by Lady Liberty
07/07/2003

On June 23, the US Supreme Court announced decisions in a pair of affirmative action cases. Both involved the University of Michigan. The first, Grutter v. Bollinger (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\\Politics\\archive\\200306\\POL20030623d.html), alleged that a white applicant with good grades and test scores was denied admission to the University's School of Law in primary part because other, less qualified candidates were chosen on the basis of race. The second, Gratz v. Bollinger (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=\\Politics\\archive\\200306\\POL20030623e.html), complained that though the applicants for admission to the University of Michigan were qualified, they were denied admission under circumstances that would have seen a racial minority student accepted.

In the case of the Law School, the court found that its preferences policies in admissions were not unconstitutional. It said that the consideration of race was "narrowly tailored" and thus not in violation of the Constitution. But in the second suit involving the school's undergraduate programs, the Court found that the University policy was not acceptable as is and needs to be revised. It does not, however, need to be scrapped all together.

According to Peter Kirsanow, a Cleveland labor lawyer and a member of the US Commission on Civil Rights, the Court essentially found in both cases that student body diversity was a compelling government interest and that it trumps the Fourteenth Amendment's promise of "equal protection under the law". Kirsanow, who was quoted in a story (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200306\NAT20030623f.html) posted online at the Cybercast News Service, also claimed that the Court relied for its decision on expert studies on race "many of which have been debunked" and called the decisions contorted and "a license to discriminate, albeit carefully." Another member of the Commission, Abigail Thernstrom, said, "We have just signed on to quotas for the foreseeable future and for decades to come."

Despite having publicly stated opposition to his affirmative action programs in the past, President Bush issued a press release (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200306\NAT20030623e.html) in which he applauded the Court's decisions and said that the Court sought "a careful balance between the goal of campus diversity and the fundamental principal of equal treatment under the law", an oxymoron if ever there was one. Then, bizarrely, he went on to tout "race-neutral approaches", something the Court had just ruled wasn't necessary.

In another online article (http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200306\NAT20030624c.html), we're told that at the same time most Democrats confessed to delight that the University would be allowed to continue to discriminate, most Republicans were, at least in private, decrying the decisions. And one Democrat - Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) said in a speech at the recent Rainbow/PUSH convention, that Justice Scalia's dissent in the rulings was "sinister". Scalia, she said, wrote that the University of Michigan "could either be an elite, first-rate school, or it could lower its standards and pursue racial diversity." The problem with Scalia's comment is that it may have been a little blunt for some to swallow easily, but it wasn't wrong.

Many people who profess their support of affirmative action programs say such programs are needed to ensure fairness. But the program itself is inherently unfair. It dictates percentages of minorities that must be represented, and then schools and corporations are obligated to match those percentages. That means that schools with 500 spaces to fill are not allowed to fill them with the 500 most qualified candidates. Admissions officers must go down the list of applicants until they fill x number of seats with black students; x number with Native Americans; and so on. This means that eminently qualified white students are denied admission while less qualified minority applicants are accepted. All of this may sound perfectly fair to some minority students or to the social-engineering contingent. But try using identical methodology to deny the best black basketball players a job because white men are underrepresented on the team, and you'll hear the howls of protest begin!

Even those people in favor of affirmative action aren't truly in favor of it. Consider the man or woman who has to have open heart surgery, and then ask him or her to choose between two surgeons: Dr. A, who met his medical school's highest criteria and who was his hospital's first choice to fill a job opening; or Dr. B, who didn't meet his school's admission requirements, but was let in ahead of other qualified candidates because his minority status granted him special consideration, and who was hired at the hospital solely because he was the only minority applicant and the hospital really needed him to fulfill a diversity requirement.

Such an example is relatively blatant and provides a fairly obvious course of action. More subtle, and more insidious, is the very matter of which Scalia spoke. If the best schools don't limit their admissions to the best students, then they're watering down the quality of their graduates and their educational programs along with their reputations. Even worse is the idea that the best students aren't getting into the best schools and are having to settle for the second-best or less. Mathematical brilliance should get the chance to shine at MIT whether it is housed in the body of an Asian, black, or white student. Medical genius should be nurtured at Harvard whether the student is male or female. Diversity is all well and good, but it doesn't teach you quantum physics, and I'm almost positive it's not going to help Dr. B when your heart stops during surgery.

Affirmative action is really a negative reaction. In claiming racial equality, it's really institutionalizing racial inequality. It's also essentially the temper tantrum of a spoiled brat. Yes, maybe you were turned down for admission at Carnegie Mellon University. Do you have any idea how many applicants are? The answer is: most of them. This isn't about you being black or red or yellow or purple. It's about you not being qualified. Grow up. Rather than demanding admission to the very best school, work toward admission at the very best school for which you are qualified. Life isn't always fair, but school admission policies could be...if we'd let them.

Lady Liberty