Maegan Carberry Carberry is a third-year
political science and English student. You can e-mail her at
[email protected].
Affirmative action is a band-aid. It’s a band-aid for
the wound that really starts in low-quality schools with poor
curricula that don’t prepare students for a UC-level
education. These schools also tend to tenure mediocre faculty who
are only teaching for retirement checks and summer vacations.
The proof is in the fire. You should check out the results of
the STAR 9 testing that’s done in every public school in
California (otherwise known as the API index ““ which can be
found at www.cde.ca.gov). The
site scores each school on a scale of 1 to 10 based on the
school’s performance on the test and how that performance
compares to those of schools with similar socioeconomic conditions.
You’ll find that in areas of highly concentrated African
American and Latino communities, scores are lower. Of course this
does not mean that every African American or Latino student in
California tests poorly or is not qualified enough to go on to
higher education. What it does indicate, at least to me, is that
there are confounded factors such as income and curricula involved
in the outcome of the scores.
The question is, how much should decision makers factor in this
disadvantage? When qualified candidates (defined here as people
with the right numbers) from underrepresented groups apply to the
University of California, should we automatically admit them on
account of race? Or should race not be a factor in admissions?
My African American politics professor, a witty and insightful
man, loves this topic to pieces. In fact, so did the entire class.
The main objection of my class, said in almost unanimous fervent
agreement, was that this country has always been about race. They
think it’s ironic that race shouldn’t count, after a
200-some-odd-year history of counting because discarding it
conveniently protects whites in the workplace and on campus.
 Illustration by CASEY CROWE/Daily Bruin After my initial
distaste for being a person of “evil” descent once
again in the class, I got to thinking that this is an intriguing
point. It is sort of funny. Race has mattered throughout U.S.
history, and now everyone is spouting out politically correct
rhetoric about being “colorblind.” I don’t really
believe that America will ever be colorblind. But am I willing to
make exceptions or give special treatment to groups because of
their race? I honestly don’t know.
You want to say that in a perfect world, race really
shouldn’t matter. But the world isn’t perfect and it
does.
If I learned anything in my course on African American politics
it was that I have no clue what it’s like to be of a minority
race. I can’t relate, and any time I try I come up short. I
might not even be equipped to answer questions about the importance
of race because I have no basis for comparison.
I guess when you get right down to it, race has to count. You
can’t look at the deliberate and violent oppression of people
of color in history and pretend that all of it went away with the
Civil Rights Amendment.
If Americans were truly colorblind, wouldn’t we live
together in communities, instead of self-segregating into our own
comfort zones? There’s no way people have discarded race as a
factor in their day to day lives.
And if we’re using race as a means of deciding where to
buy our houses, where to send our kids to school and what friends
to have, then it’s definitely affecting our decisions about
who gets into college. That seems like a no brainer.
If race is, then, a factor in our view of others and the kind of
life we choose to lead, it makes sense that it should be a part of
our identity. And if the purpose of filling out a college
application is to express our true identity, race cannot be left
out because of its highly charged reputation. So where does that
leave affirmative action?
There’s always the question of merit. Are we admitting
poorly prepared individuals on the basis of race while we deny
students who are better equipped? Are people who see affirmative
action beneficiaries as “unqualified” simply racists
who refuse to recognize the effect of white privilege and the
inherent inequality in schools? These are also tough to answer.
But I think I’d prefer to err on the side of the approach
that defines merit as the richness in experience each person brings
to a prospective university. And after the Diversity Now rally
which occurred a few weeks ago on campus, I daresay I’m alone
in that camp.
I watched the protest on March 14 with much interest because
I’m always thinking about this kind of stuff. I believe in
equality of opportunity, and as a liberal I also advocate social
policy, so in general I support affirmative action. I thought the
“UC Regents equals UC Racists” slogans were a bit
tacky, but apart from that minor “faux pas” I was
impressed with the organization and student support that the
participating groups’ leaders were able to rally.
But I’ll always think of affirmative action as a gigantic
band-aid. The real problems lie elsewhere, behind the trailing test
scores and masses of students with “access denied”
scrawled defiantly across their chests.
I do think that if there’s a way to stop the bleeding we
should take advantage of it. But we run the risk of infection if we
slap on a band-aid without cleaning the wound. Affirmative
action alone is not the answer in this matter. Our solution must
also involve effort to improve communities by investing social and
economic capital into them. A plan that does not include both is a
disservice to everyone.
There simply cannot be a solution that does not tackle the heart
of the issue, and how does one tackle inherent inequality?