As America enters a new era of race relations and challenges the thorny issue of affirmative action, especially at universities, the American public seems skeptical of the benefits of using race as a factor for admissions. A recent poll shows that most Americans do not approve of the University of Michigan's method of giving an advantage to minorities. However, affirmative action programs at universities have many benefits that the American public does not realize.
There are two misconceptions about affirmative action programs: First, that there is a race-neutral alternative that increases diversity on campus and second, a belief that diversity has no tangible benefits for students.
With the upcoming Supreme Court case against the University of Michigan's admissions policy, President Bush has filed a brief encouraging race-neutral methods of increasing diversity on college campuses. Bush advocates the "percent" plans of Florida, California, and his home state, Texas. In Texas, the top ten percent of students in any high school class are admitted to any state university, while Florida and California allow high school seniors to enter into the public university system who are in the top 20 and four percent of their classes respectively.
An important distinction and flaw of the percent plans in California and Florida are promises of admission to a state university, not any state university. According to a new study by the Harvard Civil Rights project, in 1995 at Berkley University, blacks and Hispanics used to account for 6.7 and 16.9 percent of the freshman class, respectively. After affirmative action was eliminated in California, in 2002, blacks declined to 3.9 percent (a change of 2.8 percent) while Hispanic admissions dropped to 10.8 percent (a change of 6.1 percent). Percent plans are drastically reducing the number of minority students attending the most prestigious universities.
Another problem with the "percent" plans is that they only work in states with many high schools that are predominantly filled with minorities. States like Virginia, according to University Dean of Admissions John A. Blackburn, do not have many schools where a majority of students are not white. Percent plans do not work in most of the United States.
Considering the recent failure of percent plans to encourage diversity, one has to wonder whether diversity is a worthy sacrifice to a true meritocracy for college admissions.
Proving the value of diversity on campuses is necessary to prove the worth of affirmative action. In a poll by the American Council on Education and the American Association of University Professors demonstrated that an overwhelming majority of professors claimed affirmative action did not have a negative impact on the quality of instruction ("Debating the Benefits of Affirmative Action," Feb. 14, The Chronicle of Higher Education).
Critics will doubt the value of the poll claiming few would argue "diversity is bad," especially considering the concentration of liberals at most universities. However, in a survey of law school students by the same groups listed above, eight out of ten students claimed having minorities present in their classes affected their opinions about the criminal-justice system. Such a vast change in opinion from well-educated men and women demonstrate the value of minorities in classes. Students learn just as much from their peers, if not more, than from their professors when diversity is encouraged.
Diversity doesn't just benefit students' educations in the classroom alone. The "social education" one receives in a first-year dorm is improved greatly with diversity. America is becoming more and more diverse, and to not account for this change on college campuses would be to leave all students unprepared for the work force.
Corporate America recognized this change in the demographics of America. Twenty Fortune 500 companies signed a brief to the court to support the University of Michigan because they feel the diversity in college campuses supports the diversity they need in the workplace. The corporate world has entered into the affirmative action debate because diversity benefits their bottom line, without diversity, they believe they will make less money. Diversity helps the economy as well as students.
A final critique of the benefit of race-based admissions is that the benefits of diversity allegedly can be created artificially through cultural educational programs and course requirements like the non-Western perspectives requirement at the University. However, besides being a poor replacement for the true interactions involved with diversity, such programs are unlikely to develop at homogenous colleges. The non-Western perspective arose because of the work of minority groups on campus. Without a minority voice at any college to speak for classes or diversity training, they are unlikely to exist. This minority voice is needed to keep and to develop classes, requirements, and programs that encourage diversity, tolerance, and understanding.
Unfortunately, diversity comes at a cost. Talented white applicants can be turned away from universities they are qualified for. Hopefully some day admissions can be entirely race blind, and diversity will naturally occur, but that ideal has not yet been reached in America.
Affirmative action is an imperfect system, but there is not an alternative that can encourage diversity on campuses across the country. Diversity greatly improves any education -- few would argue that diversity is itself a bad thing -- the challenge lies in proving that the benefits of diversity outweigh the costs. And currently, allowing minorities into America's institutions of higher learning benefits all students as well as the rest of America.
(Patrick Harvey is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at pharvey@cavalierdaily.com)
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