming that I’ve chosen to support Jim Webb for the U.S. Senate.
I wish you’d stop claiming that I hold positions that I do not.
I saw a picture you took on Jim’s site and put two and two together. I figured it was you since Jaquith is not a common surname. My purpose is not to offend you. Nor am I claiming that you are a racist. I do remember taking exception to some comments you posted about Viola Baskerville, the now Secretary of Administration about her referencing her race in a campaign speech and how inappropriate you felt it was. I made it clear that with Virginia’s history of racial exclusion, she was a rare, qualified candidate for diversity. I come on strong, I know, but my purpose is not to offend you in any way shape or form. I apologize for offending you.
I overdrew my bank account several times canvassing for a woman I never met in Danville last year. Viola inspired me as did Wilder before her. Viola being of the same age as my mother, I am very sensitive about criticism of her. Kris Amundson, a woman I consider a mentor, mentioned her to me as her best friend in the General Assembly. I took it to heart. I stand by what I said. It isn’t as if she didn’t have almost the same platform as Senator Byrne. It reveals a lot about the state that these two women were the top two choices for Lt. Governor. I still don’t understand why what she said was unnerving nor can I appreciate why anybody would mention her in the same breath as David Duke. Again, I apologize for any offense, none was intended.
I did take that photograph.
I’ve attended one speech by Jim Webb and two speeches by Harris Miller, taking pictures at two of those three events. The Miller event was poorly-lit, yielding just one photo (which is pretty bad), while the Webb event was better lit, yielding three photos.
Every photo that I post to Flickr is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license, and labeled accordingly, meaning that they can be reproduced for any purpose, provided that I’m given credit.
The Webb campaign has chosen to use a couple of my photographs, which I find flattering. Perhaps the Miller campaign would do the same if I’d taken any useful pictures of Harris, I don’t know. The Webb campaign’s usage of a photograph that I took does not constitute an endorsement of the candidate by me any more than it constitutes and endorsement of me by Jim.
If I have the opportunity to photograph Sen. George Allen, I’ll do so. If he wants to use that picture on his campaign website, I think that’d be just swell. But I’d love to see the guy tossed from office just the same.
Do you accept my apology?
Do you have a candidate in the Senate race and have you read Steve Jarding’s book.
No and no.
Never does the human soul appear so strong as when it foregoes revenge and dares to forgive an injury. -E.H. Chapin
Which 2 of Trevor’s 3 questions was Waldo responding to?
Trevor’s first question got caught in my spam filter until I approved it just a little bit ago. Its location, followed by my response to another post, is confusing.
I’ve never understood the idea of not accepting an apology. It’d be like not accepting a greeting or a compliment. I’m baffled that there’s even the sociolinguistic concept of acceptance, or a lack thereof, of apologies.
As I see it, while it is easy to argue against affirmative action when measured against an ideal world or a tabula rasa in which the past does not exist, both are dishonest. The real decision is whether it is a reasonable idea when measured against not having it in the world as it exists today, and whether ongoing effects of past discrimination deserve some remedy, or can be ignored because “we” didn’t do it.
One example that had a strong effect on my thinking in this area is the post-WWII GI Bill and VA home loans. These programs were one of a small number of major factors in the creation of a large American middle class in the 20th Century. They fueled the creation of the suburbs, and the home ownership they enabled were the basis of wealth for many families. And they were largely denied to nonwhites, especially African-Americans, both through a lack of clear prohibitions against discrimination in the programs themselves until the 1960s, and rampant (and legal) discrimination by lenders implementing the programs.
I benefited from this, through my parents. I suspect many of you did the same, whether directly, or through the resulting housing boom that enabled many non-veterans to join in. So we talk about people who have the “misfortune” to grow up in a poorer neighborhood, that’s not just chance. It may be a generation removed, but we got an advantage pretty damn directly through their getting a disadvantage.
So can someone explain again how “unfair” it is to try to counterbalance that?
Affirmative action is an imperfect tool, but when you’re trying to remedy past harms that were explicitly based on race, it’s a bit naive to pretend you can ignore race in the process.
There may be a bit of misrepresentation of Jim Webb’s position on Affirmative Action at play here. Mr. Webb does support Affirmative Action precisely to the extent that it is enacted specifically to remedy past harms inflicted specifically based on race. The way that it has been used, however in many cases has expanded beyond that to include nearly any non-white, non-male.
Conaway Haskins does a good job looking in to it.