Monday saw the observation of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday, so it seems a good time to look into the issue of affirmative action.
On Friday, President Bush announced that the government would come out in opposition to Michigan State University’s affirmative action plan when it goes to the Supreme Court.
The president is wrong on this one, as affirmative action seems to be the only plan on the table that addresses why minorities are grossly underrepresented at most universities in the United States. For instance, here at the University, out of nearly 20,000 students, fewer than 300 are black.
Unfortunately, despite the many advances made since the civil rights movement of the 1960s, institutional racism is still alive and well in America. While people who oppose change may say “it’s about slavery,” it is most assuredly not. The reason that affirmative action programs were put in place originally was to counteract this scenario: The rich white man can afford to go to college and get the job as the top executive of a company and work so that his rich white children can go to the right prep schools and the right colleges; then they can get jobs as top executives of a company — and repeat ad nauseum.
On the other hand, there are the poor of all races — but especially minorities — who don’t have the money to go to prep schools. For them, college plans take a distant second to attending schools, and living lives, where surviving unscathed one more day — not education — is often the goal.
We wholeheartedly affirm, then, that race has a necessary place in determining college admissions; considering race is a compelling state interest. Our disagreement with Michigan’s policy comes from the method in which it was implemented.
The point bonuses at Michigan are given for all sorts of subjective measurements that have nothing to do with academics, and this strikes us as wrong. Michigan’s policy gives 20-point bonuses not only for being a minority, but for being an athlete as well. Having good marks on the SATs, on the other hand, garners only 12 points. A system that hands out bonuses on all manner of characteristics seems arbitrary.
While we may disagree with the method, something clearly is needed to maintain diversity on college campuses.
There is, of course, another solution to the problem, one that would eliminate concerns that opponents have with affirmative action, yet make the system open to all, not merely those with enough money: Increase federal funding for colleges, and make the admission requirements such that more people can successfully apply. In short, give the youth of this country a right to higher education.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the United States appeared to be heading in this direction. America is a rich country, and if it wants to be competitive in the global marketplace, why isn’t it offering education as an investment in the future, rather than an expensive privilege?No matter how society achieves this goal, it needs to get more people — black, white, Asian, Latino — into college than the usual crop of rich white kids. It’s only when all Americans have the ability to improve their minds that the country’s underlying racial problems — which require affirmative action as a temporary solution — can be solved.