Volume CXXXII, Number 12 January 24, 2003 f

Affirming affirmative action
LARA JACOBS
COLUMNIST

Affirmative action is a sensitive issue. Regardless of race, it can make or seemingly break a high school student's chances for admissions at prestigious colleges and universities across the country. For middle to upper class students and their parents, the program has the potential to prevent these students' acceptance.

According to a recent article by Jacques Steinberg in the New York Times, "Admissions officers acknowledge that they generally demand white applicants with well educated parents" to have at least a 1400 on the SATs, while "a black applicant with similar grades….might get in with an 1150" (January 5, 2003). As the author of "Race and the Fight for Admission to the Best Colleges" also pointed out, "In a nation of few formal class distinctions, the college sticker on one's car may be the most potent [status symbol]."

Thus the controversy surrounding affirmative action is not really about whom colleges are admitting, but rather about whom they're not-white students. Two white students who were denied admission to the University of Michigan's College of Arts and Sciences and Law School are suing the school, claiming that they were passed over for less qualified minority students and that had they been admitted, "[their lives] would be significantly different."

Regardless of the ruling, the decision will have serious repercussions for higher education, either entrenching a controversial system or eliminating advantages for those less privileged. Speaking out against the policy, President Bush claimed, "Systems that use race to include or exclude people from higher education and the opportunities it offers are divisive, unfair and impossible to square with the Constitution."

One possible alternative, which politicians expect Bush will suggest, is an elimination of affirmative action in favor of the "Top 10 Percent Law" which guarantees admission to the University of Texas at Austin for all high school seniors in Texas who finish in the top ten percent of their high school classes. Theoretically, the plan levels the playing field, ensuring that black students compete against black, white against white, and Hispanic against Hispanic within each school.

Nevertheless, Austin's minority enrollment is significantly lower than it was before affirmative action was abolished. Texas officials tend to cite the reasoning for this being that the plan ensures that only the truly qualified are admitted, perhaps lowering the racial representation. Nevertheless, under Texas' affirmative action program, each freshman class included about 500 blacks, or 4 percent of new students. In 1997, however, the year after the ruling, only 296 new students, or 2.3 percent, were black.

As most people know, limited diversity is a problem for the majority of top schools in this country. However, I have not heard any argument to decrease the number of students from prep schools and from upper middle class white backgrounds for the sake of diversity at these colleges and universities. Instead, Bush and his followers propose eliminating the sole program responsible for making college campuses more representative of the array of cultures and races within the United States.

In reality, has there ever been a case made against the number of legacy students admitted to these top schools? If Bush dares to call affirmative action unconstitutional, what does he consider his admission to Yale-fair play?

Affirmative action is not ideal; yet imagine the cost of removing the system. Schools would be more than willing to select self-sufficient white students over lower-income and minority candidates requiring financial aid, a decision affirmative action prohibits universities from making. Thus, for all the students who aren't born with a silver spoon in their mouths, spitting up on a Harvard bib, let's hope the Supreme Court will not rule against affirmative action. While the program, as with most aspects of the college admissions process, leaves much to be desired, it is the only means we currently have for slightly leveling the playing field.

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