The Issue: The Supreme Court will hear a case
originating from the University of Michigan that will decide the
fate of affirmative action in university admissions policies.
Here’s what two viewpoint columnists have to
say.
And you thought affirmative action was a dead issue?
After dodging affirmative action for the past decade, the
Supreme Court will hear the cases of white females who feel they
were passed over for admission to the University of Michigan for
lesser qualified “minority” applicants.
Although I find this ironic since white women have benefited
from affirmative action programs ensuring gender equality,
especially with respect to entrance into higher education, I
believe this case must be heard. However, let’s first dispel
the myths behind affirmative action.
Affirmative action is not quotas. Quotas were rendered illegal
in the Supreme Court case Bakke v. Regents of California 1978. No
university for the past two decades has created and reserved spaces
for a specific number of underrepresented people. But what Bakke
did was recognize the inequalities that the United States has
perpetuated. These inequalities rooted in a prejudice past and
present still haunt communities of color with poor K-12 educational
systems, a lack of vital resources for learning, and especially a
lack of privilege that is afforded to whites.
Racism is not dead. Skin color still plays a pivotal role in the
United States.
The income gap between ethnic groups such as Pacific Islanders,
blacks, latinos, and American Indians and whites still exists. In
some sectors of employment, the gap is wider than it was 10 years
ago. Just 4 1/2 years ago, 49-year-old black man James M. Byrd was
tied to the back of a truck in Jasper, Texas and dragged around
until his limbs fell off. And it was only seven months ago in
Inglewood that 16-year-old Donovan Jackson-Chavis was picked up,
thrown onto the trunk of a car and hit while handcuffed.
Affirmative action does not promote those who aren’t
qualified into a position that white candidates feel they have
earned. Everyone who has historically gotten into universities
under affirmative action have been in the upper percentage of their
classes, were active in their student bodies, played the same
sports and held the same jobs as white students did in their free
time. Their race, sex and economic levels do play a major role in
those experiences and should be recognized within the admissions
process. Most affirmative action babies who do enter university go
back to poorer communities to be doctors, teachers, lawyers,
architects as well as activists. Without these college graduates,
there would be a huge gap in urban neighborhoods.
The end of affirmative action will not level the playing field.
White students fail to recognize the unearned white privilege they
receive because they are white. Whites will go to a school where
they learn that their lives are normative, that their history is
central to all of civilization and culture. They will be able to
spend time in the company of their own at all times and can apply
for jobs and rent apartments without any thought of their race
being a disadvantage to them. Whites will never have to worry about
the police pulling them over because of their “suspicious
look,” being considered “rare” and tokenized for
their academic prowess, or someone in power describing you first by
your skin color with negative undertones. If white students truly
want to “level the playing field” they must begin by
bulldozing their own plateaus of racial comfort.
Diversity cannot be attained without considering race. Racial
diversity plays an incredible role in fostering an intellectually
progressive learning environment. Of course, diversity encompasses
a host of factors, but to turn our backs on race as one of the
central points of different experiences, goals and cultures that
UCLA holds so highly (at least in our brochures) would do diversity
an incredible injustice.
My experiences as a black male do not compare to the experiences
of a white male even if we lived in the same town, went to the same
school, and have comparable incomes. Without racial difference, the
discussion of diversity is only lip service.
To those who believe the end of affirmative action will somehow
inspire the nation to equalize the public education system and
change the perception of achievement based on the individual, they
only have to look toward California and Texas to be proved wrong.
The public education system has not changed and has even gotten
worse since the inception of Proposition 209 and Texas’
Hopwood v. Texas case.
We cannot stand around while the rest of the nation becomes like
the University of California. We shouldn’t even stand around
and watch the University of California turn into a homogenous,
non-diverse environment.