Do Students Affirm Affirmative Action?

Whatever its merits, racial affirmative action in college admissions plainly contradicts the law. Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 expressly prohibits federally funded universities from discriminating on the basis of “race, color, or national origin.” Does this language not capture racially selective college admissions?

The Supreme Court’s excusing this practice has rendered the law inconsistent. Worse yet, it has actually harmed certain demographics it was intended to protect. Asian-American students, for example, must outperform their fellow minority peers by absurd margins to matriculate at the same universities. How exactly does one justify the orchestrated advancement of some underprivileged groups at the expense of others?

More to the point, how does one excuse doing so in contradiction to federal law? Some point to government support for affirmative action in 1964, arguing that the practice complements Title VI. But affirmative action at that time was meant to enforce Title VI against the noncompliant, rather than contradict it.

Other affirmative action apologists parade inequalities such as legacy admissions in their defense. But this merely justifies one ill on the basis of another. Besides, the injustice of legacy admissions legally matters none: Between it and racially selective college admissions, only one runs afoul of the text of federal law. The Supreme Court should acknowledge this and require universities to abide by Title VI as it is written.

—Jakob Haws, Penn State Dickinson Law, J.D.

Don’t Ignore Race

As a Laotian and Ecuadorian woman, I feel I have been conditioned to use my race as a tool of leverage in admissions and work opportunities that have diversity quotas. Colleges shouldn’t admit students just because they pity students of color, but they should pay attention to essays about how our race has affected us. Admitting students solely on the basis of race isn’t fair or productive to the student. It creates a narrative that race is what’s important, which isn’t true. But to ignore race completely is to be blind to the inequalities that exist.

—Alexis Prathammanon, Macalester College, economics and political science

California Has an Answer

Universities should look past race when assessing the merit of a student’s application. Life circumstances must be taken into account when determining a student’s achievements, but race is an insufficient measure on which to judge a person’s previous opportunities. Colleges should instead consider a person’s socioeconomic background to measure the level of a student’s academic exposure. A student may eagerly achieve all there is to achieve at her high school, but that may amount to only a fraction of the opportunities available to more-fortunate students across town. The challenge universities then face is quantifying excellence relative to resources, not race.

University of California, Berkeley, has recently started using a race-neutral database of socioeconomic backgrounds of schools and neighborhoods to understand better the context of applicants’ achievements. In recent years, the university has enrolled more minority students despite not using explicit racial information in their admissions process. This trend counteracts a near 50% drop in racial minorities since the passing of Proposition 209 in 1996, which abolished affirmative action in California. These methods promote true intellectual diversity while still striving to advance the disadvantaged and undereducated.

—Avery Trevino, Brown University, fluid mechanics, Ph.D.

Affirmative Action Is a Good Thing

As a Hispanic and African-American woman who is attending a predominantly white institution, I am 100% supportive of affirmative action. Students of color still remain underrepresented on college campuses, and affirmative-action bans reduce their chances of admission to elite public institutions by 23%, according to the Center for American Progress. Diversity in college admissions can increase the representation of historically underrepresented groups while enhancing the educational opportunities and economic results for all students.

—Yahira Guevara, Monmouth University, psychology

Discriminatory by Default

Race-based admissions, at their simplest level, require admissions offices to look at an applicant’s race as indicative of some form of merit. This is the foundation of affirmative action, and it’s where the problem lies. There is a difference between a nondiscrimination policy and an affirmative-action policy: The former forbids colleges to refuse to admit a minority student, and the latter allows a college to attach unearned value to the color of a minority student’s skin.

Being black shouldn’t make you more or less likely to get into college, and as per recent Supreme Court cases under review against Harvard and the University of North Carolina, being Asian shouldn’t either. Affirmative action rejects this principle of nondiscrimination, making it discriminatory by default. The argument for affirmative action is one that treats race as not only synonymous with merit, but a convenient tactical positive. This creates a culture of tokenism, a system that treats students of color like pawns in a game of virtuous facades. And most important, it doesn’t work. On the contrary, it actively destroys the credibility of qualified minority students by pretending race, as opposed to their expertise or work ethic, is responsible for their success.

—Isaac Willour, Grove City College, political science

Click here to submit a response to next week’s Future View.