Tom on Affirmative Action

 As almost everybody thought would happen, SCOTUS  essentially banned the use of race as a factor in college admissions. Folks to the left side of the political spectrum are predictably outraged by the ruling, and a dispassionate observer might conclude that today's decision prohibited any member of one of the previously protected classes: Blacks, Hispancs, and Native Americans would be prohibited from attending college at all, rather than that admission be due to racial considerations in whole or in part. Those to the right side of the political spectrum are looking at a new day in college admissions in which the only members of the previously protected classes admitted to the nation's colleges would be athletes, certain theatre types, and a smattering of cute Black and Hispanic girls. The fact is that the SCOTUS may have made an important point with today's decision.. 

There have always been favored and disfavored groups in the area of college admissions. Favored groups have included so-called 'legacy" applicants, who are relatives of people who have attended that same school. Additionally, non-legacy applicants from a universe of preparatory schools that have historically served as 'feeder schools' to our most selective and prestigious institutions always contribute their share of new students. Disfavored groups, like the poor, have always been with us, although they have changed over time.

The Irish were  unwelcome at many of the 'best' schools until the early 20th century, when they were replaced by the Eastern and Southern European immigrant children whose parents flocked to these shores during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Jews were subjected to quotas because it was feared that should they be allowed unrestricted access to the 'best schools', they would crowd out students less dedicated to the acquisition of knowledge than their usual applicant . Striving Asian applicants have mostly replaced the Jews of the first half of the 20th century as existential threats to those  unwilling to work hard .

The truth is that college admissions are as much art as science. Admissions officers at every college in the land see it as their task to assemble an incoming class that brings a variety of life experiences to the table. They want an incoming class to reflect different ideas about what they want to get out of their educational journey. Their goal is to construct a mosaic that will make college a special period in the lives of all who accept the school's offer of admission.

But too often this mosaic included few Black tiles. In my class at St A's there was only one  Black kid in my year, and he happened to live directly across the hall from me. There were a couple more in the class following mine, and I like to think that I saved one of them from a savage beating one fine Saturday morning. 

I was on my way to get the morning papers when I came across a big dude about my dad's age with an angry look on his face. He asked me if I knew where a kid named Billy Washington lived. I had a nodding acquaintance with him because he lived next door to my debate partner.

Anyway this guy who was looking for him looked like trouble squared, so I went to his room and woke him from a sound sleep and told him what was happening, and he near shit himself because the angry dude was his girlfriend's dad, and he was not at all happy that his Princess, a cute White girl from Maine, was allowing herself to be touched inappropriately by a 6'4"Black dude. Anyway we went over to my dorm where we called security and they got the Dean of Students to talk the angry dad down.    

All of this took place around the time of what was the high water mark of the Civil Rights movement: the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, along with along with all manner of legislative and regulatory efforts to address the wrongs perpetrated upon our Black population by an aggressively racist subset of White citizens who thought that things were fine just as they were. Out of all this tumult emerged the spectre of Affirmative Action. 

Affirmative Action was a chainsaw of a remedy directed at a real problem that would have benefited from a more nuanced approach.

The remedy has served it's purpose and it's time to move on. The practice put a good many Black and Hispanic kids into educational venues in which they had no hope of succeeding.

There is a significant difference in the suitability of a valedictorian from a challenging high school such as Boston Latin or New Trier to achieve success at a challenging school like MIT or Johns Hopkins. A valedictorian  from a crappy high school in Chicago has absolutely no chance of success in such a rarified educational atmosphere. These kids would be better served by attending a school more suited to their actual abilities where they had a realistic chance of success. 

Affirmative Action should be a class based remedy, rather than a racially based one. But the overriding purpose of any type of remediation should be to place kids into an environment where they are likely to succeed, rather than the school that offers the most prestigious rear window decal.