Are You Qualified?
March 10, 2004
While politicians weigh in on affirmative action and students debate the merits of race-conscious admissions, universities have begun to roll back their affirmative action policies, starting with the elimination or retooling of programs targeting minority students. The backlash against affirmative action is coming even from universities that have filed pro–affirmative action amicus briefs in the University of Michigan case. In light of these drastic measures, Columbia’s chapter of the Ivy Student Affirmative Action Coalition is working to address misconceptions about affirmative action, and is raising money to bring Columbia students to the Supreme Court on April 1, where thousands will gather to tell policymakers that affirmative action is necessary and valuable. Critics of affirmative action implicitly argue that race is no longer a meaningful category. They laud the introduction of “merit-based” programs that rely on “objective” criteria like GPA and test scores. Many refer to themselves as followers of Martin Luther King, which is ironic both because King’s contemporary status as the barometer for political correctness belies the fact that he was demonized by most of the country during his life, and because King piloted one of the first affirmative action programs and stated explicitly that color-blind treatment would never be enough to address the legacy of race in this country.
An honest assessment of the world reveals that he was right. It is a ridiculous moment in which to argue that affirmative action is the last arena of formal race-based policy and institutionalized racial privilege. George Bush, who was elected in part through the disenfranchisement and deception of black voters, is about to send disproportionately black and brown troops to fight a war in which other brown people will be killed. Communities of color are hardest hit by both the economic recession and the repressive policies that have given the Immigration and Naturalization Service and the criminal justice system a tighter reign over them.
Evidence of this phenomenon can be seen nationwide. A black or Latino adolescent is more likely to go to prison than to college in New York, and more blacks and Latinos enter the state prison system than the state colleges every year; in California, there are five blacks and Latinos in prison for every one in college, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice. These facts seem less than accidental when one points out that New York State removed from the education budget almost exactly what it put into the prison budget, California ended affirmative action in state institutions but cut funding for everything except the state prison system, and the Indiana State Corrections Commissioner has recommended estimating the number prison cells needed in the future based on the number of second graders who can’t read.
The racialized world doesn’t stop at the college gates (if it did, Columbia might not feel the need for iron gates in the first place). When critics of affirmative action argue that minorities are taking the spots of qualified white applicants, they reveal the depth of their unexamined white privilege. In what world is a student so entitled to a competitive college admission that another person can “take” it? Furthermore, the notion of “qualified” begs an examination of standards.
So-called “objective” criteria depend on myriad subjective factors. Race—and institutionalized racism—affect what courses are available where, and who is placed in what courses even where advanced classes are available. Race often affects teachers’ perceptions of students’ abilities, grading policies, and school districts’ enactment of disciplinary policies. A standardized test is not an objective measure of anything when the standard is set by a privileged group. Studies of standardized testing indicate that such tests are imperfect predictors of success and are ineffective at predicting the success of minority students.
Given such realities, there can be no color-blindness, even if schools do begin to meaningfully address class discrepancies. While class-conscious admissions are valuable in their own right, it is ludicrous to argue that middle-class minorities somehow cease to be impacted by racism, as if there is no such thing as race in the suburbs. It is not “objective” to take a person who has been treated as black for eighteen years and imagine that he or she is race-neutral when admissions decisions are made.
Of course, race is not a perfect category. Recognizing the necessity of affirmative action should not mean accepting racial identity as rigid. There is room for more nuanced readings of the roles that race plays in people’s social and educational experience. There is a particular need to explore the ways that broad racial categories marginalize or misrepresent certain groups’ experiences.
Additionally, if colleges are to acknowledge the value of diverse campuses, they must realize diversity means more than making sure that an overhead shot of the campus could be used as a Benetton ad. If the presence of minority students adds to the academic and social life of a university, administrators must value their input. Despite decades of student protest, ethnic studies courses are still woefully inadequate, tenured faculty of color are lacking, and multiculturalism quite often takes the form of watered down catch-phrases and a social environment in which students of color become mentally and physically worn out by the institution’s constant demand that they perform race, “be” diversity, and essentially do for the campus what the university should be doing itself. Clearly there is room for improvement, but the Supreme Court and the American public must realize that there is no room, and no time, to move backwards.
