The Supreme Court has agreed to hear Fisher v. Texas, a major case involving affirmative action in higher education. The decision in this case could end racial preferences in admissions — moving up the timetable from the justices’ 2003 ruling in Grutter v. Bollinger, which said, “The court expects that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.”
Is it time for colleges and universities to move past race? How can we tell when race-based preferences are no longer necessary?
Personally, I agree with Professor Steve Hsu’s comments in the NY Times. SAT results predict performance and should be the main criterion, race shouldn’t come into it. Also, as Hsu notes on his blog graduation rates for underrepresented minorities improved significantlyafter Prop 209 (requiring race blind admissions) went into effect.
I’m really not surprised by the comments on that blog, given it’s the NYT’s. Anyway, it’s long-overdue that affirmative action should be axed when it comes to who gets in to college and who doesn’t. This whole “promoting diversity” line is just a bunch of BS, as it assumes “diverse” means “from a different race”, when the two aren’t necessarily the same.
(And on another note, I can already hear the screeches directed towards Thomas who will undoubtedly rule against the school.)
ETA: One thing I’ve never understood is this idea that minorities need affirmative action to get ahead. Someone is going to have to explain that one to me.
Nobody has ever argued that minorities “need” affirmative action to get ahead, but have pointed out that affirmative action(as the term is currently understood) is a good way to try and right past wrongs, ensure diversity, and to try and make up for the barriers certain groups and people face.
Moreover, whites are the main beneficiaries of Affirmative Action.
Admittedly, that is not as remotely true as when whites were massively benefitted by Affirmative Action long before LBJ signed that into law and when it was known by other terms.
I’m reminded of a speech by America’s most famous and influential black conservative.
[(And on another note, I can already hear the screeches directed towards Thomas who will undoubtedly rule against the school.)]((And on another note, I can already hear the screeches directed towards Thomas who will undoubtedly rule against the school.))
Yet it’s alright for the government to perform a census on race and then use that data to gerrymander the minority vote into non-existence. While the 2010 Census devotes 2 out 10 questions probing for ethnicity, there isn’t even one question that asks whether the person is an American citizen or whether they were born in the United States. So much for a census of priorities. If you’re in California, a welfare applicant, and you don’t put down your ethnicity - a government bureaucrat will record one for you. The same occurs in the criminal justice system. If you’ve recently taken the SAT or GRE, you’ll notice that the one of the first questions you are asked on the test - surprise, surprise - is your race: how’s that for stereotype threat before taking the exam? If the government wants to help stop racism, it can start by stop asking minorities to cough up their racial identity at every road-bend and encourage colleges, universities, and private companies to do the same.
How does discriminating against Asians now right the wrong of past discrimination of Black people? If a black person stole something from my father, does me stealing something from an unrelated black person right that wrong? Of course not, two wrongs do not make a right.
If it is necessary to discriminate to ensure diversity doesn’t that mean that without the discrimination there would not be enought black and latinos at the colleges? Is this because college admission departments are secretly hot beds of rascism who are just chomping at the bit to deny admission to qualified minorities? Or is it because proponents of the diversity rationale think that black and latino people are so inherently inferior that the only way they would be admitted is by discrimination?
If we are trying to make up for barriers certain people face aren’t there better ways than assuming all blacks and latinos are alike and need similar help? Why not target the help to individuals instead of assuming the Will Smith’s kids will need help over a first generation american whose parents barely speak English?
I can only hope that I live to see the day when this scourge of legal discrimination based on race is finally wiped from our society. This is the best chance we have had so far.
Not at all. I find it offensive that some people have jobs/spots at a university because of the color of their skin, and that this is not only allowed by the government, but done at the hands of the government.
Yeah, I know white people benefited before. That was wrong, too. Let’s learn from that and not do it anymore.
White people benefited from institutional racism before. White people continue to benefit from institutional racism. One of the problematic things about institutional racism is that even if you could stamp it out in a generation, you cannot (by definition) stamp out its effects in one.
It isn’t nearly this simple. You can’t just say “Welp we should stop doing it now.” That doesn’t suddenly fix the damage overnight or level the playing field to a more equitable system.
Fun anecdote: I used to work in a graduate admissions office for a large state university. A few years before I joined the staff some clever person decided that the best way to avoid discriminating by race was not to ask for people’s race. Which was all very well and good – unless the gummint wanted to check the admissions statistics to see if any discrimination was taking place. Of course the university didn’t have the data because they hadn’t been tracking race of applicants, and all heck broke loose. So they went back to asking.
Just out of curiosity, what do the members of the board think about a completely blind college admissions policy? For example if all we knew about a candidate was their SSN, or perhaps a random string associated with the SSN?
Admission based upon academic performance and academic performance alone.