"That's not what we meant!", pt. 2 - Today's SCOTUS decision in Parents v. Seattle (and Meredith v. Jefferson) did as was widely expected. As described by the New York Times, the decision "sharply limited the ability of school districts to manage the racial makeup of the student bodies in their schools."

The court voted, 5 to 4, to reject diversity plans from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., declaring that the districts had failed to meet "their heavy burden" of justifying "the extreme means they have chosen — discriminating among individual students based on race by relying upon racial classifications in making school assignments," as Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. wrote for the court.

Today's decision, one of the most important in years on the issue of race and education, need not entirely eliminate race as a factor in assigning students to different schools, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote in a separate opinion. But it will surely prompt many districts to review and perhaps revise programs they already have in place, or go back to the drawing boards in designing plans.

The opinion's rationale relied in part on the historic 1954 decision in Brown vs. Board of Education that outlawed segregation in public schools — a factor that the dissenters on the court found to be a cruel irony, and which they objected to in emotional terms.

The majority's reliance on Brown is not entirely surprising in that, as discussed elsewhere, "the goal of Brown v. Board was achieving race neutrality in education. School assignment programs that consider race, much like affirmative action, do little to advance the goal of race-neutral education policies."

But beyond the legal mechanics of this decision, two recent trends have played themselves out to the effect that race-sensitive programs are difficult to defend. First, as the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow discrimination recedes further from our collective consciousness, it has become more difficult to make the case that present discrimination is necessary to make up for past unjustices. (And the current crop of civil rights leaders has been woefully inadequate in making a case for the former as redress for the latter, often reduced to camera-ready but otherwise ineffectual protests or loud "mau-mauing" on cable talk shows.)

But perhaps more importantly, as society has become more diverse in its preferences and more tolerant in its mores and attitudes, we have a generation of whites that is largely devoid of any collective guilt about race or racial privilege. They have come of age in what is for all practical purposes a post-affirmative action era. These 20- to 30-somethings lack any sense that opportunity is denied to anyone in any meaningful way; from their standpoint, the heavy lifting is done vis-a-vis race.

At most, society in general (and SCOTUS more specifically) seems willing to entertain race being used as one of several factors for consideration, with ethnicity not carrying more weight than any other circumstance. In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts makes as much of that very argument.

In the present cases, by contrast, race is not considered as part of a broader effort to achieve "exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints,"...race, for some students, is determinative standing alone. The districts argue that other factors, such as student preferences, affect assignment decisions under their plans, but under each plan when race comes into play, it is decisive by itself.

In the end, the Left's talk of educational diversity is as much of a diversion as are its obsessions with per-pupil spending, teacher salaries and the "achievement gap" between the races. All of these things are designed to obscure the fact that the educational system is woefully inadequate by any measure. We know that 12th graders are performing worse on the NAEP test than in 1992, and that schools have become more focused on indoctrination than instruction. One wonders whether the situation would improve if school districts spent less time "focusing on fads such as self-esteem, Afrocentrism or Heather's Two Mommies", and more attention on, well...education.

Affirmative Reaction Roundup - Perchance the Left’s infatuation with affirmative action reflects their sense, however opaquely veiled, that African American students are in fact intellectually inferior to whites, Hispanics and Asians. There certainly seems to be unanimity of opinion among both black and white liberals that black students are unfit to compete with any but the most addle-minded white school children. The difference, as any exists, is in their sense of the method (and in the minds of more than a few liberal elites, necessity) of remediation. Most liberals will publicly espouse their interest in improving educational outcomes for black children.

Blacks by and large believe that the variances in academic performance between students of each race reflect a disparate allocation of resources between communities (ergo, equal funding will lead to equal performance.) However, the liberal thought leaders who direct education policy for school systems that serve African American students never speak directly to the issue of black educational excellence, which is to say, preparing black kids to do their absolute best. The talk is always of “closing the educational gap,” or something equally imprecise.

Framing the discussion in terms of an education gap frees liberal educators to vainly experiment with various educational techniques, such as the so-called “whole language” method or outcome-based education; any modicum of improvement, however modest, is seen as a great success, especially in light of the insurmountable odds that the educators were up against. But rather than engaging in masturbatory self-congratulation, liberals would do well to at least acknowledge that they have had a death grip on the entire enterprise of education, from wielding control over teacher training and certification, to budgeting for schools, to negotiating contracts for inner-city teachers and principals.

They have resisted every effort at meaningful reform, to include more rigorous standards for teacher credentialing, increased parental involvement and of course, educational vouchers. In all of this time, the educational performance of black students has stagnated at every level. And all the while, white academic (read intellectual) superiority, and by extension white supremacy, has remained unchallenged. If liberals were genuinely concerned about the education of black kids, they would implement a more exacting pedagogy in the classroom, and would have higher expectations of parents and the culture at large.

In practice, affirmative action appears to represent a case of “too little, too late.” Innumerable studies have shown that scholastic performance for black and white students begins to diverge as early as kindergarten, with many African American students not fully prepared or motivated to learn on day one of their educational careers. The factors that create this disparity are at work early on in the lives of black children and manifest themselves very quickly. It makes little sense therefore for African Americans to place so much emphasis on a program that does not take effect until at least 18 years after the problems of underperformance of black students have manifested themselves, and does not bear fruit until many years after that.

We ought to be crystal clear about one thing regarding Michigan's recent adoption of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative as it pertains to the larger conversation on race in America. This rejection of race and gender-based affirmative action by voters is a watershed event. Affirmative action taken by itself defines the fuzzy margins of liberalism, and adds punctuation to it's unspoken, but very essential underlying thesis. Namely, that liberal elites are comfortable dispensing petty largess as long as the recipients are never in a position to compete with them for special consideration in employment and education.

This exegesis on affirmative action reveals one more central tenet of liberalism. At it's core, liberalism is racist and elitist. It is beyond coincidence that Michigan was the stage for this recent drama. As a state, Michigan is as politically liberal as it is racially segregated.

Affirmative Reaction, pt. 5 - Worst of all, I am concerned that affirmative action reinforces certain stereotypes. In all candor, I confess that my initial impulse is to be not at all concerned about any “stigma” that affirmative action supposedly places on black college students of being judged less qualified by their peers. (Personal experience has taught me that those who make assumptions about black students based on the possibility that they may have benefited from affirmative action are prone to make unfounded assumptions about blacks in general, and that any effort expended on disproving their assumptions would be wasted.) My fear is that affirmative action reinforces a stereotype in the minds of blacks, namely that of blacks as supplicants, begging for scraps from the table of white educational elites, rather than using the tools currently at our disposal to improve educational outcomes in our community.

Affirmative action programs would seem to embed the notion in black students that their future opportunities and successes are contingent on the good graces of whites. Moreover, black youngsters learn the notion that the good graces of white society are not to be earned by their own efforts, but dispensed at the caprice of the white majority. Affirmative action may also reinforce the belief, at least among black parents, that black children are hopelessly unable to compete with white (and Asian) children intellectually and that the most that they can hope to be is what Dr. Carter would describe as the “best black.” Affirmative action programs seem to be of a piece with efforts to reduce or avoid competition among children in general, including everything from youth soccer leagues not keeping score during their games to having multiple valedictorians at high school graduations.

My sense is that proponents of affirmative action are also aware of the potential for damage to the self-esteem of beneficiaries. Maybe the self-defeating nature of affirmative action is best evidenced by the fact that the benefactors are never explicit about who actually gets the nod. If affirmative action is such a wonderful thing for the students and for society, then colleges should send “Dear Affirmative Action Recipient” letters to each student. These letters should state clearly that the applicant was accepted based upon the college’s affirmative action program, tell them what role their race played in their selection versus other factors (i.e.: how many “points” they received based upon their “disadvantaged circumstances”) and show how the student’s academic credentials compare with those of the average student accepted by the college. The letter might even list the name of the white (or more likely, Asian) student that was rejected in favor of the affirmative action beneficiary. The fact that this almost never happens tells us much about the motivations of the proponents of affirmative action.

We're almost done!

Affirmative Reaction, pt. 4 - Beyond any concerns about interracial equity, affirmative action has served to create a greater concentration of wealth within the black community. Black educational elites become black economic elites who spend more of their time and resources with their economic peers, black or white. Those blacks who do not directly benefit from affirmative action are poorly placed to benefit indirectly as they are largely unable to provide the highly specialized services needed by the black economic elites. Thus, affirmative action serves to create and reinforce fault lines within a black community that is already fractured by class and education. In his book, Dr. Stephen Carter (see pt. 3) cites data from various sources to include the National Research Council in order to speak to the failure of affirmative action as a lever for socio-economic uplift for blacks.

What has happened in black America in the era of affirmative action is this: middle-class black people are better off and lower-class black people are worse off. Income stratification (the difference between the median income of the top fifth and the bottom fifth of earners) in the black community has increased sharply, even as it has softened in the white community. At the same time, recent studies have shown considerable convergence between black and white workers at the high end: that is, the number of black people in the higher-paying professional positions is growing faster than the number of white people.

Another concern that can be raised regarding affirmative action is the fact that the black community as a whole has absolutely no control over any of the programs. Neither the NAACP, nor the National Urban League, nor the Rainbow/Push Coalition nor any other body in the constellation of civil rights organizations has one iota of control over any of the programs at the individual colleges. The black community has no say in which schools will offer affirmative action programs, the number of affirmative action slots available at each college, the criteria that will be used to determine a recipient's “merit” or which students will be beneficiaries of a program. Affirmative action therefore is not and can never be a part of any cohesive strategy to raise the overall status of African Americans.

Still more to come...

Affirmative Reaction, pt. 3 - As implemented in the educational setting today, affirmative action appears to be predicated on the notion that in order to have black professionals graduating from first-tier schools, those schools must accept second-tier black applicants. Ironically, most individual beneficiaries of affirmative action in college admissions to so-called elite universities would probably be able to get into the vast majority of colleges anywhere in the world without affirmative action. Clearly, these students will get admitted to a college somewhere. The only question in that case is whether they or their parents will be on the hook for $30,000 or more a year in tuition at an elite school or $10,000 or less a year someplace else. (Paradoxically, the argument that admission to elite colleges will help blacks break into the “old-boy network” is a tacit admission that affirmative action proponents are not as concerned about proper definitions of “merit” as they are about group-based privilege.)

And of course, there is the question of what can be done for students who do not go on to college. Affirmative action provides no help or hope for those who do not graduate from high school or those graduates who have no intention on continuing their education. In his seminal work on the subject of affirmative action, Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby, Stephen L. Carter describes one of the central flaws of affirmative action.

[I]t is something of a puzzle that critics of affirmative action continue to be told they do not appreciate the disadvantage of the black people who are most deprived. The degree of one’s support for affirmative action in the professions bears no relation to the degree of one’s concern about the situation of the black people who are worst off, for the programs do them little good. In this sense, affirmative action, to borrow a phrase from W.E.B. DuBois, has been haunted by the ghost of an untrue dream. All the efforts at seeking to justify racial preferences as justice or compensation mask the simple truth that among those training for business and professional careers, the benefits of affirmative action fall to those least in need of them.

But the real tragedy is that affirmative action does little in the way of providing an impetus for educational reform that will impact the greatest number of black students. If anything, it enables the current system of “separate and unequal” education to continue by masking its results. The school systems that educate most African American children allow for roughly 50 percent of them to drop out of high school prior to graduation in many areas, with those who do graduate woefully unprepared to move into the job market. (The fact that most of these school systems are dominated at every level by liberals ought not escape notice.)

Still more to follow...

Affirmative Reaction, pt. 2 - To loosely paraphrase an old saying, opinions about affirmative action are like nostrils; everyone has two. Research from the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press presented in 2003 reflects that Americans hold conflicted attitudes regarding affirmative action.

In the current poll, conducted April 30 -– May 4 among 1,201 adults nationwide, 63 percent say they favor “affirmative action programs designed to help blacks, women, and other minorities get better jobs and education.” There is somewhat less support (57 percent) when the question specifically mentions giving “special preferences” to women and minorities. A more pointed Pew question last year that stressed “preferential treatment” but did not mention affirmative action, past discrimination or women, found only 24 percent supporting “every possible effort” to improve the position of minorities.

Affirmative action has been a subject of controversy since before the Supreme Court'’s ruling in University of California Regents vs. Bakke in 1978, and to be of two minds about affirmative action shows that you'’ve probably thought about the issue more than once. On the one hand, affirmative action serves as an affront to every notion of meritocracy that American mythology rests upon. On the other hand, for its supporters, affirmative action is a harmless acknowledgement of and response to this nation’s long history of race-based oppression. A few otherwise privileged white kids not withstanding, no one really gets hurt, a few people benefit, and everybody feels better in the end. Perhaps that explains the program'’s durability over several decades.

When I think upon my own experience after high school and critically examine the pros and cons of affirmative action more generally, it occurs to me that one of the most common arguments made against affirmative action is the least effective. Affirmative action’s detractors make the case that the program is injurious to notions that suggest that merit needs to be the determining factor in college admissions. The fact is that affirmative action does less harm to the idea of merit than things like legacy admissions and athletic scholarships to colleges, and the “old-boy network” in the private sector.

Because we cannot define "merit” any more absolutely than we can define “freedom” or “democracy,” we can only define merit in its absence. (Is merit defined by performance in the classroom or on standardized tests? Should merit be based at all on past performance or on untapped potential? Is achievement in the face of overwhelming odds such as a substandard educational environment, family dissolution or financial stress a form of current merit?) It is therefore nearly impossible to say with absolute certainty that students who enter colleges under the auspices of affirmative action programs are generally of less merit relative to their peers who are denied admission. Indeed, what often masquerades as academic merit is simply the result of expensive preparation, such as private tutoring and SAT prep courses.

The ambiguity surrounding the definition of merit complicates any discussion of the benefits of affirmative action. But at the same time, affirmative action as it is most commonly applied in the setting of education creates its own complications as it regards the discussion of qualifications, in that it necessitates separate systems for evaluating candidates that are almost universally based on the race of the applicant. I must confess that my disappointment with affirmative action stems from its lack of efficacy in improving the quality of life for the larger black community, irrespective of affirmative action'’s impact on my life personally. On that score, affirmative action has been an ineffective tool for the uplift of the masses of African Americans.

More to follow...

Affirmative Reaction - On the last post, I commended to your attention the fact that the recent mid-term elections represented a reaffirmation of genuine conservatism. As we process the fallout from November 7th, it is increasingly clear that voters spoke in favor of classically right-wing positions, and rejected ersatz Republicanism. To wit, seven more states rejected gay marriage. In addition, Arizonans expressed their desire that English be the official language of their state. And even in the newly "Democratized" Congress, the majority of Representatives and Senators-elect ran as centrists or conservatives.

But perhaps the most direct evidence speaking to the resilience of conservatism is the rejection of affirmative action by voters in Michigan. In one of the most azure states in the union, Proposal 2 - otherwise known as the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) - was affirmed by a 58% to 42% margin, despite the fact that supporters of the measure were outspent by at least 2 to 1. The MCRI will outlaw giving preferential treatment to individuals based on race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment or education. Opponents say the proposition will make it difficult to maintain "diversity" on college campuses and in the workplace. For their part, supporters posit that the MCRI will make Michigan a place of equal opportunity - if not equal results - for all.

In subsequent posts, we will examine the underlying assumptions that make affirmative action so problematic from a practical standpoint. As we will see, it has proven to be a net negative for the supposed beneficiaries in particular and for society at large.