One of Roger Williams University’s 4,087 students might have an easier time paying for school this year: In what some pundits hail as an important stimulus for discussion about affirmative action and what others reject as racist “white pride,” the Rhode Island school’s College Republicans chapter gave student senator Adam Noska a $250 scholarship available only to white students.
In most respects, the inaugural grant — which drew 17 applicants — wasn’t so different from other scholarships. Applicants were required to submit an essay and post a strong academic record. The money line: The essay’s topic is “why you are proud of your white heritage.” (The application bluntly asks, too, for a recent picture to “confirm whiteness,” and tactlessly states “evidence of bleaching will disqualify applicants.”)
Out of context, creating and offering this scholarship, simply put, is wrong. Restricting funding for a social institution as essential as higher education to a specific group based on race or gender or sexual orientation or anything unconnected with academic performance is the worst sort of socially and governmentally sanctioned discrimination. It’s as bad as the University of Michigan’s extinct practice of giving “underrepresented minority” applicants a sizable chunk of bonus points, unfairly boosting their chances of admission (a custom Michigan dropped after the Supreme Court junked it last year). While certain biases toward some minority students are constitutionally tenable, they have been ruled so in the context of increasing “diversity” on campuses. Discriminatory scholarships, though, can’t fairly make the same claim: To deny opportunities to people for which they are otherwise qualified based on characteristics unrelated to those opportunities violates all sorts of political doctrines. Proponents of such scholarships weakly rely on often dubious arguments that imply “net equality of opportunity” (however it’s constructed) is more fundamental to fairness than equality in how a system treats people.
The scholarship has drawn fire from across the political spectrum.
Paul King — president of the University of Illinois’ Anti-War, Anti-Racism group — told the News-Gazette (Champaign, Ill.), “(The Roger Williams University College Republicans) represent a racist mindset.”
The Rhode Island’s state Republican Party distanced itself from the club, too. Citing “racist overtones,” state party Chairwoman Patricia Morgan blasted the group: “We have zero tolerance for racism in the Republican Party. I’m really appalled by the way they brought this up.”
The club itself, though, is no ship of fools: The group is explicitly parodying minority scholarships, President Jason Mattera explained. More importantly, he knows the club is violating its own political tenets, and knowing the rules is the first step in breaking them effectively.
“We think that if you want to treat someone according to character and how well they achieve academically, then skin color shouldn’t really be an option,” Mattera said.
Mattera, who is incidentally of Puerto Rican descent, is a recipient of a $5,000 scholarship open only to minorities. But Noska implicitly dissolved the superficial problem of Mattera’s potential hypocrisy: When receiving his check, the Weymouth, Mass., native explained, “I may not be in favor of a scholarship, but if I qualify for it, you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll apply.”
What’s most telling about the present debacle, though, is not that the affirmative action debate is very much alive, and evidently maturing, too, nor is it that campus conservative groups are politically active — that such a simple form of protest took so long to materialize can probably fairly be chalked up to the ubiquitous spook of political correctness. It’s not even that some who criticize the College Republicans chapter are willing to resort to arguments absurd to the point of rhetorical irrelevance (protesters held signs of the Republican Party’s elephant symbol emblazoned with the Confederate flag and even swastikas).
What’s most important is how our society responds to issues like this and what that means. That offering a scholarship to a particular ethnic group — a common practice at this level of abstraction — has drawn so much public and media attention, not to mention serious criticism, is a reminder of one of the many kinds of racial discrimination in this country. (Admittedly, this very column makes that claim something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.)
But regardless of political philosophy, everyone should agree with at least one of Mattera’s assertions. When asked by the press at the scholarship presentation whether his group had succeeded in conveying its message, he observed, “Look at all the media here. Affirmative action is now being debated.”
And unearthing important debate from the quicksand of political correctness is good for everyone’s intellectual integrity.