There is a conflict of interest currently occurring in America. In a country where dreams are supposed to come true, every person does not always have the same access to their dreams. Whether it is gender, race, or socioeconomic status, many Americans have barriers that must be overcome in order to succeed. In order to combat this problem of a lack of fairness and increase the probability of reaching one’s dreams, the government has created laws like Affirmative Action. In reading about these laws, one can only ponder whether or not they have led to a rise in the craving for diversity by universities and companies. Don’t get me wrong, I am an advocate of diverse environments both in the collegial and professional settings. I am just concerned that a current Supreme Court case may halt some industries quest for diversity.
Fisher v. University of Texas, No. 11-345, a case brought up by a Caucasian student named Abigail Fischer who was denied admission to the University of Texas, is the case that threatens the future of diverse environments in this country. As teachers in a school system where the majority of the students served are minorities, we must remain knowledgeable about the possible obstacles that may rise as a result of this in the coming years. In the past, legislation required schools to consider race when selecting students for admission. This was put in place so that the institution would have both academic and racial diversity. The Grutter decision, however, addressed arguments against this fact by allowing states to take account of race in admissions as opposed to requiring them. At the present time, several states, including California and Michigan, banned the practice, and public universities in both states have seen a drop in minority admissions. If this Supreme Court case totally reverses the legislation that supports Affirmative Action, all of our students will be faced with even more challenges when trying to enter an institution of higher learning.
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5 comments:
Your post really resonated with me. I too recognize the challenges that our students potentially face. There has always been a lot of backlash about the idea of affirmative action. The idea that cultural diversity should have no bearing is ludicrous. When an entire student body population is homogeneous, how do you have creative ideas or new discussions? All the students are exactly the same. They have the same schema, same thought process, similar experiences. It is only through exposure to new ways of thinking, and people who have lived vastly different lives that you really get that collegiate experience you're supposed to. At the end of the day, regardless of how you were accepted to an institution of higher learning, it is the work that you do while you're there that determines whether you walk across the stage. Thank you for bringing this case to our attention. As urban educators, we have to make our students aware of the post secondary education options and the barriers or obstacles they could face. We must strive to prepare them so well academically, that there can never be a question of their qualifications to attend the schools they get accepted to.
Christine, thanks for bringing the news about Fisher to light. I had not previously heard about this, and because I teach a lesson about affirmative action in my American history class, I’m all the more grateful to your post for keeping me abreast of contemporary issues revolving this controversial topic.
As a point of full disclosure, I was once against affirmative action policies, especially during my junior and senior years of high school, when my friends and I became – for lack of a better term – college-conscious. Growing up in the upper-middle class white suburbs of New York’s Rockland County, where many successful doctors, lawyers, and bankers reside, I saw affirmative action as reverse discrimination. Along with many of my classmates, I reasoned that admitting a minority student with a lower grade-point average or SAT score to a college in place of his or her white counterpart with better grades was simply unfair. Moreover, I vividly remember the awkward silences and palpable tension that marked the small group discussions about diversity and affirmative action during my freshman orientation at Boston College. Again, for full disclosure I should point out that the student body of my beloved alma mater is not typically lauded as a beacon of diversity.
Ironically, it was at this mostly white, middle-class university that my views about diversity and affirmative action began to change, and I am proud of the intellectual growth I have undergone since my teenage years. Therefore, I would like to offer two thoughts about affirmative action, and I hope that they both continue the dialogue begun in your post.
First, diversity is a much broader idea than our conceptions of it allow for. We think about diversity in terms of ethnicity, religion, socioeconomic status, and gender, and while we should not discount the importance of ensuring that people from all of the groups in those categories are afforded opportunities, I fear that we too often discredit the other ways that people can be diverse and different. As I discovered at BC, even two white, middle-class people from the Northeast can be incredibly different from one another, and those differences helped make my college experience the treasure that it was.
Secondly, it seems that the dialogue about affirmative action centers around the issues of fairness and equality, which are too easily conflated. The teenager in me said, “If you want fairness, treat the applicants equally,” which meant holding them both to the same academic standards. However, fair does not always mean equal, as any teacher who provides extended time or modified materials to a student with an IEP can attest. Perhaps the word that better names what affirmative action wants for American society is not “fairness” but “justice,” which sometimes means not treating people equally but treating them as equals.
By treating people as equals rather than equally, affirmative action can help build a more just America, a place where all of humanity’s diversity is honored and celebrated with the dignity that it deserves.
Thanks for the thought-provoking post and for giving me the chance to ramble!
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