Action

Lily recaps Affirmative Action Debate

I attended an interesting affirmative action debate in the North Carolina state Capitol a few weeks ago. The debate was between two law professors: Professor Baker from Campbell and Professor Boger from UNC. The following is my attempt to summarize some of their arguments - the result does not approach the original eloquence of either professor, but for what it's worth, here goes. I hope I do no injustice to either professor's viewpoint.

Professor Baker of Campbell Law School presented the anti-affirmative action position. Rather than putting on the traditional arguments that you hear against it, i.e. unfairness, the distortion of an otherwise rational meritocracy, etc., he spoke eloquently about his own experiences as an African-American undergraduate at an elite Southern private university, a willing participant in affirmative action. He described how he felt out of place during his years at college; he spent too much of his time and energy trying to fit into the social scene and trying to make sense of his own identity. He even described his habit of going to the local bus stop and people-watching, just to spend some time with folks who felt normal to him. The ongoing struggle to adapt to the white majority culture in which he was immersed took its toll on his confidence level and sense of self, the one commodity a person most needs in the professional world.

He then argued against the diversity justification that the US Supreme Court relied upon so heavily in its opinion in Gruder (the University of Michigan law school case finding affirmative action constitutional in certain limited situations). Physical diversity, he said, is not the same as the deep diversity that is truly the laudable educational goal. The kind of diversity that affirmative action puts in place is, he said, a transparent attempt to color the classroom with handpicked minority faces, for the purpose of helping the majority learn. There is only a mere trickle down benefit to the minorities themselves. As a historical example he pointed to Jackie Robinson – when he joined previously all-white major league baseball, the phenomenon of integration resulted, ultimately, in the death of the all-black baseball leagues, institutions that were extremely valuable and meaningful to a large amount of people. Today's modern parallel is the HBCUs, who are losing many of their best candidates to elite universities through affirmative action programs.

Professor Boger then presented a pro-affirmative action position. He first worked to refute the most prevalent argument against affirmative action: that our society would be more effectively advanced if we operated on the principles of strict meritocracy, only admitting to our elite schools those students with the best grades and test scores. He pointed out that nearly every elite university in the country, private or public, uses any number of acceptance criteria that are totally irrelevant to academic merit: athletic prowess, geographic preferences, legacy students, employee preferences, and, in many schools, so-called "development admissions," i.e. admitting those students whose parents donate large amounts of money.

He then argued that academic diversity is not, in the end, the critical matter. Rather, as a matter of pure practicality, we are a multi-racial society and we must learn to work and live together or risk social disintegration. Bringing young people together at a crucial formative time in their lives might serve the kids’ goals, but even more importantly, it serves societal goals. These selective schools, like it or not, are pipelines to power and authority in society, and they get their alumni into the elite power structures of this country. Also, on an even more fundamental level, it is simply more fair to have affirmative action than to go without it. Our society is made up of many different ethnic, racial groups, and genius is not discriminatory in its distribution. Ensuring that these groups equally represented in our country’s elite schools, and, in time, in its power structures, is simply the most - the only - equitable path.



(while, below, it looks like I (andrew) posted this...it is Lil's work. Many thanks to our dutiful fellow blogger)