College Racial Diversity: Going...going...gone?

According to a story in the New York Times today by its Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak, the U.S. Supreme Court may legally do away with the concept of using diversity as a rationale for admitting minorities to colleges and universities, for all intents and purposes, by this coming June of 2012.


The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 in favor of plaintiff
Allan Bakke that racial quotas as a means of admitting
college students was unconstitutional, but that the
state still had a compelling interest in promoting
"diversity" on public campuses, however defined.

According to Liptak, 'legal experts' predict that the highest court in our land will hear a case forwarded by the Federal District Court in Austin, Texas, where a high school senior named Abigail Fisher sued the University of Texas at Austin for reverse discrimination on the grounds that she was denied admission to the University while less qualified minorities were admitted ahead of her solely on account of their particular racial status.

If the Supreme Court does indeed hear the Fisher vs. U.T. Austin case, then it will revisit a previous ruling allowing racial preferences in higher education -the Grutter vs. Bollinger case. Grutter vs. Bollinger was closely decided by a 5-4 vote, however, and with the author of this case (Justice Sandra Day O'Connor) now retired and replaced by a notable affirmative action opponent -Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., the High Court could very well overturn Grutter.

If this occurs, the 2nd of three affirmative action rails supporting racial consideration in higher education admissions -preference (the first being quotas-already struck down by The University of California vs. Bakke; the third being "outreach" to minorities) will be dissolved, thus effectively ending Supreme Court sanctioning of the use of race-period-in making college admissions decisions. If Grutter is overturned, colleges and universities may still be allowed to put disproportionate amount of recruiting dollars into attracting minorities to their campuses (i.e. outreach) for the time being, but they would be disallowed from setting aside specific numbers of admission openings for minorities (i.e. quotas) or using race as one of many criteria in admissions selections (i.e. preference).

(NOTE: I wish to make it clear that this contentious issue really only impacts admissions processes at highly selective institutions; schools that accept the majority of their student applicants are not really relevant to this discussion, with the exception of specific programs such an institution may have that are actually selective, such as masters/doctoral programs)

As affirmative action remains one of the most contentious issues in higher education since the Bakke decision, there have matured over the years numerous arguments for either side, often inspired by the vague nature of the term diversity itself. Proponents of affirmative action continue to argue that African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans (I would add Pacific Islanders) continue to suffer from the historical legacies of slavery and forced subjugation in terms of disproportionate numbers of their races living in poverty, attending sub-standard schools, and living in highly unsafe neighborhoods. They also continue to claim that they suffer from often subtle forms of racism daily that results in their disproportionate representation in more desirable occupational fields and in positions of societal leadership, including in higher education.

Opponents of affirmative action often argue that such practices in fact are discriminatory themselves, and in that sense violate the Reverend Martin Luther King's admonition in judging people by the "content of their character" instead of their skin color. Opponents also argue that affirmative action is not adequately supported by peer-reviewed research insofar as promoting tangible, measurable benefits to society as a whole, and may actually harm minorities more than they help in arguably perpetuating in the public's eye an image of certain minorities needing unfair advantages when competing for higher education openings. Opponents -whose number includes prominent African American conservatives-also argue that Asians give the lie that minorities cannot achieve on a par with whites, and that American public opinion has turned against affirmative action in favor of color-blind college admissions policies, among many other arguments.

In response to such arguments, proponents cite their own research supporting bona fide benefits associated with race-preference admissions, including the alleged development of the black middle and upper classes over the past few decades and an enhanced understanding of and appreciation for racial differences on the part of whites and white leaders, specifically. Proponents also try to debunk other arguments of affirmative action opponents. Meanwhile, critical race theorists tend to argue that truly fair, neutral, and color-blind admissions policies are extremely difficult if not impossible in practice to implement, due to the embedded racist worldviews that the principle originators (i.e. white males) of such policies continue to perpetuate and reinforce in many subtle ways.

Proponents of affirmative action policies tend to believe that if the Supreme Court does in fact overturn Grutter, then African American, Hispanic and Native American college participation in general will drop-perhaps dramatically-throughout the nation. Interestingly, a most notable test case -the notorious proposition 209 case in California that ended preferencial college admissions and state governmental hiring of all kinds by race in 1996-reveals contradictory outcomes. While oft-cited studies show that college admissions for disadvantaged minorities have not in fact dropped noticiably overall since 1996, additional studies show that state governmental hiring reveals patterns of possible discrimination against women of color and Hispanics in particular that continue to persist since before 1996.

In trying to present a balanced view of this most controversial topic, I will conclude with a personal story for why I believe continuing preference-based affirmative action programs within the realm of higher education admissions is desirable. I happen to have a very close childhood friend who is half-African American, half-Japanese. We have known each other now for some 40 years. Growing up, he was usually regarded and treated as fully black by people he encountered. This person was not an especially good student in traditional subjects like English and math, and in fact struggled mightily with school at times due his partial dyslexia, and his exhibiting levels of hyperactivity that would surely have him diagnosed as ADHD today. In high school, he was an unremarkable, average student, without a particularly strong extracurricular record to bolster his case for college. However, he passionately aspired to be somebody, and he hungered for a college education. And then, he was accepted into a prestigious research one institution in the early 1980s, solely due to his racial background (as he also hailed from a lower middle class family, he would not have likely qualified for a lower socioeconomic test for college eligibility if such had existed, incidentally).

So, on the face of it, my good friend was a perfect poster case for the evils and injustices of affirmative action; he clearly took the place at a very selective institution of someone else who was more deserving by traditional measures like SAT scores, GPA, and extracurricular activities. And the actual outcome of his hiring? Well, my friend toiled for many years as a motivated undergrad, and then masters level student, and then finally doctoral level student in making the most of his opportunities, despite his dyslexia. He became the first African American Ph.D. in his field in the history of the particular research one institution he was enrolled in. He has become a college vice president in student services, while serving as a sought-after consultant in the field of student mediation. He is widely respected for his ability to bridge differences between cultures. In short, he has become a remarkable success based according to every standard. And yet, he likely never would have attained his current station in life without the expressed benefits of affirmative action programs, and the world would surely be poorer for his absence in his current field of endeavor.

Some argue that simply replacing affirmative action with lower socioeconomic means testing would capably replace a discriminatory admissions practice with a color-blind mechanism equally effective in promoting disadvantaged minority educational advancement, but this has been refuted by certain research. From the example of my friend, I personally believe that there is still a place for racial admissions and hiring practices in our society, for at least the forseeable future, until that golden epoch when our society is truly "other"-blind in every meaningful way.