Now, the affirmative action debate is much like the abortion debate. Neither represents an ideal situation, but both are an attempt to forge an acceptable compromise in the real world. It's easy enough to call for them to be eliminated, but it doesn't really begin to solve the underlying problems (unwanted pregnancies and institutional racial discrimination in America) that they were put in place to solve. As far as affirmative action goes, it serves a vital interest for or society to have diverse college and university student bodies. During one's formative years, it's good to meet people different than you, and it makes you a better person. I swear that most of the stupidity present in our day to day lives involves people not being able to empathize with their fellow men sufficiently to act like decent human beings. This is as central to the mission of a college as the actual classes. I don't remember most of the details I once regurgitated for tests, but I certainly remember meeting people and broadening my horizons a bit. Now, the process is being short-circuited by a bunch of whiny white people, which drives me nuts. I swear, nothing in the world is more pathetic than whiny white people. If ever anyone needed to be played a symphony of the world's smallest violins, it is my whiny brethren who feel that after being given every possible advantage a society can give a person, they still need more.
The saddest thing about the whole kerfuffle is that it makes it almost certain that some kids won't get to go to college at all so that others have a better chance to go to the school of their choice (a choice made during their teenage years, no less). As noted by Megan at her place, people place way, way too much emphasis on which school they get into. In physics, for example, there are a few schools that going to for grad school can influence the rest of your entire career (the science-heavy Ivies, MIT, Chicago, Berkeley, Cal Tech, etc.). Simply put, if you want to teach at one of these it helps to have experienced them from the other side. For literally every other career goal in physics, to say nothing of a career in any other field, it doesn't really matter so much. I can't name the similar groups of schools for professions (Law, Business, etc.), but it works pretty much the same way. Notice I'm talking grad school, for chrissakes. I started at a 300-student college and ended up at MIT, after all. Simply put, it doesn't matter which college you start at, because there are so many transitions you'll hit later that it eventually washes out. Life takes so many twists and turns that the place you start from is basically insignificant.
This is why it is absolutely crucial that schools make sure to maximize the number of students who get to go to college, not the number of kids who get their top choice. Having to settle for #2, instead of a top choice, is a couple days worth of moping and then in some cases a lasting grudge (bite me, Harvard). The choice between going to school and not is life-changing. Angry white people, it's called a "safety school". Apply to a couple, and everything else will work out ok, and everyone will get the chance to meet people who look a little different and hopefully not be racist assholes for the rest of their lives.
There are still ways in which the University of Michigan may still be able to salvage affairs. Remember, affirmative action isn't even a particularly graceful way of achieving its goals, and using a different method with the same results shouldn't bother anyone. In fact, Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly points us to a study put out by The Century Foundation. According to him:
The study found that if it's implemented well, (a) income-based affirmative action produces nearly as much racial diversity as race-based affirmative action, (b) it promotes economic diversity as well, and (c) it actually produces higher graduation rates than either a pure merit-based system (test scores and high school GPAs) or a traditional affirmative action program. What's more, it's an approach that most of the public finds inherently fair.
This is utterly brilliant. While residual racism makes it easy to take away a program aimed at minorities, justifying it based on economic grounds doesn't have the same taint in today's culture. The argument in favor is very, very easy. The richer the students, the more money spent on their elementary and secondary education. We can eliminate economic-based college admission policies, but we could also pool all property-tax supported education dollars, and redistribute them equally to all school districts in a state I don't think that many suburban school districts really want to make that trade. Hopefully, Michigan comes up with a solution like this. Given their track record, I feel pretty optimistic that they will.
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6 comments:
2 points for using the word:
"kerfuffle"
in a sentence.
It was either that or "hullabaloo", but I am incapable of spelling the latter without consulting a dictionary, or the liberal blog by the same name.
there are probably a lot of people who also hate Harvard. Perhaps there's a club out there of Harvard-jects.
In my case, rejecting me was fine, since I got into MIT, but when they wrote me back later telling me I was rejected from the waiting list, for which I didn't even volunteer my name, and explained that "they knew I must be disappointed, but wished me the best with my academic endeavors", I made my pledge to flip them of every time I passed by campus. That promise still stands.
What I never told you was that getting the rejection letter from Harvard was a family tradition. Now you know. And I share your feelings about whiney white students. Note, if you did a bit better, studied a bit harder, were a bit smarter, you might have gotten the place that the other white student got. I doubt there are many schools that reject students regardless of race, color, you name it, if they show up with a 4.0 and 2400 on the SAT (or however they score them nowadays). On your professional schools, apart from the eternal shame of Yale (two Bushes), in law, at least, where you go to school has more to do with where you get your first job, not where your career goes. A key example is Warren Burger - William Mitchell College of Law (also taught there) - night school in Minneapolis. John Marshall Harlan - New York Law School. Hugo Black - University of Alabama. Thurgood Marshall, Howard University. In medicine it can be much the same. Michael DeBakey may have been one of the best known heart surgeons, but I doubt many in his class at Tulane Medical School would have predicted it. Dr. Norman Shumway, another famous heart surgeon and the man many credit as the research father of the heart transplant, Medical School at Vanderbilt. So the bottom line is if you are good, you will probably succeed. But if you want to be appointed to the Supreme Court as a conservative Republican, attend Harvard.
While we're bashing Harvard, note that their Medical School turned out our former Senate Majority Leader, Bill Frist, M.D., who was able to conclusively, and utterly mistakenly, diagnose Terri Schiavo over a video feed, even though he is a heart surgeon and not a brain specialist. For a school with a $20 Billion endowment, you'd think they'd turn out fewer embarassments to our national scene.
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