Untangling misconceptions about affirmative action
The following is a revised speech made at the Jan. 19 UC Board
of Regents meeting in San Francisco by York Chang, the UC student
association affirmative action committee chair.
By York Chang
The debate over affirmative action has existed since its
conception, and some tough issues and problems do still exist with
the policy, but the debate is clouded and complicated by fairy
tales, horror stories and intense emotional arguments.
The real problems we are encountering with University of
California affirmative action policies are gross misconceptions of
the UC admissions policies. The debate will heat up in the next few
months, and for many people, it will get very emotional. Please,
critically examine the issue and look past the rhetoric. You might
want to keep certain "facts" in mind.
Fact: Race and ethnicity are not considered alone in UC
admissions policy under the Supreme Court decision of UC vs. Bakke.
Socioeconomic level, state residency, special abilities and
handicaps are also considered, as is being the child of alumni. Any
claim that unqualified minority students are admitted solely
because of their minority status is simply untrue.
Fact: Before 1979, 72 percent of the UC population was white.
Only 100 Latino students belonged to UCLA’s 20,000-member student
body, and the African American population was only a little
higher.
Fact: UC eligibility rates for African Americans and
Latino/Chicano students is still at 6 and 7 percent of graduating
minority high school seniors, respectively. It has only improved
slightly in the past 25 years because of limited early academic
outreach program funding.
Fact: Race and income level correlate directly with available
resources and standardized test scores. In our society, certain
minority races are disproportionately represented in lower income
brackets. Those children attend schools with fewer available
resources, directly affecting their academic achievement.
The only real alternative to affirmative action is a societal
and economic emphasis on the need for education. An increase in
funding for primary and secondary education is needed to reach a
point of parity in terms of resources and opportunities.
If a funding increase were possible, I don’t think anyone would
defend affirmative action as a necessary policy. But the practical
reality we must consider is how much money would it take before an
inner city school is as safe and rich a learning environment as a
prep school or a school that offers 30 honors courses?
We are not talking about unqualified people being admitted to
the university. Every student admitted to UC places in the top 12.5
percent of graduating seniors. We must recognize that academic
merit is not as simple as a SAT score and GPA. There is a real
story behind each statistic, and real factors that students must
overcome. It is, however, about not being blind to the power
dynamics, both economical and social, which affect access to
education.
As long as there is a disparity of resources and opportunities,
there will never be an accurate enough SAT or GPA to tell us who is
smartest and most hard-working; if we admit solely on the basis of
demonstrated merit, then, according to UC admissions officers
throughout the state, we make a negative impact on diversity. We
would effectively limit much of the access to higher education to
the people wealthy enough to pay for SAT prep courses and to send
their kids to better schools with safer, more supportive learning
environments.
If we can devise a more effective strategy for dealing with the
disparities of opportunity, then that strategy will speak for
itself. Students aren’t afraid to see change and play a role in it,
if possible.
But until we are convinced that there is a viable alternative to
safeguard diversity and ensure more equal accessibility, we must
support a program that tries to be fair. It must be fair enough to
see that a young 18-year-old from East Los Angeles who doesn’t have
the money to buy paper, much less SAT prep courses, gets an
education to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty. And when this
student comes to campus, he brings with him a whole community, with
a different perspective and fresh ideas.
By maintaining affirmative action, we attempt to recognize a
history of inequalities, the effects of which still exist today.
With affirmative action, we attempt to ensure access to a wider
education, to prepare students for the new societal reality of
multiculturalism.
To paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Brennan’s dissent in the
court case UC vs. Bakke, color blindness should be an ideal that we
want to reach, a goal. Don’t let it become plain blindness and
cloud the reality in which we exist.
Chang, a senior, is the undergraduate external vice
president.