Technically speaking, affirmative action may violate
whites’ right to “equal protection of the laws.”
But then again, the courts did not technically regard Jim Crow laws
as violations of blacks’ civil rights, so technicalities
should not dominate the Supreme Court’s decision on whether
or not affirmative action is constitutional.
The Supreme Court has decided to rule on two cases from the
University of Michigan on whether affirmative action can be used in
the college admissions process. Three white applicants to the
University of Michigan Law School were denied admittance, they say,
because of the university’s affirmative action policy. While
their claim may be true or not, it doesn’t mean affirmative
action should be done away with completely.
The reality of affirmative action is that many people will have
to surrender a part of their share of the education and employment
opportunities available to them. Highly qualified white applicants
to colleges and professional positions will be passed over in favor
of minority applicants, and whites will not be able to continue
dominating high rank and executive positions in the job market.
But wasn’t this the point of the civil rights movement in
the first place?
Affirmative action was implemented after the passage of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 as an executory policy. Just because civil
rights laws were in the books didn’t mean they were actually
spawning social change. Affirmative action was needed to help
initiate this change by helping move minorities into universities
and top rank jobs, addressing the obvious inequality problems
inherited from the segregation era.
California’s Proposition 209 banned the use of affirmative
action statewide in 1996. As such, the University of California
cannot use the policy in formulating admissions decisions.
Affirmative action, though, is not just a state issue. It’s a
federal issue too, especially since the federal government grants
money to universities. But according to how the court decides to
swing this time, it can be interpreted either way ““ or more
accurately, whatever way current conservative politicians in power
want it to be.
The worst thing the Supreme Court can do is pass a blanket
policy that eliminates affirmative action everywhere. Universities
should be allowed to decide for themselves what admissions policies
yield the most diverse, interactive and educational classes, and
still be able to receive federal support. No one knows how to
produce the best university environment more than the university
itself.
If affirmative action is abolished entirely, the United States
will be taking a step backward, likely finding itself in the same
static, racially-stratified condition that typified its social
hierarchy before the civil rights movement for even more years to
come.
“Separate but equal” may not be subscribed to any
longer, but to suggest the remnants of institutional racism that
subjugated blacks, latinos, and other minorities up until just
forty years ago have been eliminated entirely would be, at best,
optimistic naivete. All one has to do is look at the correlation
between neighborhoods of a low socio-economic stratification and
the number of minorities living there to understand this basic
fact.
Opponents of affirmative action have argued it is impossible to
achieve a racially blind society by intentionally making ourselves
constantly aware of race in admissions and employment decisions.
Such a stance will only serve to perpetuate the racial barriers
still inherent in American society, preventing minorities from
achieving success in large numbers.
The issue will always remain ““ without a social equalizer,
racial discrepancies and inequality will be all the more difficult
to remedy. Affirmative action provides us with this equalizer.
Ending it in itself would contradict the spirit of “equal
protection of the laws.”