Politics: Bush on affirmative action, legacies in admissions
This has been pretty widely published, but Bush made it very clear the other day that he feels that college admissions should be based on merit. He didn't steer very clear of insinuations that his own Yale days might have been the result of his family's history w/ the university.
Merit. What does that mean? The proposed Ronald Reagan university (that Nancy axed) was supposedly not going to admit students with SAT scores under 1400. The Right seems to want numbers, objectivity in a subjective process. There are of course a few good ways to argue against such a proposal. First, who is smarter (on average): a white kid whose parents can afford SAT classes who gets a 1420, or a black kid whose parents are poor and scores a 1340. Now, of course every white kid isn't rich (I wasn't--my 1550 wasn't the result of expensive preparation, but probably a result of parents who wanted their kid to do better than they had), and every black kid definitely isn't poor. But still, on a demographic level, these trends exist.
But aren't we eventually going to start seeing race as merit in itself? Isn't their something meritorious about having a different culture? Not like being from Laos is some sort of bonus point that makes Laosdude inherently more valuable, but isn't it valuable to the other students to have a diversity of world-view around them?
So for once, I agree with President Bush. Admissions should be based on merit. But I don't think that he and I would agree on what "merit" is.
Now, is the affirmative action system broken? Somewhat. Was Michigan's admissions policy "fair" to all involved? Not entirely. Is there a better way to promote diversity in colleges? There are other ways, but none seem drastically more effective or fair than current approaches.
I would personally like to replace the current race-based admissions with socioeconomic-based admissions. One of the greatest criticisms of current affirmative action systems is that rich minority kids who have all the advantages of rich white kids get more preferential treatment than is probably warranted. So, instead of race, look at pocketbooks. Minorities tend to have a little less in their bank accounts than whities, and some of their potential as students is undoubtedly masked by this disadvantage. While I'm sure it's harder to be rich and black than it is to be rich and white, it seems a little harder to be poor and white than it does to be rich and black.
2 comments:
socio-economic criterion is unfeasible for the simple reason that even when socio-economic factors are accounted for, minorities lag far behind. (look up shaker heights, ohio for reference) and i'm sure you know as well as i do that decisions depending on race are rarely as murky as 1420 vs 1340. if such cases were more common, much of the opposition would diminish dramatically.
what does it say about a policy that accepts a few people here and there to make the rich white kid's educational experience better? isn't that what diversity attempts to achieve? so that nigel wordsbury III from groton can learn about asia from the slant eye kid? sure the slant eye kid learns some english and how to differentiate between a salad fork and a meal fork, but let's not kid ourselves. no one really cares about the slant eye kid. it's just a happy unintended consequence.
besides, how can you count race as merit when the academics are telling you that race is a made up concept?
i too am against the idea of strictly objective criteria. applying to medical school has drilled that into me, rather forcefully. but it's disengenuous to characterize the defense of affirmative action as the defense of subjective, wide encompassing merit based on many cultural, social, economic, and utilitarian factors. affirmative action has always been about race; not as a way of screening for socio-economic factors or rewarding those who had to work harder in more subtle ways, but race as a criterion in itself.
michael
points taken. how about if i replace "race" with "culture" in much of my argument? so then, the experience of diversity of culture (rather than something which, agreed, is biological myth). i'm not sure of your ohio socioeconomic reference, so if you could care to point me in a direction to read about that, that'd be cool. i don't quite understand what you mean when you say minorities still lag behind, but i might be ignoring the obvious. if you mean that a poor black kid has a harder time than a poor white kid, i could buy that. but i think a poor white kid, in a lot of ways, is a minority in academia. all minorities are obviously not viewed exactlty the same in this country, i would imagine asians get more respect on average than hispanics or african americans. i still think that using socioeconomic standards (which are still pretty subjective) could do a good job of promoting cultural diversity.
i would, however, disagree with your statement that nobody cares about the "squinty eyed asian kid." i believe many supporters of affirmative action do so because they want to see minority leaders in academia and other fields to serve as role models.
it's late, and i feel like i'm drifting.
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