Affirmative Action: Change is Needed

Jun 8

Jun 8 Affirmative Action: Change is Needed

Jonathan Wang

In the United States of America, there is a common and popular creed: “Equal opportunity for all.” However, critics argue that this creed doesn’t exist in practice. One such issue of controversy is affirmative action in college admissions. According to Merriam Webster, affirmative action “is the use of policies, legislation, programs, and procedures to improve the educational or employment opportunities of members of certain demographic groups (such as minority groups, women, and older people) as a remedy to the effects of long-standing discrimination against such groups.” Affirmative action achieves these goals by giving limited preference to these groups in job hiring, admission to institutions of higher education, the awarding of government contracts, and other social benefits. The main argument in favor of affirmative action is that it fixes past historical injustices, while opponents argue that it’s wrong to use racism to fix racism. This article will review the history of affirmative action and the arguments of both sides. Then I will present my own personal opinion on the issue.

History of Affirmative Action

The idea of affirmative action was first introduced on March 6, 1961, in Executive Order 10925 signed by John F. Kenedy. The Order required government contractors to “take affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed and that employees are treated during employment without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin.” The order also established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. This original affirmative action was intended to give equal opportunities to all U.S. citizens and wasn’t designed to give special treatment to those discriminated against, contrary to modern-day affirmative action (Wikipedia Exec Order 10925).

Executive Order 10925 was replaced by Executive Order 11246, signed into effect by President Lyndon B. Johnson on September 24, 1965 (Wikipedia Exec Order 11246). The new executive order required increased hiring and advancement in underrepresented groups (Westlaw). The history of affirmative action modifications through executive actions isn’t limited to the two previously mentioned, but the full complex history is way beyond the scope of this article.

Court cases have also played a part in shaping affirmative action. In 1975, Regents of the University of California v. Bakke banned the use of racial quotas but allowed the use of race as a deciding factor. In 2003, the Supreme Court case Grutter v. Bollinger ruled that the admission process that favored “underrepresented minority groups” did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment's Equal Protection Clause as long as the college considered other factors as well for each applicant. In other words, affirmative action was allowed as long as race was only one factor out of many and not the deciding factor. The court also said affirmative action to increase diversity was a valid reason.

In the same year (2003), Gratz v. Bollinger ruled that the University of Michigan using a point system for the race was unconstitutional. The practice in question was that the University of Michigan required 100 points to enter the university and added 20 points to any underrepresented minority. Fisher v. The University of Texas basically had the same decision as Grutter v. Bollinger. Using race must be done in good faith and cannot be the sole determining factor. Using affirmative action to increase diversity is constitutionally legal…for now.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case of Students for Fair Admissions Inc (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College, and the proceedings are expected to start this summer. This lawsuit involves Asian Americans suing Harvard University on the basis of discrimination, instead of challenging affirmative action in general. The discrimination in question is that Harvard was less likely to admit Asian Americans to their institution because of their race (compared to other minorities who were given higher admission preference). SFFA have lost in the lower courts where they ruled in favor of Harvard University (Wikipedia), but the Supreme Court could overturn the current precedent. The outcome of this case will determine whether affirmative action is an allowable practice for college admissions.

In Support of Affirmative Action

The side supporting affirmative action argues that it makes up for social inequalities. Some argue that the systemic racism that Black and Latino people have experienced makes it hard to gain admission to college. The neighborhoods and environments they are raised in sometimes are not as privileged. In other words, historical injustice creates disadvantaged backgrounds and creates unequal opportunities for success.

In addition, white students are more likely to have parents that have been to college, meaning that these students are more likely to benefit from legacy preference. Furthermore, these parents can help the student educationally. Additionally, white people are more likely to be wealthier and thus more likely to attend more affluent schools that provide more opportunities through multiple extracurricular activities (atlantic.com), sports programs (mottpoll.org), and college prep resources (epi.org). Thus, white applicants are more likely to stand out in college applications. Affirmative action helps to account for these advantages that are outside the student's control (americanprogress.org).

Affirmative action does not make it easy for students from a disadvantaged background to get into college; it merely makes up for some of their difficulties–it levels the playing field, so to speak. Students from families where few people have pursued higher education are less likely to excel in high school. Children who come from communities where English is not regularly spoken face a large disadvantage in reading and writing, and students from school districts with lower funding tend to perform poorly on standardized tests. When affirmative action has been banned, it leads to a 23% drop in the likelihood of disadvantaged students entering highly prestigious colleges (Blume & Long).

Advocates also argue that a diverse student body creates a better learning environment, meaning that affirmative action is good for all students on campus. Besides textbooks and classes, people learn from others. Having more people with more diverse backgrounds makes it easier to learn from others. Affirmative action makes sure that different people bring different backgrounds to the community.

In Opposition to Affirmative Action

The opponents of affirmative action argue that its effects are harmful to everyone. Affirmative action is harmful to Latino and Black students because the system allows these students to enter colleges where they aren’t qualified. For example, a student that would thrive at Wake Forest is admitted to Duke and struggles. This student has a higher chance of receiving lower grades, becoming bottom rank and dropping out. The phenomenon is known as a mismatch. It can also happen to legacy or athlete-accepted students.

Due to Fisher v. University of Texas, lots of legal documents came to light. “The SAT scores for the Asian students placed them in the 93rd percentile of 2009 SAT-takers nationwide; the African-American students, meanwhile, were at the 52nd percentile” (nationalaffairs.com). This shows that some Black students admitted with the help of affirmative action policies are entering colleges and having to compete against students who significantly outscore them on standardized tests.

According to this same Atlantic article, “Black law-school graduates are four times as likely to fail bar exams as are whites; mismatch explains half of this gap” and “Blacks who start college interested in pursuing a doctorate and an academic career are twice as likely to be derailed from this path if they attend a school where they are mismatched.” These ideas are further supported by University of California researchers Richard Sander and Roger Bolus. In their paper, they wrote that a worse academic background compared to peers halves the chances of majoring in STEM fields (seaphe.org).

So, what would happen if affirmative action was banned? California decided to answer that question. In 1996, Proposition 209 won the popular vote and went into effect, banning affirmative action. According to Atlantic.com, this led to a 50 percent drop in Black freshman enrollment and a 25 percent drop for Hispanics. However, the total number of Black and Hispanic students receiving bachelor's degrees was the same for the five graduating classes after Proposition 209 as for the five classes before. To explain these statistics, “the Black four-year graduation rate at UCLA doubled from the early 1990s to the years after Proposition 209” (Atlantic). “Graduation rate refers to the time in which a student enters and then completes a degree at a 4-year college or university, usually expressed as a percentage” (Value Colleges). In other words, the number that entered UCLA decreased, but the amount that dropped out throughout the four years also decreased. Thus the number of bachelors awarded wasn’t affected.

Additionally, students who were admitted to less prestigious schools could work their way into transferring to the most prestigious schools (Atlantic). Basically, the number of bachelor's degrees the college gave out to minority students didn’t change, but the amount admitted and the rate of dropouts or failures decreased. Thus the proposition decreases the effects of mismatch.

My Opinion

Overall, the arguments for and against affirmative action are very nuanced. One side believes that affirmative action fixes past injustices and provides new opportunities. The other side believes that it's wrong to fix racism with “racism” (defined as providing racial preference to any group) and that mismatch is shown to be harmful. Either way, both sides present valid arguments, and understanding both sides will lead to a solution that addresses all the presented issues.

I believe that the goals of affirmative actions are noble, but they are poorly executed. Instead of race, we should look at socio-economic factors of the application to truly determine who comes from a disadvantaged background.

The main issue with affirmative action is that it assumes all Black and Latino students come from poor backgrounds and that all Asians and White students come from rich backgrounds. In other words, affirmative action creates a case for a rich, underachieving Black person to be chosen over a smart, broke Asian.

To further illustrate my point, the research paper by the Economic Policy Institute states, “Extensive research has conclusively demonstrated that children’s social class is one of the most significant predictors—if not the single most significant predictor—of their educational success.” To make this fact even worse, “Moreover, it is increasingly apparent that performance gaps by social class take root in the earliest years of children’s lives and fail to narrow in the years that follow. That is, children who start behind stay behind—they are rarely able to make up the lost ground.” In other words, the amount of money in your parent’s wallet is a better indicator of advantage or disadvantage in education and in life than one’s skin color.

One might argue that affirmative action tries to fix the issues of financially impoverished backgrounds; however, affirmative action doesn’t help poor people get into high-end universities. According to Richard H. Sander's paper, the vast majority of law students come from rich backgrounds, whereas only 5% come from families whose socioeconomic backgrounds are in the bottom 50%. Also, the amount of economically privileged students in law schools in 1960 compared to 2000 is relatively the same, albeit more racially diverse. The paper also mentions that “class-based preferences are feasible and effective in creating diversity,” keeping the beneficial high-diversity aspect of affirmative action.

I believe it is better to replace the current race-preference affirmative action with socioeconomic affirmative action or eliminate affirmative action altogether to prevent a mismatch. Either way, the current affirmation is the least desirable form, and hopefully will be improved greatly by the decision coming up from the Students for Fair Admissions Inc (SFFA) v. President and Fellows of Harvard College Supreme Court case. Hopefully, we are one step closer to America’s creed of “equal opportunity for all.”

Given the complexity of this issue, here are additional sources for reading:

Two Decades After the Affirmative Action Ban: Evaluating the University of California's Race-Neutral Efforts | UCLA Civil Rights

The Effects of Proposition 209 on California: Higher Education, Public Employment, and Contracting by Charles Geshekter | NAS

The Supreme Court Has Upheld Affirmative Action. So Let's Dump Mismatch Theory. - The New York Times

Regarding the Mismatch Hypothesis and Stereotype Threat in the Debate over Affirmative Action

The Concept of “Mismatch” at Play in the Supreme Court Fisher Decision is Empirically Unsound

Opinion | A legitimate reason for disputes over mismatch - The Washington Post

Opinion | An emerging scholarly consensus on mismatch and affirmative action (ideologues not welcome) - The Washington Post

Affirmative Action and the Quality-Fit Tradeoff

The Activity Gap - The Atlantic

The Sad Irony of Affirmative Action | National Affairs

Pay-to-play sports keeping lower-income kids out of the game | National Poll on Children's Health