Affirmative action is getting its most important legal test in a quarter-century. The admissions policies of the University of Michigan and its law school are being challenged. The case will be argued before the Supreme Court today, and a decision is expected by July.
This case marks the court’s first statement on racial preference programs in academic admissions since the 1978 Bakke case, which outlawed racial quotas but still allowed for race to be considered in university admissions. Many public universities like Michigan have used the ruling to put in place programs that help minorities who would be rejected if only test scores and grades were counted.
A recent Associated Press poll found that four in five Americans say it’s important for colleges to have racially diverse student bodies, but only half think affirmative action still is needed to help blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. The support base is hard to measure, though, because even a small change in the emphasis of a poll question can bring different results.
President Bush, with the support of the Education Department, has publicly spoken out against Michigan and other universities with similar policies.
He calls it “a quota system based solely on race” that is divisive and unconstitutional; he also says there are better methods of achieving campus diversity.
The Education Department on Friday released a 40-page guide of “race-neutral” recruiting and enrollment ideas that it says have shown promise in states such as California, Texas and Florida. These ideas can maintain diversity without using the racial preferences.
One of these ideas is for colleges to help train and recruit high school students in poor communities. Another is similar to the one used in Bush’s home state of Texas that guarantees college admissions to students who finish at the top of their high school class. Schools can also consider a student’s socioeconomic status as a factor. This approach avoids a direct reference to race, but it targets diversity because many racial and ethnic groups are disproportionately poor.
All of these ideas are legally defensible, unlike the Michigan’s policy.
Any admissions process that gives an applicant extra points just because of his race is wrong. An applicant should be judged on abilities, not skin color. Affirmative action is unconstitutional because racial discrimination, which is supposedly being eliminated, is actually being used as a means to determine who gets accepted. A person doesn’t have to be a minority to experience prejudice; a white person can be discriminated against just as quickly as a black person can.
To truly eliminate the racial problems in our country, Americans have to look beyond skin color. Programs like affirmative action need to be abolished because they openly acknowledge the difference between two people as being skin deep.
Taylor Davis is a freshman English major.