I intended to post the article about the movies running to Canada
but Arthur beat me to the punch, so how about this article about
how logical and scientific we are and how up to date out
blessed institutions happen to be. Several years ago it was
noted in the NYTimes that the head of major companies who
graduated from Ivy league schools had a very high rate
of racisim in their ranks.
REH
New York Times
May 11, 1999, Tuesday National Desk
A New Turn in Defense of Affirmative Action
By STEVEN A. HOLMES
All over the campus of the University of Michigan, the signs of a
racially
and ethnically eclectic student body abound.
The student union is home to the Asubuhi (''morning'' in Swahili)
Multicultural Lounge. The bulletin board outside lists 49 ethnic
organizations. In the cafeteria, Pedro Cox-Alomar, a black Hispanic
junior
from San Juan, P.R., shares breakfast with his buddy Karl Benkert,
white,
from rural Michigan.
The university's officials say it is no accident that racial and
ethnic
minorities account for more than 25 percent of its 36,000 students,
a
statistic that makes this the most diverse of any large institution
of
higher learning in the Midwest. The mix results from aggressive
recruitment
of minorities and, in some cases, advantages to black and Hispanic
applicants in the highly competitive admissions process.
Disproportionate advantages, contend some critics, who note that
for
example, the admissions point system gives more weight to being
black or
Hispanic than to getting a perfect score on the Scholastic
Assessment Test.
(The university points out that far greater weight is given to high
school
grades than to either of those factors.)
The institution's policy is now the target of two lawsuits by a
total of
three rejected white applicants, all turned down, they say, because
of
their race. So has the University of Michigan become yet another
front in
the war over affirmative action, following the rollback of
race-conscious
admissions policies at universities in California and Texas.
But what distinguishes the Michigan case is the university's
full-throated
counteroffensive: the marshaling of statistical evidence of the
benefits of
racial diversity.
Unlike California and Texas, which defended their policies with
only
anecdotal evidence, Michigan has compiled data, on its own students
and
others, showing that among other things, people who were exposed to
a
diverse student body while in college are more likely five years
after
graduation to work in integrated settings, live in integrated
neighborhoods
and have friends of another race.
Patricia Gurin, a professor of psychology and women's studies at
the
university, concluded in one report that five years after
graduation,
whites who had attended colleges with the most diverse student
bodies
experienced the greatest growth in active thinking processes, in
motivation
to achieve and in intellectual self-confidence.
''Our research confirms what we have experienced firsthand as
educators:
that diversity enhances learning,'' said Lee Bollinger, the
university's
president. ''Encountering those who are different allows our
students to
learn about each other's similarities and differences and to
destroy
stereotypes.''
The nature of Michigan's defense stems from an emerging strategy by
affirmative action's supporters to make an empirical case for it,
rather
than a purely anecdotal or intuitive one. The university's research
follows
a survey issued last fall by two former Ivy League presidents,
William G.
Bowen of Princeton and Derek Bok of Harvard, that was based on the
records
and experiences of 45,000 students over 20 years at 28 elite
colleges
around the country. The Bowen-Bok research concluded that
affirmative
action policies at those colleges had created the backbone of the
black
middle class and taught white classmates the value of integration.
Lawyers for the Michigan plaintiffs maintain that however noble the
idea of
creating a diverse university, Michigan is blatantly discriminating
against
whites to achieve it. They allege violation of the Constitution's
equal-protection guarantees, among other protections.
''I think that discrimination always hurts someone,'' said one
plaintiff,
Barbara Grutter, a 45-year-old mother of two who was rejected by
Michigan's
law school in 1997. ''I don't know how we can have a country that
says
discrimination is wrong and yet have all these exceptions.''
The suits -- one against the law school, the other against the
undergraduate college -- were filed in the Federal District Court
in
Detroit and will be argued in the fall. They have drawn the
attention of
civil rights groups, opponents of racial preferences, hundreds of
colleges
and universities, and the Clinton Administration, which has filed a
court
brief defending Michigan's admissions policies.
The plaintiffs are represented by the Center for Individual Rights,
a
Washington law firm that got a Federal appeals court to overturn an
admissions policy at the University of Texas Law School that, the
judges
found, granted illegal advantages to black and Hispanic applicants.
In basing so much of its defense on the benefits of diversity,
Michigan is
relying on a 21-year-old Supreme Court opinion that became the
legal basis
for colleges' affirmative action programs but has come under
increasing
challenge since.
The Supreme Court case was California Regents v. Bakke, in which
Justice
Lewis F. Powell Jr. sided with one bloc of four Justices in
concluding that
a state medical school program that set aside a number of places
for
minority applicants was unlawful.
In so deciding, Justice Powell disagreed with the other four-member
bloc,
which said admissions officers could give preferences based on race
in
order to make up for societal discrimination. But in a separate
opinion, he
offered his own rationale for affirmative action, arguing that to
promote
the ''robust exchange of ideas'' that might flow from the diversity
of a
student body, institutions of higher learning could give some
consideration
to an applicant's race.
Three years ago the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth
Circuit,
in New Orleans, rejected Justice Powell's opinion in striking down
the
affirmative action program at the University of Texas Law School.
While
that ruling applied only to the Fifth Circuit, critics of the
Powell
opinion say it should no longer be considered paramount anywhere.
Noting
that it had not been joined by other Justices, lawyers for the
Michigan
plaintiffs argued in court papers, ''There is no basis for
concluding that
Justice Powell's 'diversity' rationale represents the 'holding' of
the
Court.''
The plaintiffs also contend that even if the Bakke opinion is still
law,
Michigan violates its spirit by making race the decisive factor.
In assessing applicants, Michigan's admissions officers assign
points to
various academic criteria, among them grade point average, results
on
standardized tests like the S.A.T. and the relative difficulty of
the
applicant's high school courses. They also give points for a number
of
other factors: whether a student is black or Hispanic, for
instance, or is
from a low-income family, or comes from a county in the state that
historically sends few students to the university. (Those counties
tend to
be overwhelmingly white.)
Critics point out that the admissions system gives 20 points for
being
black or Hispanic and only 12 points for scoring a perfect 1,600 on
the
S.A.T. That, they say, is evidence that race is not just one
admissions
factor but often the predominant one.
University officials reply that such a comparison is misleading,
since the
largest number of points -- 40 -- is given for high school grades,
and that
standardized test scores generally do not reveal much more than do
grades
about an applicant's scholastic abilities.
As the date of court arguments draws closer, even some students who
support
affirmative action say they wonder whether the robust exchange of
ideas
envisioned by Justice Powell, who died last August, actually occurs
here. A
number of students interviewed on the last day of classes in April
said
that here at Michigan, as at other universities, there was a
certain racial
balkanization.
Fraternities tend to be overwhelmingly white or overwhelmingly
black.
African-American students tend to sit at their own tables in the
cafeteria
or gather alone on the steps of the student union on Saturday
nights to
socialize. Even the many clubs that are evidence of diversity are
also
evidence of a kind of separateness: there are Hispanic groups,
Asian
groups, groups that are predominantly white.
''Most students here do not try to make it happen,'' Carl Lawson, a
black
senior from Highland Park, Mich., said of students' developing
relationships across racial lines. ''We tend to stay around people
that are
just like we are.''
Dr. Gurin, the professor who cited data in support of affirmative
action's
benefits, acknowledged that there was some self-imposed segregation
on
campus. But any talk that it is widespread, she said, is
''overblown.''
Whatever the outcome of the Michigan suits in the district court,
both
sides agree, the matter is headed for appeal. And the university is
hoping
for a friendlier reception in the Sixth Circuit, based in
Cincinnati, than
the University of Texas received in the conservative Fifth.
But no one can be sure that the program will survive the Sixth
Circuit's
judgment, or, if it is struck down, that the Supreme Court will
hear an
appeal. Michigan officials, though, are banking that their strategy
will
carry the day. As Liz Barry, the university's associate vice
president and
deputy general counsel, put it, ''We think our arguments that Bakke
is good
law and is the law of the land right now are overwhelming.''
