The Diversity Program in American Universities Essay

The attempts by American universities to create a more diverse student population has caused a great deal of debate among students, faculty and politicians for the past three decades, and has spawned many law suits. If the intention were to make diversity part of the educational process in order to prepare students to live and work in a multicultural world, such a strong reaction would be inexplicable. However, it is generally understood that while the stated aim of the diversity program is to create a more multicultural student body, its real aim is to increase the number of black and Hispanic university students; or, to put it more plainly, the diversity program is a cover for affirmative action.

It was made clear in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978) that racial quotas were unacceptable but that a program “to obtain the educational benefits that flow from an ethnically diverse student body” (Stanford) was condoned by the Supreme Court. In that guise, affirmative action has survived all legal challenges over the past twenty-five years. Diversity has the additional advantage of making any such challenge look like a racist attempt to create homogeneous student populations. In the article “Affirmative Action – and Reaction: Race Is Never Neutral,” Harvard president Lawrence H. Summers and law professor Laurence H. Tribe use that tactic to argue in favor of the University of Michigan’s thinly disguised quota system.

Their first claim is that race is just one of a number of factors taken into account when individual applications are considered to judge what sort of contribution each would make to the education and experience of all students. The Bush administration’s argument, that the top 10% of high school graduates already represent a racially diverse mix, is considered “disingenuous,” and in opposition to the consensus supporting diversity. Summers and Tribe claim that since the Bakke case, universities “have learned that racial diversity helps students confront perspectives other than their own, forcing them to think more rigorously and imaginatively.” Curiously, they go on to claim that encounters with diverse groups leads to the realization that “imagined differences often turn out to be only skin deep,” suggesting that diversity is nothing more than sameness with a different complexion. To put an end to legal challenges, they recommend that the Supreme Court respect “the institutional competence and academic freedom” of the universities by letting them choose their own method of creating diversity.

Nothing is said in their article about compensating racial minorities for the injustices of the past, nor are the writers willing to say how race is weighted relative to other factors. Instead they again point to the “broad consensus” which they seem to think gives universities a mandate to encourage diversity by whatever means available. Only at the end of the article do they indicate that they are interested in racial diversity only, distinguishing between those universities “that take care not to stigmatize or separate students of any racial group but do not shut their eyes to the realities of race,” and universities who do; a rhetorical flourish that would have been unnecessary if they had enumerated the benefits that students receive as part of being on a diverse campus.

The article published in the same edition of the New York Times, “Is Diversity Overrated?” by Stanley Rothman supplies that sort of information, but all of it argues against Summers and Tribe’s position. Rothman and his associates found that diversity fails to raise educational standards and that “students, faculty members and administrators all responded to increasing racial diversity by registering increased dissatisfaction with the quality of education and the work ethic of their peers.” Administrators, when interviewed anonymously, admitted that the diversity program reduces satisfaction with education while increasing racial tension. Rothman also found that bringing a greater number of Hispanic students into a university had no effect on either of these, while more Asian students produced greater satisfaction with education and reduced racial tension. The tendency to “relax” academic standards as part of the racial preference policy is objectionable to 75% of white students and 71% of minority students, Rothman’s research shows. He also found that the diversity program is regarded as having a negative impact on academic standards by fifteen times the number of administrators who see it as positive. The program seems compensatory in nature, an attempt at bringing more blacks into the university system regardless of how poorly they were prepared or how many qualified white candidates have to be rejected to make room for them.

James Traub, in “Forget Diversity,” reminds readers that affirmative action began as a way of creating equal opportunity for everyone in the workplace but that it “carries an explicitly zero-sum connotation; if one group of individuals is being advantaged, another group is, of course, being disadvantaged.” That is why racial quotas are expressly forbidden but affirmative action as instituted by President Lyndon B. Johnson is unworkable without some form of quota system and has therefore been attacked from the beginning for creating “invidious racial categories” (Traub). Just as affirmative action was not designed to create a more diverse workplace, so the diversity program should not be expected to compensate blacks for past injustices, yet that is what it is being used for. Traub points out that “diversity distracts us from a simple but painful truth, which is that persistent black educational failure (and Hispanic failure, to a lesser extent) has made it impossible for the most selective schools to become substantially integrated using their own traditional criteria of merit.” To make up for that, these schools impose racial quotas but always under the guise of greater diversity.

Not surprisingly, 75% of white students object to the diversity program; but if, as Traub says, the diversity program has been a “tremendous boon” for minority students, why do 71% of them object to it, too? The main reason is that the graduates from an affirmative action university are regarded as second rate by definition. Additionally, “many minority students are insulted by the idea that their point of view is determined by their race or ethnicity which reify the differences that the program is meant to eliminate” (Traub). Most people, then, hate the diversity project; in fact, if Traub and Rothman are to be believed, there is a broad consensus opposing the program. The people in favor of it have kept the program alive by avoiding all mention of affirmative action, instead exploiting the Bakke ruling to the full even if that means violating the 14th amendment.

The two Supreme Court decisions also center on the use of diversity as a blind for affirmative action. In the Grutter vs. Bollinger case,

U.S. District Court Judge Bernard A. Friedman ruled that the admissions policies were unconstitutional because they “clearly consider” race and are “practically indistinguishable from a quota system.” In May 2002, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the decision, citing the Bakke decision and allowing the use of race to further the “compelling interest” of diversity. (Wikipedia)

The Supreme Court came out 5-4 in favor of Bollinger, split along the same lines. The majority decision was expressed by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor who used the wording of the Bakke decision as the basis for her own argument in favor of affirmative action but affirmative action meant to increase diversity, not to compensate for earlier injustices. She put a 25-year limit on the diversity program, however, arguing that at the end of that period racial preferences should not be needed. Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, arguing that this decision weakened the principle of equality and that it should be illegal not just in twenty-five years’ time but now (Wikipedia).

The difference between Michigan’s law school’s admission policy and its undergraduate school’s lay in the law school’s “tailored use” of racial preference policy to increase diversity, whereas the undergraduate program’s point system amounted to establishing a racial quota. In other words, both schools had the same end but used slightly different means to get there. This is a clear case of an affirmative action program posing as a diversity program. The objective is to fulfill a racial quote, more specifically to get a certain number of black students, no matter what the administrators may say about achieving a “critical mass” of minority students that would lead to a multicultural experience for all.

If the real intention is to create a diverse student body, argues Amy Ziebarth in her article “Solving the Diversity Dilemma,” preference by class would be much fairer than by race. Any student growing up in an affluent suburb with a good library and school system would have a distinct advantage over any student from a poor area, regardless of race or ethnicity. That such a common-sense observation should have to be made at all is testimony to the volatility of any discussion of race. “A class-based diversity program,” she writes, “will inevitably promote racial diversity in admissions even if they are not explicitly intended to do so” and at the same time will eliminate admissions based on skin color. Race-based programs lower minority students’ self-esteem, she says, “and have bitterly divided Americans on the merits of affirmative action.” Ziebarth’s advocacy of meritocracy is indeed a solution to most of the problems of inequity in American society that President Johnson once set out to correct. Before that can happen, however, university administrators have to confront their own hypocrisy in trying to establish racial quotas under cover of diversity.

Works Cited

Anonymous. “Affirmative Action.” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Rev. 2009. Web.

Anonymous. “Grutter v. Bollinger.” Wikipedia. 2009. Web.

Anonymous. “Gratz v. Bolliner.” Wikipedia. 2009. Web.

Summers, Lawrence H. and Tribe, Laurence H. “Affirmative Action — and Reaction; Race Is Never Neutral.” The New York Times, 2003. Web.

Rothman, Stanley. “Is Diversity Overrated?” The New York Times, 2003. Web.

Ziebarth, Amy. “Solving the Diversity Dilemma.” The New York Times. Web.

Traub, James. “Forget Diversity.” The New York Times. 2003. Web.

Outline

• Introduction: Why is the diversity program so controversial? Because it is affirmative action under another name.
• 2nd paragraph: The Bakke decision taught university administrators that while affirmative action ran counter to the Constitution, a diversity program was acceptable, and was harder to challenge legally without seeming racist.
• 3^rd paragraph: Summers and Tribe argue that race is just one of many factors taken into account by the admission committee. There is a consensus supporting diversity because it provides students with a more rounded education. Furthermore, the Supreme Court should let the universities handle this matter.
• 4^th paragraph: They say nothing about affirmative action but do claim that they are facing up to “the realities of race” in supporting diversity programs. But what are the benefits to students?
• 5^th paragraph: Rothman has the data to rebut their position. Surveys show that students as well as administrators see the diversity program as lowering academic standards and increasing racial tension – but not when Hispanic or Asian student quotas are raised. Clearly it is not diversity that is the objective but bringing more black students into universities.
• 6^th paragraph: James Traub shows that affirmative action was meant to create equal opportunities in the workplace. Diversity programs try to hide the fact of “persistent black educational failure” which forces universities to make use of racial quotas.
• 7^th paragraph: Most white and minority students object to diversity programs in their present form because they downgrade their degrees and reinforce racial and ethnic differences.
• 8^th paragraph: The two Supreme Court decisions are split between diversity and affirmative action. The majority decision is based on the Bakke ruling while the minority cites the prohibition against racial quotas.
• 9^th paragraph: The distinction is seen in the Michigan case, too. Undergraduate school applications included racial weighting, whereas the law school procedure was “narrowly tailored” to greater diversity.
• 10^th paragraph: Amy Zieboth proposes class- rather than race-based preferences. that would ensure diversity and be more meritocratic. It would also solve the problems President Johnson tried to overcome through affirmative action, yet would lessen racial tension.