Nov. 18

The Illusion of Race-Blind Admissions

Since the passing of Proposition 209 in 1996, the University of California has faced a statewide ban on considering race or ethnicity in admissions decisions. Recently, a political science professor at the university’s Los Angeles campus charged the institution with “cheating on admissions” by quietly considering information revealed about candidates’ race in their application essays – an act he deems illegal under Proposition 209. In an 89-page document, Timothy Groseclose describes how the institution refused to provide him with 1,000 application files to test his theory that African American candidates were being granted undue favoritism in the admissions process.

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As my colleagues often say, admissions is more of an art than a science. In his argument, Groseclose plays up the fact that average SAT scores and high school grade-point averages differ by racial and ethnic groups. In most cases, decisions do not boil down to quotas or points systems (which were effectively outlawed by the Supreme Court in Bakke and Gratz). What he neglects is the inherent role of human judgment — the subjective backbone of the admissions process. To my knowledge, no college or university aspires to break the law. But when the law is ambiguous – which has been a recurring theme of affirmative action court rulings over the past 30 years – it becomes easy to imagine violations where none exist.

While Groseclose claims to be a supporter of affirmative action and policies that aim to increase institutional diversity, his argument is that using information about race revealed in candidates’ essays decries UCLA as a criminal organization. Some critics of affirmative action, such as Ward Connerly (former University of California regent and author of Proposition 209, the statewide ban on affirmative action) want to eliminate all mention of race in any applications.

These critiques raise a simple question: How can we ask applicants not to make any mention of race in their application? Do we specify that students are not permitted to talk about celebrating certain holidays? Can we ask them not to discuss trips to visit family outside the United States for it may tip us off to their racial background? If someone is the head of a high school’s Black Student Union, must she leave it off her list of extracurriculars? Is it not discriminatory to state that mention of learning empanada recipes from Mom cannot be included?

And even if we enforce such restrictions, a more complex question emerges: How far must we go to avoid “illegal activity” when attempting to make the best possible decisions for all applicants? Race can appear in more than just a personal narrative. Will we then be asked to disregard students’ names? Their hometowns? Their high schools? Their parents’ alma maters? Will staff and alumni interviewers need to conduct conversations from behind a screen? With all the blacked-out lines, we will be forced to admit only what we can see – test scores and grades as opposed to artists, scholars, and engaged citizens and people whose backgrounds aren’t the same as those who have enrolled in higher education for generations.

While some of these constraints may sound extreme, it is time to acknowledge that eradicating race from the admissions process is not as clear cut as some might believe. In states like California, Michigan, and others where affirmative action has been outlawed, admissions officers need some middle ground. If students reveal elements of their personal background in their essays, or if their names, high schools, or hometowns hint at a particular racial/ethnic group, that information is important – just as important as information on students’ grades and test scores. As long as these institutions have compelling race-neutral reasons for admitting the student, there are no racial preferences at play, and no violation at hand. In addition, colleges and universities should be at liberty to consider personal qualities – such as academic success in the wake of economic or social hardship – that may be associated with, but not necessarily linked to, students’ racial background.

In court rooms and living rooms across America, there is an electrified buzz about the “unfair” nature of considering race as a factor in college admissions. Despite ample research highlighting the academic and social benefits of attending a racially diverse institution made possible by affirmative action, it’s not the benefit but the fairness that is relentlessly called into question.

But here’s a little something to halt the noise: college admissions can’t always be fair. Is it fair that a student with C’s gets into an Ivy League school because his father is a trustee? How about the lacrosse player with SAT scores 300 points below the institution’s average? The daughter of a politician? The Republican at a liberal arts institution? As described by Lee Coffin , dean of admission and enrollment management at Tufts University, each of those students could be viewed as a case of “affirmative action.” So perhaps instead of reopening historical wounds, we should let admissions officers do what they do best: craft a talented and diverse class for that particular institution at that particular point in time. If social justice is what Ward Connerly was after in writing Proposition 209 and Tim Groseclose is after in trying to uphold it, removing race from college applications can only heal the runny nose that has plagued America for decades. To cure the cold, it is the deeper cause – persistent societal racism – that needs to be treated. And in an ironic twist, there has been no right answer to that problem either. But I’m not so convinced we should remove its checkbox.

Julie Vultaggio is a Ph.D. candidate in higher education at the University of Pennsylvania.

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Comments

The first paragraph hinted at the potential silliness of this article.

“Recently, a political science professor at the university’s Los Angeles campus charged the institution with “cheating on admissions” by quietly considering information revealed about candidates’ race in their application essays – an act he deems illegal under Proposition 209.” Quietly how? They spoke in hushed voices? Does somebody have to “deem” an act is illegal if the law specifically prohibits it?

And I was not disappointed:

“If students reveal elements of their personal background in their essays, or if their names, high schools, or hometowns hint at a particular racial/ethnic group, that information is important – just as important as information on students’ grades and test scores.”

Just as important? Really? The fact that a kid is or is not a minority has equal weight with his or her high school performance? Dang, I think thinks are worse than we knew.

Laura, at 10:05 am EST on November 18, 2008

Dubious Benefits, Indisputable Costs

I agree with Ms. Vultaggio that it may well be impossible to remove all evidence of a student’s race from his or her application, but nothing else that she says is persuasive.

For starters, the fact that the application may contain information about the student’s race does not mean that we have to shrug and accept it when that information is used to give the student a preference. It’s always useful to put the shoe on the other foot: Suppose that an admissions committee was seizing upon indicia of a black or Hispanic student’s ethnicity and discriminating *against* the student on that account—would that be accepted as somehow inevitable so long as the information is available to the admissions committee?

Furthermore, in light of Proposition 209, the law in California is clear: Giving a preference on account of race is illegal. At UCLA, then, we do not have a situation “when the law is ambiguous”; having followed this dispute for years, I strongly suspect we have, instead, a “university [that] aspires to break the law.”

Next, Ms. Vultaggio says that college admissions is often unfair, for all kinds of reasons. But it does not follow from this that we should cheerfully allow the particular unfairness of racial discrimination. The argument proves too much: Again, would Ms. Vultaggio accept it if African Americans and Latinos were being discriminated *against*?

Finally, at the end, Ms. Vultaggio seems to suggest that racial preferences ought to be allowed as a means of addressing “persistent societal racism.” We’ll put aside the question of how “persistent” and widespread such racism is in 2008 (two words: Barack Obama) for individuals born not in 1864, or 1964, but in 1990. This particular justification is a legal nonstarter, having been explicitly rejected by the Supreme Court. And, again, even if the Supreme Court had not rejected it, Proposition 209 has.

So we have the dubious justifications of (a) fighting societal racism and (b) enjoying the “academic and social benefits of attending a racially diverse institution” (the “ample research” for which is disputed). On the other hand, here are the costs of using racial preferences: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school; it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure for many of the former; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership.

Roger Clegg, President and General Counsel at Ctr for Equal Opportunity, at 10:05 am EST on November 18, 2008

The problem with affirmative action is the timing of it. If social policies like racial preference sincerely espouse the idea that a college acceptance letter can redress past discriminations, then it admits to being already too late.

Programs like affirmative action wouldn’t be necessary if the effort for racial equality began at one’s birth and not eighteen years later.

Keenan, Student, at 12:05 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Science to the rescue

It is neither possible nor desirable to exclude race from consideration in college admissions. But as the author points out, accurate determination of race can be difficult:

“Race can appear in more than just a personal narrative. Will we then be asked to disregard students’ names?”

This illustrates one of the most difficult problems admissions officers have to face. Suppose a person with a name like “Obama” applies. We would know from his name that he should get extra admission points. But how many? And what about an applicant named “Jackson"? It could be a black person who deserves a boost. But it could also be a privileged white person.

In the past it wasn’t always possible to correct for these uncertainties. Today, however, by asking applicants to submit a simple cheek swab with their college applications, we can eliminate all subjectivity. This is what we now do at my institution. Full-blooded individuals from state-approved groups are readily identified and are awarded eight extra admission points; half-breeds are awarded four; quadroons receive two; and octoroons one point.

By permitting accurate racial classification, genetic testing can now help to eliminate the errors that had formerly been made by admissions officers in less advanced times.

Director of Admissions, University of Civilizations, at 12:55 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Start at the beginning

Keenan hits it on the head. If we acknowledged that systemic & institutional racism really begins with the quality of one’s neighborhood and one’s local (public) schools, and if we made concerted efforts to target policies at equalizing at this level (e.g., abandoning the model of funding schools based on property taxes and developing and enacting equitable solutions for funding problems), there would be no need for affirmative action in hiring or higher ed admissions.

Isocrates, at 1:00 pm EST on November 18, 2008

If you read your constitution very carefully you will not find any mention of outlawing discrimination based on being an oboe player, being an athlete or a legacy. But it is specifically written you may not manifest bias based on race, creed or color. If you are the best oboe player in the state with an SAT 500 points too low an acceptance is not unconstitutional. If you mother donated $1M your acceptance is not unconstitutional. If you accept an inferior student solely to make a quota or because you felt sorry for her because of race that is indeed unconstitutional.

It is amazing the same school that fields an 80% black basketball team solely because of merit does not find equivalent merit in intelligence and ability. If you want the best in your athletes why not want the best in your students and faculty? Would you practice AA on your football team?

The problem we as a nation will face is we are admitting inferior students because of race and when they go off into the world to compete with other countries which only consider merit we will lose out. Already Asian countries are surpassing us. In a few years we will have achieved diversity and mediocrity. Then the “art” practiced by the admission officers will have doomed our country to second class status.

Libertarian1, at 1:35 pm EST on November 18, 2008

white privilege is still alive

Let us remember that only about 5 percent of U.S. colleges and universities are truly competitive when it comes to gaining admission. It is in those applicants-rich institutions where you can try to inject some diversity into your student body by using ethnicity as one of many factors. What is important is that you accept academically ready students who can handle the classroom work. So, if an African American from a public school with an SAT score of 1,100 and good grades gets admitted and a white student from a private school with a score of 1,200 gets rejected no one loses because the white student can get admitted someplace else. Unfortunately, some critics of affirmative action think white students are “entitled” to admission into selective schools.

William Velez, at 1:35 pm EST on November 18, 2008

This article and most of the comments read like they were written in a bizzarro world where everyone pretends that whiteness isn’t a race and that European-Americans have no ethnic markers.

KW, at 2:15 pm EST on November 18, 2008

William:

“So, if an African American from a public school with an SAT score of 1,100 and good grades gets admitted and a white student from a private school with a score of 1,200 gets rejected no one loses because the white student can get admitted someplace else.”

I don’t get the logic here. The white student can get admitted someplace else but the black student can’t?

“Unfortunately, some critics of affirmative action think white students are ‘entitled’ to admission into selective schools.”

Can you site any source where the word “entitled” is used in this way? I think you are engaging in some dubious mind-reading here. I’ve done some reading on AA and I’ve never seen that argument put forth, either explicitly or implicitly.

Laura, at 2:40 pm EST on November 18, 2008

“It is amazing the same school that fields an 80% black basketball team solely because of merit does not find equivalent merit in intelligence and ability... The problem we as a nation will face is we are admitting inferior students because of race and when they go off into the world to compete with other countries which only consider merit we will lose out”

Libertarian1 says we “will face” negative economic impacts from championing discriminatory affirmative action instead of mercilessly enforcing equal opportunity to compete for admissions and jobs on intelligence, ability, and effort. The “will face” is his only error. We have already suffered avoidable public safety tragedies, pervasive dumbing down of civil service hiring (began with eliminating PACE as racially biased in the seventies), and corporate inefficiency due to “minimum standards” quota hiring instead of “best qualified.”

Fritz Katz, at 2:50 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Admissions

First, we should recognize race and ethnicity can be applied in the admission process. If a university decides to consider race and ethnicity as an admission consideration then race and ethnicity cannot be the sole reason for admission.

I would recommend the evaluation process for admission focus entirely on the high school and the students that applied from that high school. In this scenario, students would be evaluated among their peers and not against students from other school districts or across state lines.

This process also eliminates the discrepancies we often find from rich suburban high schools and inner city high schools. It levels the playing field.

Mike, Administrator, at 4:05 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Merit

I like the analogy of basketball that has been made, but it doesn’t work. In basketball and most sports merit is obvious. You can clearly determine who’s the best athlete through direct competition. However, in academics, this does not exist. Higher standardized test scores do not translate into the “best student". This is a proven fact! Additionally, the person with the highest GPA or standardized test score does not result in the best employee. Simply look at the people that lead our companies and develop innovation. Were they at the top of the class or did they have the highest standardized test score? Look at law schools. Are the best lawyers from the top of the class? In most cases, the answer is no. Essentially, you all are making the best case for yourselves. If you do well on test scores, if you are able to attend the “best schools", then you argue for those things as proxies for “merit". If you are Asian, you argue for standardized test scores; if you are African-American or Hispanic, you are argue for equity, grades, extra-curricular activities, and diversity; if you are White you argue for grades, legacy, school rankings, the ability to speak English and wealth. So, you see the case for merit is made differently based on who you are because there are no predictors of success across all groups. Therefore, the sports analogy doesn’t translate here.

Eugene, at 4:50 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Mike, some of what you say confuses me. Why should we have a level playing field? If Shaq is 7 foot tall and I am 5′ 8″ we can never have a level playing field. If some students have an IQ of 85-100 and others have an IQ of 120 we can never have a level playing field. See today’s NYT editorial about the positive correlation of SAT scores and graduation.

When you have two different populations you can never have a level playing field. Obviously it is a bell shaped curve and there is a huge overlap but not enough so that the final class acceptance ratios can anywhere approach population densities.

So much of these discussions are manifested by denial. When I tell my patients very bad news they say that just isn’t fair. They of course are right but who ever told you life would be fair. Embracing the false god of affirmative action is not going to lead to fairness.

Libertarian1, at 4:50 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Libertarian1, there is not, of course, a rigid correlation between IQ and effectiveness in college or in the workplace, anymore than you can measure a person’s height and immediately determine how they’ll perform on a basketball court. Work habits, the ability to understand and complete assignments, persistence, and intellectual curiosity all factor in there. I think that one must have at least some minimum IQ to do well in college but that’s not the whole story, by a long shot. I don’t think race comes in there as a positive or a negative.

Laura, at 7:50 pm EST on November 18, 2008

Talking about the real issue

After reading all the articles, it seems that most are missing the point — if we are truly looking to educate about and include diversity one looks at a incoming student body that provides a variety of experiences — not race as a separate criterion. If the admissions departments truly do their jobs the incoming class accepted will have a wide variety of students that provide diversity, including race. Many of the commenters talk about finding the truly ‘qualified’, but don’t acknowlege that the criteria being looked at is standardized scores. While the scores are an important part of the process, to only look at scores is to contradict the purpose of our education system. As a secondary school administrator and now a college instructor I hear over and over again from recent high school graduates and current college students their dismay over a lack of diversity and multiplicity of viewpoints at the college level. As one person stated — letting the admissions departments do their job will support not just diversity in education, but enhance the quality of the entire educational experience for our students.

There is subjectivity in the process, and to eliminate that denigrates the vision and mission of college education. Rather than wasting time trying to find the perfect solution (re: the BCS fiasco) we should embrace the process to find ways to include all and educate the world.

Dr. A, Lecturer at California State University, Long Beach, at 5:05 am EST on November 19, 2008

Classic Racism

Enough said!

why, Dr. at No one, at 9:00 am EST on November 19, 2008

Basketball?

So you wanna talk basketball? OK, let’s talk basketball. Anyone who pays any attention to basketball coaches knows that they ALL recruit on a holistic basis. If the hoops equivalent of the SATs existed—say, a 90-minute test in which players receive scores based on the number and difficulty of shots they make—I have no doubt that every coach in America would take a look at the results. But none of them would automatically conclude that the kid who made 53% of his/her shots was more qualified than the one who made 48%. They’d want to know more.

If the 53% shooter had rich parents who sent him to top-notch basketball camps every summer and the 48% shooter recently moved to the U.S. and started playing ball just three years ago, most observers would realize that Mr. 48 is the far better prospect. And if Mr. 48 emigrated from a country where, because of prejudice against southpaws (such countries do exist), his left-handedness held him back in numerous overt and subtle ways, this, too, would mark him as the most qualified candidate for a scholarship, regardless of the results of the Basketball SAT.

There is a reason that runners on the outside track are given a slight advantage over those on the inside. They have more to overcome. And nobody pretends that such a rule penalizes the folks on the inside, nor would they ever argue that this seeming head start somehow stigmatizes those on the outside. When we watch a track meet, we recognize that the track and field version of affirmative action ENHANCES fairness. Why is that so difficult to understand in country which, despite Roger Clegg’s laughable suggestion that Barack Obama’s election wipes the slate clean, still suffers from clear and systematic discrimination against certain groups of people?

One final point: when the beneficiaries of affirmative action are stigmatized in the eyes of others, the problem is not affirmative action; it is racism.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 9:10 am EST on November 19, 2008

Unapologetically Tenured, nowhere in your comment did you mention the race of your hypothetical basketball players.

You cannot — well, you can, but you should not — make ANY assumptions about a student’s preparation or background based on his or her race. Obama himself said that his daughters probably shouldn’t get preferences because they will not be disadvantaged. To assume privilege in every white student is to ignore the many white kids growing up in poverty and neglect. To assume disadvantage in every black kid is a slap in the face to families like Obama’s, and like Michele’s as she was growing up, in which the kids were educated and properly cared for. I know lots of black folks who concern themselves greatly with their kids’ education and who work and have the wherewithal to see that they get whatever tutoring and extra enrichment they want or need. What an insult to these people, to look at their kids’ dark skin and assume that they start out behind any white kid you pick up off the street. You’re using race as a proxy for quality of upbringing here, and that’s wrong.

Laura(southernxyl), at 11:00 am EST on November 19, 2008

Unapologetically Confused

Unapologetically Tenured seems to commit a flaw in reasoning common to the chronicly PC: that fairness to groups equals fairness to all the individuals in those groups. A presumption that we participate in demographic co-ops that distribute benefits and burdens fairly among members rather than the reality of being exclusively independant actors.

If discriminating against minorities is so wrong, how does that justify discriminating against whites? Two wrongs make a right? Civil rights come in individually-sized portions and can’t be scaled-up into group-sized bulk portions. Equalizing group outcomes is not a suitable substitute for equal opportunity for every single individual.

Disparate group outcomes may cause anxiety for the well-intended, but it is no excuse for abandoning equal opportunity for every indivdual. To do so is a theft of civil rights.

eddy, at 11:55 am EST on November 19, 2008

Reverse Descrimination

“One final point: when the beneficiaries of affirmative action are stigmatized in the eyes of others, the problem is not affirmative action; it is racism.”

Parse what you just wrote. You want students admitted, even though they are less well qualified, solely because of their race. But if anyone dares say the emperor has no clothes than THEY are racist.

Also many of you seem to believe that the student selected because of race has scored just a tiny smidgen below the Asian/white competition. So fairness would seem to say if one student is 91 and the other is 90 there is no harm in bending over because of a less affluent background.

But that is not what was being done at Michigan. On a 100 point list the black applicants would get 20 points solely because of race. That means one student got an A with a 90 and the other got a D with a 70. Giving the second student his 20 points would make the 2 equivalent in the eyes of the admission department.

Of course to raise a totally different question, in the master plan of proponents when can we stop AA? What has to happen? Do we have to elect a black as POTUS? Do we have to have 1/9 blacks on the Supreme Court? Be specific and practical.

Libertarian1, at 4:45 pm EST on November 19, 2008

Big Picture, Folks

Laura, you make an strong point that race alone should not be used as a proxy for other indicators. This is why the spelling of a name, the mention of a food, or the celebration of a holiday, embedded in the narrative of a college essay, is so much richer. For those who seek the benefits of diversity inside and outside the college classroom, Vultaggio makes an excellent point.

When the outcry against the affirmative action afforded legacies, athletes, and students from wealthy or influential families comes equally under scrutiny, I will stop shaking my head at statements like those by Libertarian. At that point, we can at least have a legitimate conversation. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Finally, regarding the “timing” of affirmative action, I believe that we in the higher education community can and should do a great deal more to intervene earlier in the lives of disadvantaged children across this nation, regardless of modifier (race, religion, gender, etc). Nonetheless, if in the course of “adding value” via a college education for the relatively advantaged among them we can also add a satisfactory level of value for their underserved peers, then everybody wins. They may require greater value-added, but this does not in any way indicate that they cannot meet or even surpass their peers in the final analysis, and the latter is what we need to shoot for.

At the outset of perhaps the toughest economic times since the great depression, the education of those greatest potential, low income students (who happen to be largely hispanic and black, though there are also many whites) will raise all of our ships as Americans and as citizens of the developed world (Hey, we broke it, we bought it... might have been the other way around). The best and the brightest, as they say, is a bit more complex than GPA and SAT, let alone athletic ability or donor potential. The sooner we develop our heretofore untapped resources of high potential disadvantaged students, the sooner we begin operating this country at full capacity.

Andrew Lounder, at 10:05 am EST on November 20, 2008

Quick Responses

“You’re using race as a proxy for quality of upbringing here, and that’s wrong.”

Incorrect. I’m using race as a proxy for the likelihood that someone has been adversely affected by racism. I doubt you have a better proxy. Race also correlates with a number of other relevant socio-economic variables, and the correlation is not a coincidence. But regardless of that, underrepresentation remains a problem that transcends social class. Unless you wish to argue that the underrepresentation is a function of self-selection (i.e., African Americans and Latinos simply prefer not to attend elite universities, law school, med school, or serve in the professoriate), then I think we have a problem that demands some sort of solution.

“Unapologetically Tenured seems to commit a flaw in reasoning common to the chronicly PC: that fairness to groups equals fairness to all the individuals in those groups.”

Ah yes, the classic cop-out. We’re all “independent actors", yet somehow the independent actors with darker skin consistently seem to find themselves underrepresented. By the way, I could turn your argument around on you: if discrimination against whites is so wrong, then why is it ok to ignore persuasive aggregate-level evidence of discrimination against non-whites?

“Parse what you just wrote. You want students admitted, even though they are less well qualified, solely because of their race.”

No, I don’t. Please parse less and read more carefully. I am suggesting that a) SAT scores simply don’t make the cut as surrogates for “qualification"; b) any admissions committee that does NOT take a holistic approach in their decision making is unworthy of the job; and c) that overcoming any number of disadvantages, including institutional racism, must be regarded as part of the picture when judging between otherwise qualified individuals. The idea, taken entirely out of context, that a 1250 SAT score conclusively proves that someone is more qualified than her neighbor with an 1150 SAT score is preposterous on its face, and yet this argument (and others similarly fatuous) remains the primary basis by which people argue that affirmative action discriminates against “more qualified” individuals.

And of course we haven’t even touched on the positive impact of diversity, which is the reason why even the current very conservative Supreme Court has refused to strike down the practice of using race as a plus factor in college admissions. As for California and its unfortunate Prop 209, so long as an admissions committee can point to legitimate, non-racial justifications for their decisions, then they are not in violation of the law. Indeed, it is Professor Groseclose who seems to want to re-introduce race into the equation.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 11:15 am EST on November 20, 2008

Benefits of Diversity?

Mr. Louder, you wrote: “For those who seek the benefits of diversity inside and outside the college classroom...". Maybe you can accomplish what no diversity advocate has in the last thirty years by explaining exactly how whites are different from blacks and from hispanics and asians. People talk glowingly about the differences between racial groups but only in a bald abstraction. They never explain what those differences are. Reasonable people can explain meaningful differences between giraffes and penguins but are mute when pressed to explain what those diversity differences are. How are racial group differences distinct from ordinary individual differences? How is it that claimed racial diversity seems like ordinary stereotyping? Diversity is nothing but a scam exploited because of an off-hand remark in the Bakke decision.

eddy, at 11:25 am EST on November 20, 2008

Complete fairness is impossible

If policies do NOTHING to boost certain groups, such as the poor, or african americans, or whatever, then those groups will continue to be unfairly under-represented.

If you do SOMETHING to boost such groups, inevitably there will be some examples like the one above where a white student with a 1200 SAT is turned away while a black student with an 1100 gets in.

What’s the lesser of two evils? The answer should (hopefully0 change over time.

Sometime around 2042 white people will be a minority in America- less than 50% of the population will be white. Until then, just because of sheer numbers and not explicit purposeful racism, whites get elected, accepted into college, and Suzy whittington will continue to get hired over Terrell Washington. Countless studies show that today’s racism is not overt, it’s sun-concious. People chose those who are more like themselves, and right now decision-makers are mostly white. So for now the lesser of evils is to do SOMETHING to conciously work against today’s soft racism (sub-concious) of numerical superiority.

As long as each acceted student has the potential to succeed at a school, and is qualified, it’s reasonable to aork for diversity among your student body. This in itself has educational value. This is different from filling job positions, in which the most qualified person is who should win, as long as everyone is seriously considered.

I optimistically hope that the numbers will become proportional on their own sometime before 2042, at which point AA is no longer necesary. Until then, doing SOMETHING (the exact form the policies should take is debatable) is much better than doing NOTHING, which is choosing to let soft racism continue.

Joe, at 12:20 pm EST on November 20, 2008

Rebuttal to Tenured

You wrote: “why is it ok to ignore persuasive aggregate-level evidence of discrimination against non-whites?” Disparities in group outcomes does not prove discrimination. Does the overrepresentation of Jews in law and medicine somehow prove white supremists’ allegations of a Jewish conspiracy? If males are 90% of the prison population, does that prove that our judicial system is wildly sexist? Discrimination is a violation of individual rights. There is no entitlement to proportionate group results, only equal opportunity for individuals. Those who find proof of discrimination based solely on disproportionate group results are the same people who “know” a coin is unbalanced because its flips are 60 heads and 40 tails. Diversity supremists are delaying ultimate racial harmony by insisting that it is alright to treat people differently based on their race. If we want to get beyond race, we need to make it less important, not more important.

eddy, at 3:55 pm EST on November 20, 2008

Unapologetic, I think it must be that you are thinking about groups and I am thinking about individuals.

I would not want to be the one telling Michelle Obama that I could pick any random white kid in the country and know that her daughters could not compete against that kid without affirmative action. All the dancing, piano, horseback lessons, all the material advantage and attention from their highly educated and married-to-each-other parents can’t make up for their black skin. Any child of an unwed crack addict has a leg up on them as long as that child is white.

If you’re prepared to do that then you are a braver person than I am.

Laura, at 7:25 pm EST on November 20, 2008

Unapologetically Spin

I think that UT’s interpretation of the Supremes’ ruling is just that — his interpretation, not the causality. Some fallacies include the following.

First, “if discrimination against whites is so wrong, then why is it ok to ignore persuasive aggregate-level evidence of discrimination against non-whites” [this simply means that Two Wrongs Equals a Right: Someone else did wrong, so I can do the same! Wah-Wah!] [And, BTW, just what the Hell is “aggregate-level"? If we can insert obfuscatory terminology, we must be smarter!]

Further, his thoughts about this pronouncement are illustrative of his mind-set: “a) SAT scores simply don’t make the cut as surrogates for “qualification” [read: I choose to ignore performance by any acceptable standard]; b) any admissions committee that does NOT take a holistic approach in their decision making is unworthy of the job [ah, the cherished word “holistic,’ meaning the whole process — which means obviously something you fools have not considered, and don’t I sound so intelligent?]; and c) that overcoming any number of disadvantages, including institutional racism, must be regarded as part of the picture when judging between otherwise qualified individuals [and what exactly is ‘institutional racism’ — a subconscious plot by the continuous cabal, or the assumption by statisticians employed by assumers of racism that racism is our natural tendency?].”

By the way, 1250 is better than 1150. Else, if not, then 1150 is not better than 1050, which is not better than 950, ..., which is not better than 50, so continued contraposition means that the SAT is absolutely worthless. Good luck teaching a bunch of 50’s!

Finally, consider: “the current very conservative Supreme Court has refused to strike down the practice of using race as a plus factor in college admissions. As for California and its unfortunate Prop 209, so long as an admissions committee can point to legitimate, non-racial justifications for their decisions, then they are not in violation of the law.” [my emphasis]

Duh! Sorry, UT; I did not get lost or intimidated by your non sequitors.

Again, it’s time for Unapologetically Tenured (all praise be to Them) to apologize.

DFS, at 8:35 pm EST on November 20, 2008

Re: Dubious Benefits, Indisputable Costs

“Next, Ms. Vultaggio says that college admissions is often unfair, for all kinds of reasons. But it does not follow from this that we should cheerfully allow the particular unfairness of racial discrimination.”

I think it’s ironic that the President and General Counsel of the Center of Equal Opportunity, Roger Clegg, flippantly dismisses the author’s point that college admissions features a litany of “unfair” and seemingly nefarious practices that reward anyone from a legacy to a football star to someone raised in North Dakota. By Clegg’s own logic, why should society “cheerfully allow” the sort of admissions policies that favor some but not others? Instead, Clegg’s righteous indignation and moral outrage are reserved for the instances of “racial discrimination” in admissions. What a myopic argument.

Perhaps if entities such as the Center of Equal Opportunity were genuinely interested in the equal opportunity of all applicants who apply to selective colleges and universities, they would join researchers and practitioners such as Vultaggio and issue an equally voracious critique that questions the entire peculiar practice of college admissions decision-making. Instead, we settle for the same simplistic point of view that many have embraced since Bakke: that race being a factor in admissions is the paramount challenge to equity in higher education. Please.

Should interest groups such as the Center of Equal Opportunity EVER critique the preferential treatment legacies, athletes, and our friend from North Dakota receive when applying to the college of their choice, then maybe I’ll begin to take Cleff, Ward Conley, and their brethren seriously. Until that occurs, maybe those within higher education are best suited to determine who should and should not be admitted to college in the first place...

mr2dco, Grad Student, at 5:20 am EST on November 21, 2008

Inside Higher Ed article comments never fail to disappoint

This is why I dread receiving Higher Ed in my e-mail inbox—there is almost invariably an article on affirmative action and almost invariably a series of whining comments following it, invariably leaning heavily against affirmative action, invariably using the same old cliches regarding playing fields (though this batch seems to have favored the basketball court). Commenters hardly ever touch on questions of gender. They also paint a picture of extreme hardship for economically privileged, high-achieving white students. It is telling that so many of these arguments see minority applicants as automatically less qualified and “taking” the spot of another, hypothetically more qualified student, as if the minority were taking away what is a right of another student to attend that college. Interesting, then, that minorities (who are quickly headed toward becoming a majority of the country’s population) still make up such a relatively small percentage of most college campuses. I appreciate the point of the article’s author that many commenters have no idea about the overall subjectivity of admissions, and indeed the impossibility of making it a science, but of course her point is lost in the angry reactions that accompany any article about affirmative action on this site.

Disappointed as Usual, at 1:30 pm EST on November 21, 2008

Newsflash for mr2dco

We have laws ostensibly prohibiting discrimination on the basis of race, gender, ethnicity, and other factors. We have no laws prohibiting discrimination on the basis of legacy status, athletic ability, or even beauty. Your suggestion seems to be that because the latter factors aren’t included in the prohibited list, we may ignore the current prohibitions because the list doesn’t go far enough. Lobby your lawmakers to expand the protected list to your liking. But don’t use that as an excuse to deny enforcement of existing prohibitions. Either enforce the laws we have without resorting to “diversity” evasions, or rework the laws to allow for racial discrimination.

eddy, at 1:30 pm EST on November 21, 2008

This is an interesting article focusing on many of the points discussed here.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/new...__black__flunking/Content?oid=285317

Libertarian1, at 3:55 pm EST on November 21, 2008

This is what I think is telling:

“They also paint a picture of extreme hardship for economically privileged, high-achieving white students.”

I suppose you are talking about my hypothetical white child of an unwed crack addict. To you, apparently, white = economically privileged and high-achieving. It is becoming increasingly clear to me, exactly who the racists here are.

(If I dreaded something appearing in my inbox, I’d unsuscribe. Talk about whining.)

Laura, at 3:55 pm EST on November 21, 2008

Laura, I hadn’t read about your “hypothetical white child of an unwed crack addict,” so I wasn’t referring to that, but your vehement response did make me laugh a bit. Realistically, do you think that there are many children of crack addicts of any race even applying to college? My mother works with “crack babies” in the elementary school where she teaches and most are in and out of foster homes, many have severe physical and mental disabilities as a result of their mothers’ addictions, and many are lucky if they can have any semblance of a normal life and escape poverty. That’s the funny thing about these hypotheticals, though—they’re usually quite abstract or extreme. The point of this article is that there are few such clear-cut cases. Admissions directors do their best to deal with the realities away from the hypotheticals...and these realities often occupy a gray area. If I understand your point, you’re saying that there are factors besides race that contribute to privilege. I don’t think most people would argue with that. What I would argue, and what I think the article writer is trying to argue, is that there are many factors that come into the admissions process when it attempts to look holistically at applicants, and the people who are up in arms over what they see as pervasive reverse racism (a term I think is honestly silly) don’t understand what exactly goes into the process. They imagine that underachieving non-white applicants are automatically accepted over, and “take” the spot of a white student with a 4.0 GPA and an Einstein-like brilliance.

Still disappointed but laughing, Hypotheticals, at 4:30 pm EST on November 21, 2008

Glad I could afford you some amusement.

“...the people who are up in arms over what they see as pervasive reverse racism (a term I think is honestly silly) don’t understand what exactly goes into the process. They imagine that underachieving non-white applicants are automatically accepted over, and “take” the spot of a white student with a 4.0 GPA and an Einstein-like brilliance.”

I suggest that you stop with the mind-reading.

I’m not complaining about white students not getting a spot, although I admit to being irked about the airy suggestion of another commenter that it didn’t matter if a white person had to go to a school other than his choice.

I am really irritated though about the suggestion that a child’s being black means that he needs affirmative action because you know in advance that he is disadvantaged compared to any white kid. I know white kids, friends of my daughter’s, whose parents apparently don’t give a damn about them. I have friends who are black, who have black kids with black-sounding names, and they are very involved with their kids’ education. (I am repeating myself now, but you admit you didn’t read my earlier comment.) You insult these people when you assume that their kids’ being black means that they are disadvantaged compared to any white kid.

This is a racist attitude. Seriously.

As for diversity, I suppose that some of the commenters’ attitudes could be explained by their not having any middle-class black friends, so in their case some diversity might help.

Laura, at 8:55 pm EST on November 21, 2008

Seeing Individuals vs. Seeing Groups

I share the views of the commenters here who believe the focus in education should be on the individuality of students rather than on their membership in some group. I think that most people who come out of the academic faculty tradition generally agree with this, whereas most people who come from a School of Education background tend to focus on group membership as more important.

Since the greater part of the volume of published literature on higher education (as such) tends to come from people in the School of Education tradition, my impression is that there is little theory/philosophy in the current education literature that focuses on the importance of students-as-individuals. I would be glad to be proven wrong. For my own benefit, I’d be grateful if any of the readers here could cite or send me suggested readings that promote the idea of seeing students as individuals rather than as group-members. My own essay contribution would be “The Global War on Taylorism":

http://collegiateway.org/news/2008-gwot

Perhaps those of us who hold this position need to have an organization along the lines of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education that promotes Individuality in Education (or some such thing).

If you were compiling a reading list on the importance of student individuality, what would you include on it? I’d be glad to have suggestions sent my way (rjohara@post.harvard.edu). Perhaps we could start with Cardinal Newman: “A university...is an alma mater, knowing her children one by one, and not a foundry, or a mint, or a treadmill.”

R.J. O’Hara, at 5:30 am EST on November 22, 2008

RJ at Harvard

What an excellent idea! Or, more appropriately, ideas!

Is this a set-up? Should I pinch myself? This cannot be true — an honest-thinking person working at Harvard. You must be merely some courageous student.

Nevertheless, I have your point-of-contact affixed to my address list.

DFS, at 3:50 pm EST on November 25, 2008

Are they kidding me? I just finished the UCLA application this pass weekend. The application outright asked me what race/ethnicity I was. If it wasn’t for that question, they would have never known. I belong to a few clubs, have volunteer, work experience, and have good grades so there was no way they would have known I was African American. If someone does not have the grades, why on earth would someone apply to the school? it doesn’t make sense when they say a child’s race match up to their academic history. Stupid.

“How can we ask applicants not to make any mention of race in their application? Do we specify that students are not permitted to talk about celebrating certain holidays? Can we ask them not to discuss trips to visit family outside the United States for it may tip us off to their racial background? If someone is the head of a high school’s Black Student Union, must she leave it off her list of extracurriculars? Is it not discriminatory to state that mention of learning empanada recipes from Mom cannot be included?”

a.g., at 4:50 pm EST on December 2, 2008

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