The Race is On
The race is on as the Massachusetts Supreme Court rules that race preference cannot be used in admission procedures. UMass is scrambling to find ways to admit a freshman class that vaguely resembles the state the school serves.
The Massachusetts Supreme Court joined the current nationwide attack on “affirmative action.” (I use quotes because the words ‘affirmative action’ convey no real meaning. Unlike other meaningless phrases such as ‘family values,’ however, ‘affirmative action’ has acquired an agreed upon definition and I will use the term without quotes.) Giving preference on the basis of race is of course wrong. Affirmative action should be eliminated as soon as possible at the university level. Specifically, it should end fourteen years after we overhaul our entire public education system from pre-school or kindergarten to twelfth grade. First, we need equal money per student: a national (or at least state) system for funding education instead of a local one. (Funding for schools is based on local real estate taxes. Result: if you live in a poor area your school doesn’t have much money.) Actually, schools that serve poor neighborhoods need much more money to provide access to things that students from families below the poverty line may not have, such as computers and encyclopedias or a quiet room to work in. But I think educators in the inner city would be thrilled to have just the funding for education-related purposes that suburban schools operate with.
Try taking the SATs with an eighth grade education. That’s what some school systems are equipping their high school graduates with. A friend of mine from New York City took the highest level courses his school offered, did well in them, and even skipped a grade. He is going to a community college now to get the education he needs to apply to a ‘real’ university. In my school system, no one ever skipped a grade; our town had challenging enough classes for anyone by the high school level. Another friend, from home, took the highest level courses offered, did well in them, and is at Harvard now. Opportunities are not equal. Somewhere along the line, a token gesture towards evening things out is nice.
But how can affirmative action be legal if the fight against segregation was based on discrimination being illegal? I will answer by taking race out of the question. There is a difference between saying “No tuba players allowed in our school” and saying “We have very few tuba players. Let us get more tuba players even at the expense of the trombone players.” Only now can I see that the first is categorically wrong while the second, though one may question the virtues of a legion of tuba players, is arguably within a school’s area of discretion.
Schools use quotas and preference all the time; these are not unique to affirmative action. A school decides they need a tuba player. A good hockey goalie. A football offensive line. The children of wealthy alumni had better get in too. The government can either eliminate all preferences in admitting students and let the one unbiased person in America—a man from Idaho named Fred—decide who gets into school based solely on “merit” or allow schools to pursue diversity and large numbers of tuba players as they choose.
The current social and legal atmosphere essentially forces a school to err to the advantage of white people. The line between not ever showing preference to either side is so fine as to be impossible to walk on. This ruling is going to put scrutiny on every minority student admitted by white parents who wanted their child to get into a particular school and are willing and able to sue to get what they want.
Giving preferences to minorities is, however, purely arbitrary except as an assurance against racism and a way to achieve a student society that isn’t all the same. It is not the best system. But until 14-years-after-remaking-our-public-schools it is better than nothing. Fortunately, our choices are hardly “affirmative action” or “nothing.”
UMass can use an income based preference system for admission (that is backed up by good financial aid, I hope). Logically assume that the poor have had fewer advantages and cut a little slack for impoverished students. News Flash: Blacks are on average poorer than whites. Fairness and diversity achieved! Other circumstances of family background that disadvantage students should also be considered.
The University can admit students by area. Set a goal to get an appropriate (population based) number of students from the city and small rural towns. Better yet, go out to places with low college application rates (which are invariably poor schools as well) and let students know that college really is an option. Offer some “UMass” courses at such schools and let students know that if they do well enough in that class they are guaranteed entry into the University. This will greatly increase UMass’s ability to recruit students and also have a beneficial effect on every high school it forms a partnership with. For example, find some way provide the lowest-level math class UMass offers at high school that doesn’t have it through a special, good-publicity program.
The race is on and the University of Massachusetts can use this shake-up as an opportunity to establish, on an unassailable legal basis, a more real proportion of cultural backgrounds than it has now, creating a better school for all and opportunities for those that need them most.
Ben Melançon is a UMass student who wishes he could play the tuba.
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