The Supreme Court decisions on the cases of Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger are not likely to create any great upset. They were well thought-out. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the Court understood that it is the university's prerogative to decide whether racial and ethnic diversity is beneficial to its academic environment. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the Court saw that the university was acting not in the interest of academics but rather in the interest of justice, which is not the mandate of the university, though the interests of academics and justice are by no means mutually exclusive.
But what of justice? How did justice become an issue at all? Is it not good enough that ethnic and racial diversity be beneficial to the quality of an institution's education? Ideally, the answer would be yes. The means by which ethnic and racial diversity are usually achieved in American institutions of higher learning, however, is through a policy originally conceived to provide equal opportunities for all Americans. This policy is affirmative action.
We see therefore how ethnic and racial diversity in the American college is dependent on a purported tool of justice. On the other hand, justice is very likely to lead to ethnic and racial diversity in any pluralistic society, which suggests that affirmative action as a policy of justice may stand for the sake of diversity. The Supreme Court, however, does not see it this way. Instead it notes that "the university's use of race in its current freshman admissions policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondent's asserted compelling interest in diversity, the admission policy violates the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment," with respect to the undergraduate school's point system. In short, the university's action in the name of justice conflicts with that of the Constitution. I would note that for some reason it is affirmative action that is being defended and not ethnic and racial diversity itself.
Why is affirmative action being defended by the University of Michigan? We've already seen that ethnic and racial diversity can be achieved in the university without the consideration of the applicant's ethnicity or race. Texas, for example, automatically offers admission to Texan graduating seniors who are in the top ten percent of their graduating class. Apparently, the policy achieves its objective of ethnic and racial diversity. Why is it that so many people are opposed to such a race-neutral admissions policy? I for one, find the policy repugnant.
The Texas policy, to begin with, is not race-neutral at all. While it does not take into account the individual applicant's ethnicity and race, it certainly relies on a relative homogeneity of ethnicity and race in the state's high schools. Such a system is guaranteed to provide ethnic and racial diversity in universities by virtue that it is implemented in the most racially segregated country in the industrialised world, perhaps with the exception of South Africa. In this case, it seems that diversity relies on a separate and unequal state of affairs, which itself was found to be unjust almost 50 years ago. Ah, back to justice!
We see now both that the University of Michigan's point-system was unjust and that the Texas state schools' percentage-system relies on inherent injustice, albeit not an injustice with which the law has yet been able to deal. Is there any hope of ethnic and racial diversity without resorting to or relying upon injustice? Certainly diversity can be realized without such evils.
The best way to achieve ethnic and racial diversity on the university campus is to achieve a broader just society over all the United States. This may sound utopian, but we must not forget that justice will indeed yield ethnic and racial diversity in a pluralistic society. I for one believe that many if not most would share my opinion. Some, however, such as the University of Michigan, would go as far as assert that it is by recruiting an ethnically and racially diverse academic elite, by any means if necessary, that justice will be brought about in the larger context of society. The means are most often affirmative action.
There is nowhere near enough room to treat this position, so I will be sparing. First of all, there is still no consensus as to whether affirmative action actually provides equal opportunities. In fact, there is much evidence to suggest that affirmative action is more beneficial to middle-class minority applicants than to poor ones, thus arguably over-representing the minority middle-class. Secondly, the statistics bear out that those few poor minority applicants who are admitted to college become middle or upper-middle class graduates. They do well for themselves, but their community of origin is unlikely to benefit from their success.
If not affirmative action as a solution, then what?
I have no answer to my question. We don't deal with this problem in Canada to nearly the same degree. All I can say is that if ethnic and racial diversity in American universities can only be achieved through a broad social justice, then justice must be done and be seen. Justice requires great investment of resources, including time, energy, money, ideas and most importantly, spirit. Maybe if America were to spend as much on justice as it does on war, this country would be a much better place. At this point, I usually recommend that America look to Canada as a role-model in the conduct of a just society. Unfortunately, the United States is saddled with the much heavier burden of its past, both distant and more recent. Nevertheless, there can be no greater cause than justice, and there ought be no better champion of justice than the most powerful country this earth has ever known.
