Ok, I see your point. Actually, I live it every day. I am student B, pretty much. Actually, I was slightly better off, as I took AP classes and tests (didn’t do well on the tests…), and I didn’t have to work to support my family (I DID work full time, but not really out of NEED…).
Doing some more thinking…
Could it be that a big difference between these two U of M AA decisions might be that the law school decided who was – and wasn’t - admitted using an “individualized” admissions policy — that is, they looked at each applicant’s application package and made “individualized” judgments about the value of that applicant to the U of M - while the undergraduate admissions program, in comparison, simply added additional points strictly determined by race. Why is this an important distinction? Because big universities, with undergraduate programs the size of the U of M’s would have a very – very difficult time “individualizing” the admissions program — which seems to be a requirement in the law school decision. That is, a small admissions program like a law school’s could give special attention (as required by the decision) to each of the applicants ---- a school looking at thousands and thousands of applicants each year probably can’t.
I don’t get it. If the idea is that such practice would probably be ruled unconstitutional 25 years from now, why is it ok’d today? Even if society somehow changes withing the 25 years, that does not take away the fact that SCOTUS approved of violating the affirmed constitutional rights of the non-minorities that such practices will effect. I don’t trust such decisions. Too arbitrary to me with this so called time limit.
No evidence of the yield rate is referred to in the court decision, and so I have no reason to assume that the proportion of students offered admission who decline to attend is significantly different between races, and lacking that information we also cannot rule out the possibility that more of the minority students offered admittance are actually attending, which would entirely offset the yield rate, which as you note is likely quite high. Those facts were not demonstrated, or at least not in any part of the record referred to in the SCOTUS case, so it does not invalidate my point.
Again, this is a problem that needs to be handled before the admissions process. If black students are accepted and decline to come, why? Are the reasons similiar to why black students aren’t applying in larger numbers? How do they go about making their institution more appealing to minorities? It can’t simply be by having more minorities there already, if you needed a large percentage of minority students to get a large percentage of minority applicants, that’s a Catch-22. Besides, the social groups at my law school cross racial lines, the black students I hang out with clearly don’t feel that they need more racial minorities to avoid sticking out. They’ve judged, and rightly so, that race is a minor issue in terms of our law school’s social setting.
Nor should the solution involve what Justice Scalia in his brief dissent called “tribalism”. Offering separate housing, racially exclusive organizations, and racially exclusive meeting places only serves to resurrect the relics of segregation, and at Missouri one need only look at the eating area of the student commons to see just how socially segregated my campus has become. These things might look attractive to minorities in a brochure, but are ultimately destructive.
I think the ultimate problem with law schools is that they are fundamentally elitist. Admission to law school (with a few minor exceptions) requires a 4-year degree from an institution of higher learning before you can even consider applying. If black students are not getting into undergraduate schools, they aren’t applying to law school. And they aren’t getting into undergraduate schools if they did not have a solid K-12 education, and an atmosphere in lower education conducive to learning. So the problem must be solved at the root.
Ultimately, I think the problem is not purely a racial one, though it reveals itself by its disparate impact on minorities. The problem is as even sven describes, that some students have equal abilities yet appear different because of financial situations and quality of their public school system. It has a disparate impact on minorities, because blacks and latinos are impoverished and/or geographically located in lower quality school systems at a higher rate than whites and Asians. This is a problem rooted in geography, housing, community design, and ultimately in economic class. Therefore any solution that is based on racial distinctions is necessarily imperfect, because it is addressing the wrong problem.
The solution in admissions should be to ignore race, and rather look at the individual circumstances of each student, adjusting the weight of test scores and extracurricular activities when economic or geographical disadvantage indicates that other factors should take precedence. The Constitution doesn’t in any way prevent a school from doing that, so it is at once both a more complete solution and a more legally sound one.
While this ruling (the law school one) was based primarily on the idea that “diversity” is the goal and not addressing social injustices, I do believe that many AA proponents have used your arguments. I can agree that K-12 ed needs work, but I don’t buy the AA argument that minories need a boost at the graduate level. Most undergrad schools have AA policies to get minorities in at that level, and we’re always told that these applicants are fully qualified and do just as well as their non-AA fellow students. If that were in fact true, then there would be no need to continue the process beyond the undergrad level.
RexDart:
I believe you are misunderstanding the Court’s statement. I think what they are trying to say is that if the law school abandoned the use of race in admissions, only 10% of those minorities admitted under the current plan would still be admitted. Thus, we’re talking about a 90% drop in the number of minorities in each law school class.
But wait a sec, I think it does change your point. I’m not sure exactly what the yield rate is either, but this page shows the number of applicants from U of M’s undergrad program to the Law School. From this subset of 327 that applied, 91 were admitted and 43 enrolled, so it seems reasonable to assume that roughly 50% of those admitted to the Law School actually enroll.
Your previous cite states that U of M’s Law School “receives more than 3,500 applications each year for a class of around 350 students,” so about 10% of the applicants are enrolled. With 350 enrolled, there’s probably ~700 admitted, or about 20% of the applicants.
Now, the second cite you give states that 35% of minority applicants were admitted (a higher rate than the general population); however, disregarding race, “only 10 percent of those applicants [my ital] would have been admitted.” The italicized phrase echoes minty’s point. So without using race as a criterion, only 3.5% of applicants would be admitted, versus ~20% in the general population.
Once again I’ll aske the AA supporters: at what level does this process stop? If the court allows race based decisions to ensure a representative amount of minorities at the law school level, do we still need AA in hiring at law firms? If so, why? I’m wondering about the ability of someone who needs an extra boost to get into an undergrad program, another extra boost to get into a graduate program, and then yet one more extra boost to land a job. And all along we’re told that the students are just as capable as others not admitted with an AA boost.
Actually, let me amend what I just posted. Just found this transcript of testimony in the U of M Law School case. The speaker, Stephen Raudenbush, is discussing the year 2000 Law School applicants:
The acceptance rate for African-Americans specifically was 36.3%. So a higher percentage of non-minority applicants are accepted, which I admit surprised me. Doing some calcs (based on testimony directly preceding the quoted passage), there’s 3355 total applicants, of which 1318 were accepted, and (according to RexDart’s cite) 350 enrollees, or only 26% overall yield rate.
You forgot about the next boost – the AA boost come promotion time.
I think the whole “boost” concept was championed more by the intervenors than the University. We’re not talking about a boost that hides a lack of true qualification. These aren’t students who are dumb. They were perfectly capable of performing and contributing, but they, like so many other qualified applicants in a highly competitive admissions environment, were likely to be passed over by the sheer numbers of stellar students. Why would they be passed over? Maybe this is where the rabbit trail of testing bias and lack of equal opportunity comes in. But I don’t believe the U itself was interested in that angle.
I think the University said that the extra points weren’t driven by the fact that the underepresented minority (URM) students were so downtrodden and unfairly treated in prior educational climates. The boost was needed because the University needed the minority students. They wanted more URMs than they’d usually admit using a uniform admit threshold. The University alleged that having a racial mix in the classroom and on campus was an educationally benefical thing. It’s not about helping the downtrodden or unqualified; it’s about benefiting everybody. Now, you may or may not buy that argument, but I think its an important distinction in the University’s case. It’s not the benefit to the individual who couldn’t get in otherwise–it’s a benefit to the University. And, presumably, to the other organizations (corporations, military branches, law firms, etc) which use similar practices.
So this brings me back to your “capable” question. You claim that AA proponents assert that URMs who get AA are “just as capable” as those they “displace” with their admission, promotion, etc. Well, maybe they are not (though this depends on what measure you are using). Maybe the person who aced the LSAT, for example, is more “capable” than a black applicant who got admitted instead. Are you saying that an organization is compelled to promote or admit only the absolute most capable person to each position open? I don’t agree. In admissions, “capability” is measured on a basic level by grades and test scores. Few if any selective colleges use those alone, however. I am sure Princeton could fill its freshman class with people who scored a near-perfect score on the boards and got nothing but all As in high school. I strongly suspect Princeton doesn’t want to. It wants a better mix than that. It wants people who scored “only” 1400 but have a flair for leadership. It wants people who got a B in high school but raised their siblings while their mom was in rehab. That sort of thing. They want people who show character. They want people who will grow from the experience and have something to teach others. They want people who might have hidden potential. They want people who want to go out and change the world after graduation. All of these people might not be THE MOST capable people in the applicant pool. But if they’re qualified, then Princeton has the right, I feel, to give them a spot, even if it means rejecting a kid who could sleep through every class and still graduate summa cum laude.
We needn’t worry. King Richard II of the House of Gephardt has promised to rule by decree:
“When I’m president, we’ll do executive orders to overcome any wrong thing the Supreme Court does tomorrow or any other day,” said Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri.
(http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/06/22/national0230EDT0430.DTL)
Yes, that’s right, he proposes to use executive orders to overrule the Supreme Court. Gee, if he can do that, then George W. can do it, too! Thus, if the Supreme Court declares any part of the Patriot Act to be unconstitutional, he can use executive orders “to overcome” the Supreme Court!
Maybe if we’re lucky, he’ll also let us kiss his ring.
Wonderful post, Cranky. Thank you for that valuable and eminently sensible description of the admissions office’s POV.
One very important point that I think has been missing in this discussion. This is something that Cranky’s post alluded to and to which some other posters have missed completely. These programs are only about creating an active, diverse, balanced, and well-rounded entering class. Once enrolled, then every individual proceeds through on their own individual merits.
In point of fact, minority students graduate from elite educational institutions at approximately the same rate as the student body as a whole.
(Sources: Dr. Walter Harrison, President, University of Hartford, and former Secretary of the University of Michigan, radio interview, WTIC-AM, 06/24/2003 and Dr. Gregory Prince, President, Hampshire College, personal communication)
Therefore, we are not talking about providing an unjustified benefit.
I apologize that I didn’t make more clear that when I stated “qualified”, I didn’t mean whether or not they would do well. Rather, I meant that they were judged as qualified by the admittance board. From the court decision:
paperbackwriter, I love the point you made about people getting by on their own merits, but I have to question the latter statement about graduation rates.
I know at Michigan, minority students do have a lower retention rate and graduation rate. However, they graduate here at higher rates than they do many other places.
However, before anyone jumps on this with both feet, there is no evidence that I know of that URM drop-outs leave because they couldn’t do the work or were in over their heads due to AA measures. Other factors may come into play (finances, family support, climate). When a university tracks graduation rates, they generally do not know how many of these students didn’t just drop out, but rather stopped out (will come back later to graduate) or transferred to another college. We’ve had no reliable national enrollment tracking system until recently. I predict we’ll have some interesting studies coming out soon now that the National Student Loan Clearinghouse is up and running.
Maybe ol’ Walt has access to some newer info that I don’t, however.
Yes, and I actually said this exact thing in an earlier post. In the post you reference, I was referring more to what one heres from AA supporters, not so much what this particular case was about.
No, I didn’t say that and I’m not advocating it either.
I agree that those other capabilities are valueable in selecting students who will attend a universtiy. But they have nothing to do with race. One does not need to know the race of the applicant in order to select for those other, non-academic qualifications.
And there’s a distinction between Princeton (a private institution) and U of M (a gov’t run institution). Princeton can do whatever they want. But the gov’t should not classify people by race and treat them treat them differently. This is at the crux of the dissenting opinion on the law school case.
“Ol’ Walt” (love that, reminds me of “Ol’ Shoe”) was talking about experiences at both institutions during the interview, so which retention rates may have been unclear. IIRC, his statement was that he has seen no significant difference in retention rates, and that at UHartford minority students are 17% of the student body and graduation rates are “virtually” the same as the overall student body. I suppose there are enough weasel words that he is covered if there is a few percent difference, or if U of M is now different. He was on the committee that drafted the admissions standards, but I don’t think he had responsibility for the admissions function.
Greg Prince is the president of one of the colleges that filed a joint amicus curae brief. O’Connor cited this brief as evidence of how institutions have used Powell’s Bakke rationale in creating their admissions programs. I’m sure he has no idea of retention and graduation rates at U of M, but he was talking about those rates at his institution.
[/end pedantic clarification]
It seems to me that those who favor AA are the ones who tend to ignore its real problems – the one being AA’s extreme unfairness. My Congressman, Harold Ford Jr., is Black and went to the University of Michigan Law School. Ford, Jr. grew up in a privileged setting. His family was the most politically powerful family in Memphis during all of his childhood and remains so today. The home and community he grew up in was hardly underprivileged. His immediate family and numerous uncles are either all millionaires or close – based on stories about tax assessments on their homes in the local paper (another story). In short, Ford Jr. is about has underprivileged and suffering from the lasting affects of slavery and/or segregation as Oprah. And it doesn’t seem to matter if he and his family could have just moved here after 300 years in China for god sakes and he still gets a race based preference. How is this connected to anything credible.
So the question remains, why will John Ford’s kids, Oprah’s kids, or even Michael Jackson’s kids get preferential treatment because of skin color? Especially when this is done at the expense of kids who do not come from those privileged backgrounds? Or even when those kids come from the same middle class backgrounds. Why? Is it the tacit assumption that preferred minorities are, in effect, monolithic? This, of course, is wrong. Knowing someone’s race alone tells me nothing about who that person is, what that person values, how he thinks, what food she likes, whether Bob good at sports or what kind of music Sue likes. Any assumptions along those lines would immediately be seen as the purest form of unsupported speculation. Yet, when some talk about “the need for diversity” we do it in a fashion that suggests that people who are born a certain color bring ‘diverse’ ideas based on that alone, rather than based on their own personalized experience. If you argue that there is an unique “Black Experience” or there is an unique “Hispanic experience,” I suggest that there is also an unique “Appalachian experience,” an unique “Russian Immigrant Experience” and an unique “Asian Experience.” In fact, the list of unique experiences are limited only by the time you want to invest in creating that list. Why isn’t it equally important that “the children of people in power rub elbows” with a representative from every sector. Is that ‘diversity’ worth less or even worthless? I suggest that “diversity” is not really the motivation with affirmative action programs like the one at Michigan. It’s a ruse for institutionalized racism. The problem here is that the Michigan system “assumes” diversity AND then assumes that some matters more than others. Why? If Michigan wants diverse experience LOOK FOR DIVERSE EXPERIENCES. Skin color doesn’t automatically equal diverse experience any more than me being male and born an ‘Air Force brat’ does.
It is wrong to add an individual in this fashion when it means that another better-qualified candidate, albeit from a different ‘group,’ will not be allowed to attend. There is potential value added by the ideas of each and every one of us. What’s to prevent the eventual break down of society into as may ‘diverse groups’ as there are diverse looks and diverse ideas in our population? Why value your ‘diversity’ over mine? I mean – is the concept called ‘diversity’ really that empty of true meaning. If true diversity comes from ideas not blocks of people why is it being used to with blocks off people. Blocks of people don’t have ideas – unless, of course, you take the position ‘they are all alike.’ So why are we judging someone based on color or culture when – if the argument were turned to a different issue, some on this board would go into a moral outrage, and rightly so.
In short - if Michigan wants to admit students based on shown hardships overcome I have no problem. If they want to admit based on skin color, I do.
CrankyAsAnOldMan, I respect you as a sincere and honorable person. I acknowledge that the points you made so well are shared by many of your colleagues. However, with all due respect, I disagree with some of them.
You say we’ve had no evidence that AA students are more likely to be unqualified. The dropout rate is evidence. Students were admitted with considerably lower qualifications, and a considerably lower percentage graduated.
Your points about finances, family support and climate sound like wishful thinking. You have no evidence that these factors are important. There are factors the other way as well – namely the black studies classes that are designed to be easier to pass.
Your argument about the possibility that your black students transfer elsewhere and graduate seems not to work, since, as your pointed out, black graduation rates are even lower at most other colleges.
Yes, this was the University’s argument, but only because that was the argument that could prevail legally. Who doubts that their real motivation is to help blacks? However, earlier SC decisions had disallowed preferences solely for the purpose of helping blacks.
The University’s legal argument might be more true than they think. ISTM that non-black students are helped by having blacks around. OTOH many blacks who are admitted under affirmative action may well be harmed by being mis-matched.
Note that “qualified” has two quite distinct meanings. One is “qualified on paper” – meeting what admissions people regard as the the GPA, SAT, etc., which indicate that the student can probably do the work.
The other meaning is “qualified in actuality” – meaning ready, willing and able to do the work. I had a classmate who had the highest score in New York State on the PSAT exam and entered the University of Chicago at age 16. He flunked out after a year, because he lacked the maturity to work independently. He was qualified in sense #1, but unqualified in sense #2.
Regardless of their paper qualifications, the fact that over 50% of black college students don’t graduate means that they were not qualified in actuality, at least not at the institutions they attended. Many of these students might have graduated at some other college, had they not been burdened by affirmative action.