Thursday, November 5, 1998
Identifying the real issues of affirmative action
ADMISSIONS: Consideration of race is one way
to combat economic disparities
Some 29,000 high school seniors competed last year for UCLA’s
3,800 first-year seats. With odds like that, tensions are running
high all over. UCLA affirms its commitment to offering placement to
the top 12.5 percent of the high school graduating class. But how
do we determine who falls in that group? With the passage of SP-1
and Proposition 209, state-supported institutions may no longer
take race into account when making admissions decisions.
Affirmative action may be moribund for now, but the debate itself
rages as fiercely as ever. Some clamor and call for Proposition
209’s abolition, others call for its implementation at the national
level. Let’s see if we can separate some of the real issues in this
case from the false ones.
Shouldn’t a selective institution like UCLA only admit qualified
students?
Not to wax Clintonian, but that depends on your definition of
"qualified." If you think that merit consists in GPA and test
scores alone, we probably don’t have anything to talk about. The
educational playing field is uneven long before college begins.
Take two equally bright young kids; if only one of them comes from
a family that can plunk down the 50,000 clams for private
high-school tuition, then she’s the one who’ll get the benefit of
the well-paid teachers, full-time counseling departments, computers
and well-stocked libraries. She’s going to be offered AP classes
that can boost GPAs as high as 5.0. Her family is also are more
likely to afford an SAT prep course that will give her that extra
edge.
That’s not to trivialize the accomplishments of students who
happen to be privileged. But raw intelligence can be hard to
measure objectively. If the UCLA Admissions Office doesn’t feel an
applicant’s academic credentials speak for themselves, it
automatically puts that student in for a "holistic" or
"comprehensive" review, which takes personal characteristics,
achievements and hardships into account as well. Fully 40 to 50
percent of the freshman class is admitted in this stage.
OK, so you play the oboe or you were captain of the tennis team.
Hasn’t Proposition 209 stopped us from giving special consideration
to things that have nothing to do with achievement?
If you scrapped the idea of "special consideration" altogether,
the admissions process would quickly fall into disarray. For
instance, UCLA still gives special consideration to applicants from
geographically underrepresented regions. Somehow, I don’t expect
we’ll be seeing ballot measures protesting the preferential
treatment of Nebraskans any time soon. The fact is that UCLA has,
and I think according to most people should have, an interest in
maintaining diversity. Race, the focus of Proposition 209, is one
factor in that equation.
One of the "diversity" principles is that the UCLA demographics
should be roughly proportionate to the demographics of the
community as a whole.
Another is that students can benefit from being exposed to
unfamiliar cultures. Even if you don’t accept these principles,
diversity tends to be a good indicator of fairness. If a campus
starts to look homogeneous  as UCLA’s promises to do in the
post-Proposition 209 years  it’s a good bet that something’s
out of whack. Unintentional discrimination can be the most
pernicious kind.
Isn’t affirmative action racist by definition?
Affirmative action’s underlying principle is that a person’s
race, while not necessarily the cause of a person’s social and
economic opportunities, tends to be a predictor of those
opportunities. An African American applicant is given an edge in
admissions because of the statistical assumption that she or he
will have had fewer of the advantages that make an applicant
competitive. That these assumptions may be flawed is not reason for
pretending that inequalities don’t continue to exist.
To tell you the truth, I’d like to see the affirmative action
debate move beyond the territory of race  not exclude it,
mind you, just move beyond it. I can’t help but think that the
placement of Proposition 209 and other racially inflammatory
measures on the ballot, year after year, is a clever diversionary
ploy by the political right.
The affirmative action question is ultimately a question of
economic imbalance and the public investment in education. Yet
rather than let the economic issue be settled on its merits and
risk defeat, conservatives shift the ground of the debate (while
steadily denying it) to an area like race, where they have a much
more reliable majority. Then  presto!  anger and fear
run high, polarizing the voting population; the measure passes
safely, and economic realignment occurs without economics ever once
having been mentioned.
The fight for affirmative action shouldn’t obliterate racial
identification  too often "color-blind" is code for "white".
But it’s playing into the hands of the opposition unless it
contextualizes itself within broader issues of social justice.
Doesn’t affirmative action do more harm than good?
Here we get into murkier territory. For decades the left and
right wings alike have questioned the theory and practice of
affirmative action  whether it encourages a "victim"
mentality among minorities; whether it makes its beneficiaries
doubt their self-worth; whether it has really improved opportunity;
whether a person can succeed without it; whether it should focus on
class instead of race; whether it should concentrate on helping
students survive here as well as get here. These are the hard
questions that need asking. Negotiating them is necessarily a slow
and difficult process. Alternative solutions have to be proposed,
tested and evaluated. The last thing we need is drastic legislation
that responds to a flawed system by tearing it to the ground.
What can I do?
If it’s activism you believe in, why not train your sights on
the UC Regents? Although the Regents make all the important
decisions affecting the University, 18 out of 26 of them are
hand-picked by the governor, rather than subjected to a popular
vote or legislative confirmation.
They’re also usually drawn from the ranks of the business world
rather than from education (guess whose interests they have at
heart). You pay their salaries: hold them accountable. It took only
one Regent to take affirmative action off the table. It only takes
one to put it back on.
The Regents are meeting at UCLA on November 19-20; why not drop
by? You can also call the administrative office at (510) 987-9220
to reserve a speaking slot.
There’s recently been a petition drive for a ballot measure that
would reinstate California public schools’ prerogative "to consider
economic background, race, sex, ethnicity and national origin of
individuals otherwise deemed qualified for purposes of providing
equal opportunity, promoting diversity, and combating
discrimination in public education."
Although the measure didn’t qualify for the latest election, it
may not be licked yet. I’m looking into the matter and will give
updates shortly.Adam Komisaruk
Komisaruk, a lecturer in the English department, can be reached
at [email protected]. His column appears on alternate
Thursdays.
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