Race-Neutral Effect on Minority Representation Modest
In “Assessing the Impact of Eliminating Affirmative Action in Higher Education,” Jessica S. Howell of California State University, Sacramento, acknowledges that declines in minority representation at colleges and universities in California and Texas, states that bar the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals or groups based on race in hiring, contracting, and admissions, have been characterized in mainstream media as “sharp.”
Her study set out to answer the question, how would minority representation be affected by a national ban on racial preferences?
The effect Howell found was modest. A nationwide ban would result in a 10 percent drop in black and Hispanic enrollment in selective colleges and universities, and a 2 percent drop overall in four-year institutions.
Commenting on the study on Minding the Campus, Roger Clegg says race neutrality’s effect on minority representation may be modest, but the effect of racial discrimination on others is not.
‘[H]ere are some of the costs of this discrimination: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school; it encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it mismatches students and institutions, guaranteeing failure for many of the former; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership.”
Download the 65-page study. (PDF)
