Monday, January 6, 1997
A double-edged sword
JUSTICE:
Fairness of nixing preferential treatment
in colleges is questionedBy Robert D. Honigman
The recent attempts to abolish affirmative action in college
admissions seems on the surface to be a fair and objective means of
allocating public resources. But beneath the surface is a bias
favoring the children of wealthier classes.
There is little doubt that higher education favors the upper
part of our social class structure. University of California
educator Alexander Astin, quoted in the 1985 "Achieving Academic
Excellence," notes:
"Students from the more affluent and better-educated families
tend to be disproportionately represented in institutions at the
top of the hierarchy (i.e., universities), while students from poor
and less-educated families tend to be concentrated in institutions
at the bottom (i.e., community colleges). … It seems clear that
opportunities  in terms of institutional reputation and
resources  are not equitably distributed among students of
different social classes. Clearly upper-class students have access
to ‘better’ opportunities. … Why this strong association between
socioeconomic class and hierarchical position? The explanation
would seem to lie in the close relationship between social class,
on the one hand, and high school grades and admission test scores,
on the other. … Given students of comparable academic preparation
and ability, those from better-educated and more affluent families
are more likely to enroll in highly selective colleges than are
those from poorer and less-educated families."
Tom Hayden (serving as chairman of the California Legislature’s
higher education subcommittee) notes that the state’s master plan
for higher education assumes "that higher education is most
efficient when students are separated on the basis of their
academic ability," and that the "’best’ students should receive the
best education." Accordingly, students attending the University of
California get approximately two and a half times the amount of
funds per capita than students attending community colleges. Hayden
notes in "Beyond the Master Plan" that the master plan,"roughly
parallels the social structure of California with lower-income and
minority students tending to enroll most heavily in the community
colleges."
A simplistic explanation for the disparity among social classes
in educational achievement is the idea that the "cream rises to the
top." That was the theme of Hernstein and Murray’s "The Bell
Curve," and why it received so much attention. It was an attempt to
prove that the upper social classes deserve their leadership
roles.
The problem with this simplistic explanation is that it denies
the role of culture in determining IQ (and hence educational
ability). Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education wrote a
full-page article on the "Flynn effect," named after its
discoverer, James R. Flynn, professor at the University of Otago in
New Zealand. The "Flynn effect" is the fact that IQ levels have
risen dramatically in recent years in nearly all advanced
countries.
"Using current standards, the average score in the United States
on IQ tests has risen 24 points since 1918," the report says. "In
the Netherlands, the rise has been even faster: 20 points in the
past 30 years. The average Englishman a century ago had an IQ score
that might get him branded as mentally retarded today."
The implications of the "Flynn effect" are that if someone is
born in a lower economic status family their average or
below-average IQ may be the product of their culture, not their
genes. And if this is true, then the present educational system is
discriminating against them culturally by favoring those born into
classes whose cultures of affluence and power foster higher IQs.
Even without this, the increasing length and expense of a college
degree in recent years helps keep poor people out of professional
careers. Thus, as University of Michigan social psychologists
Daniel Katz and Robert Kahn note, the educational system may appear
meritocratic but is actually a means of perpetuating and increasing
social inequalities.
Adam Smith, the founder of modern economics, believed that the
poor merit more public investment in their education because the
rich already have the leisure time and resources with which to
educate their children.
"It is otherwise with the common people," Smith wrote in "The
Wealth of Nations." "They have little time to spare for education.
Their parents can scarce afford to maintain them even in infancy.
As soon as they are able to work, they must apply to some trade by
which they can earn their subsistence. That trade is generally so
simple and uniform as to give little exercise to the understanding;
while, at the same time, their labour is both so constant and so
severe, that it leaves them little leisure and less inclination to
apply to or even think of anything else."
Unfortunately, our current educational system favors the
brighter students from better families. Even Hernstein and Murray
admit that the results may not be socially desirable.
"Society has become very efficient at funneling the cognitive
elite [into fast track professional careers], thereby promoting
three interlocking phenomena: 1. The cognitive elite is getting
richer, in an era when everybody else is having to struggle to stay
even. 2. The cognitive elite is increasingly segregated physically
from everyone else in both the workplace and the neighborhood. 3.
The cognitive elite is increasingly likely to intermarry," they
wrote. "Unchecked, these trends will lead the U.S. toward something
resembling a caste society, with the underclass mired ever more
firmly at the bottom and the cognitive elite ever more firmly
anchored at the top, restructuring the rules of society so that it
becomes harder and harder for them to lose."
The current attempts to abolish affirmative action will not cure
the system of its bias in favor of the well-off. Perhaps we should
heed Smith’s advice: "The education of the common people requires,
perhaps, in a civilized and commercial society, the attention of
the public more than that of people of some rank and fortune."
JUSTIN WARREN/Daily Bruin
Pro-affirmative action protesters march down Wilshire Boulevard
during October rally. They say cutting program wouldn’t be
fair.