Among the many cases on the Supreme Court docket, one pair of lawsuits threatens to ignite a firestorm over diversity, race and higher education. Briefs in Gratz v. Bollinger and Grutter v. Bollinger, a pair of legal challenges to the University of Michigan's race-based admissions guidelines (for the undergraduate and law programs, respectively), are due in a few weeks. How the court rules on these cases will likely set legal precedent for colleges across the nation.
The affirmative action practice under fire in these suits is the point-based system that Michigan uses to admit applicants. For those unfamiliar with the procedure, each section of a prospective student's application is worth a given number of points. The points for the entire application are then totaled and Mighican (based on the number of students it wants to admit) establishes a point-threshold for admission -- be on the line or above it and you're in; come up a point short and expect the thin letter.
High school GPA is a dominant factor in the point equation. A perfect 4.0 GPA is worth 80 points. A 3.0 is worth 60 points. (For reference, the threshold for admission is around 100 points.) A perfect 1600 SAT counts for 12 points. Students can earn a few more points for curriculum strength, geographical residence, family legacies, leadership and academic recognition. The college essay -- that source of so much agonizing -- is worth three points at most.
But there's one factor left over: race. Minority students get a 20-point bonus on the application. To put that in perspective, that's one-fifth of the total required for admission. Skin color is worth more points than the essay, test scores and "personal achievement" combined. Indeed, a minority student with a 400 SAT and gibberish in the essay blank comes out five points ahead of a white student with a 1600 SAT and a Shakespearean response. That example is severe, but it reflects the extent to which race matters at the University of Michigan. The point system is not exactly a racial quota (which was ruled unconstitutional in Bakke v. Regents of the University of California 25 years ago), but it is a thinly-disguised imitation.
The University of Michigan staunchly defends its policy by claiming that a diverse student body as an integral part of higher education. That diversity is good is hardly in dispute -- having classmates from all walks of life exposes students to different perspectives on the issues they study and fosters debate. What is appalling is the narrow lens through which Michigan defines diversity. When the it says "diversity" it means racial and economic diversity alone -- only racial minorities and the financially underprivileged get a 20-point diversity boost to their scores. Equally important concerns like religious, sexual and intellectual diversity are ignored. The diversity that Michigan officials are so enraptured with is skin-deep; it's the kind of diversity that makes for good statistics and brochure photos, but not a meaningful academic experience. Michigan has engineered a student body of people who look different but think the same. It's hard to see how that kind of diversity is as important to college education as academic merit.
Michigan's motives are noble, no doubt. Minorities suffered legal discrimination in the past, and that discrimination was the original source of the educational disparity between those groups and the general population. The lure of handing out bonus points, lowering standards and artificially leveling test scores to help disadvantaged students is strong. But even though the intent is right, the mechanism -- reverse discrimination -- is wrong. Making race a critical factor in admissions penalizes and rewards students based not on their talent, dedication or achievement, but on a factor over which they have no control: the color of their skin. Besides, affirmative action programs like Michigan's are superficial, top-down fixes that ignore the root problems like crumbling urban schools and high drop-out rates that perpetuate inequality.
Worse, preference programs hold back real progress. If racial preferences were eliminated tomorrow, minority enrollment at top-tier schools like Michigan would drop -- that reflects the current educational gap between minorities and whites. But the often-ignored companion phenomenon is that minority enrollment in tier-two schools would shoot up. Doubtless those schools will be thrilled to have every qualified, motivated minority applicant they get. If anything, minority students will end up in colleges better tailored to their academic needs, collect degrees without the strings of preference attached and improve their earning power. Rather than being hurt by the colorblind system, disadvantaged students will get the opportunity to level economic and educational divide in America.
In Michigan's defense, it isn't the only university fixated on race when it comes to weighing applications; colleges all do the same thing. But, while small private schools like Dartmouth can afford to scrutinize each application and make decisions on a one-by-one basis, large public universities like Michigan don't have that luxury. If anything, at least Michigan has been honest about the role of race in their admissions system.
I'm not saying that race and ethnicity shouldn't be a factor in college admissions -- all aspects of a student's life should be considered. But skin color shouldn't make or break an application, as it does at Michigan. Social concerns matter, but let merit carry the day. The Supreme Court should take this opportunity to do away with race-centric admissions so that all students -- black or white, male or female, straight or gay, rich or poor " can get to the real business of learning.
