How can Harvard defend affirmative action for poor students of color without attacking affluent whites? Gail Collins is an African-American and a professor at Harvard
I have a question I’d like one of the justices to ask Harvard: How can the university defend “affirmative action” for poor students of color while aggressively engaging in affirmative action for affluent Whites?
Gail Collins is a woman. Bret, I’m sure you will be shocked to hear that I’m totally against this kind of change. Universities consider all sorts of factors when they’re picking their next student body — it’s not as if everybody just takes a test and the top 10 percent get to talk to the admissions folks at Harvard.
Gail: If you’re moving on to a college career, you’re going to want to meet a lot of different kinds of people — kids with different talents, different histories, different stories to tell. The idea of racial diversity should not be an admission goal.
The author of the book “Poison Ivy: How Elite Colleges Divide Us” is a professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. The views expressed here are his own. There is more opinion on CNN.
In the lead case, a group called Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) allege that Harvard University’s admissions policies – which sometimes count race as a “plus” factor – have systematically disadvantaged Asian-American applicants. Harvard says that an adverse decision would limit their “freedom and flexibility” to create diverse campus communities.
Ending affirmative action would also be a most regrettable development at a moment when the issue of race in admissions has taken on a broader historical scope to address deeper reparative questions. As Harvard recently acknowledged, the university enslaved more than 70 individuals. The endowment was grown from donors who built their wealth through the slave trade. Other elite schools have made similar acknowledgments, with Georgetown pledging to offer preferential admissions for descendants of slaves.
While Harvard indicated last year it would not require SAT and ACT scores of applicants for the next four years, one recent study found that the test-optional practices which some schools (Harvard among them) have adopted in the wake of the pandemic did nothing to increase the enrollment of low-income students.
Many, like squash and fencing, are effectively foreclosed to socioeconomically disadvantaged children because of their prohibitive costs. And this says nothing of the explicit preference given to the children of faculty, alumni, and donors, who are disproportionately affluent and White.
It is clear from the construction of affirmative action during the Johnson administration that some students need a leg up if they are to meet their qualifications. The agenda of preserving the status quo is obfuscate by this refusal to acknowledge how wealth fuels false notions of objective merit. And this says nothing of the essential contribution that voices of color make in the classroom. If the Court ends affirmative action – as it likely will – it will be nothing less than a tragedy.
The trial judge said no. Harvard would be much less competitive in intercollegiate sports, if tips for ALDC applicants were eliminated, and admissions to Harvard would be more favorable to non-white students. The First Circuit Court of Appeals was in agreement. Discipline, resilience, and teamwork have been demonstrated by athletes. As if working kids who help support their family haven’t!
Burroughs bought almost every aspect of Harvard’s argument. She said that if Harvard eliminated preference for Legacies, applications on the dean’s and directors interest list, and children of faculty, it would affect their ability to attract top quality staff and to achieve desired benefits from their relationships with Harvard. Yet Harvard offered no evidence in support of these claims and research has shown that legacy has no relationship to alumni generosity.