I have been noting with growing concern the spate of anti-affirmative action feeling expressed on this page in recent columns. I haven't quite been able to believe the things I've read but Dave Hemmer's column beat them all. When something so utterly crude comes along you have to be deaf and blind not to beg to differ in a major way. And not just to differ but to take issue. Mr. Hemmer must be a very courageous man because he says things that only blind courage can account for.
He said 1200 as a composite SAT score is a decent enough cutoff point below which admission to a college like Dartmouth would be inexplicable. That's one blanket assumption, but no matter. What follows is a little shocking however: blacks and whites should have different cutoff points because SAT scores tend to underestimate the performance of white folk. Forget about the fact that this is unsubstantiated, it is also a logically flawed piece of nonsense. (Nonsense can have logic but Mr. Hemmer's doesn't).
It takes a lot of personal effort for a black economically disadvantaged person to get those high scores. There's a higher possibility of a white person having private tutorials, going to prep school and generally getting all opportunities to maximize performance on their standardized tests. Now, the poor black kid who makes good scores in SAT has not exploited all his potential for performance since he didn't have all the extra encouragement, prodding and preparation and his performance was almost purely his own effort. If we follow the argument through, the inescapable conclusion is that the SAT score has underestimated the capability of the black kid to perform.
Let's go back to the statistics. You see, good Mr. Hemmer floods his arguments with figures and hopes that they will cover his hogwash. What does saying "only 1,700 out of 400,000 blacks got above 1200 on the SAT" imply? It's about as informative as saying the engine has a problem because it has a problem. The real question is, "why is it that only 1700 blacks got 1200 and above?" My take: because most blacks in this country are disadvantaged socioeconomically due to the legacy of slavery, discrimination and other acts of malfeasance occasioned upon them by the system in past years. If you don't believe that, then you are effectively saying blacks cannot perform well.
Now, when the system does discover that it has been unfair to certain classes of people, what's the most logical step the system should take to remedy the situation? In my humble opinion, if I dare to voice it, that step would be to give them a head start. Now, that may run counter to your legal sense of equality and justice but there's the small issue of equity. It may not be equality to give preferential treatment to people because of their race, but it is in perfect accord with the principle of equity. It's not a hard concept to grasp when you know something about weighting, a procedure most of us are familiar with from high school, but don't think about how it can be applied to affirmative action.
Weighting would basically say that blacks would have performed better on the SAT if they were in the same socioeconomic environment as whites. So instead of looking at a black person's score of 1000 as just 1000, you multiply it by a factor of, let's say 1.2, making an effective score of 1200. Weighting is a totally valid procedure used in a lot of statistical work.
I'm sorry I will not be so nice about Mr. Hemmer's third allegation. He said students in a class expect their peers and professors to be of top quality and that eyes roll when students of color appear in a class. I always thought it was strange that so many people in my Bio 16 class know my face despite the fact that I never say a word. Not that anyone besides the professor ever says a word. At least something in his column makes sense.
It must have been pretty emotionally taxing for Mr. Hemmer to have to sit next to all those minimally talented black folk in his classes. And in the dining hall too! Such an unnecessary endurance test, and all brought to you courtesy of affirmative action. And to think it went on for four years!! But lest he develops the nasty habit of bigotry, I would urge him and all those who have undergone this heart-wrenching , emotionally traumatizing experience to consult with a professional counselor. It will help a great deal because affirmative action seems to want to linger a little longer.
