NPR hosted an interesting roundtable discussion about the future of race preferences (although it uses the misnomer “affirmative action”) in the context of the election of a biracial president. NPR did a fair job selecting participants for this panel. Writer Dahlia Lithwick sounds only slightly pro-preferences, BAMN’s Shanta Driver is pro-preferences, and John McWhorter is opposed to race-based admissions policies.
The two women point out that enrollment in California schools dropped after voters barred the government from considering race in admissions, but McWhorter added that in subsequent years, minority admissions increased as schools sought ways to bring qualified minorities to campuses.
McWhorter asks “whether it’s really such a tragedy” that a black student gets a degree from the University of California at San Diego rather than UC Berkeley, in the absence of race-based admissions. (I often wonder the same thing. It is really such a tragedy that minority enrollment at “elite” schools would decrease under race-blind admissions policies?) More important, McWhorter notes that there is no documented educational benefit to diversity. He believes we should keep affirmative action based on class and economic disadvantage, which the American Civil Rights Institute supports. What I assume McWhorter means by economic affirmative action is widening the admissions pool with more disadvantaged candidates and not lowering standards to admit these students.
If we have a two-tied system of admissions, says McWhorter, we’re going to have to talk about the effect of it. Too many people talk around it. As someone on the inside (a college professor), he’s seen the results. Blacks and Hispanics admitted under lowered standards graduate at lower rates, and there is a stigma associated with being admitted under preferences.
Interesting discussion. Got an extra 30 minutes in your schedule? Listen to it in full.
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