Heather McDonald has done her normal bang up job in her latest piece for the City Journal entitled “Elites to Anti-Affirmative-Action Voters: Drop Dead” Heather looks at how the University of California has spent 10 years trying circumvent Propsition 209 which prohibits any race or gender preferences in government or education.
I spent three years teaching social studies in the South Bronx. Almost all my students were black or Hispanic. Some of my students were very bright and aspired to go to a college like Harvard. I tried to encourage them to work hard toward that goal and gave what I thought was practical advice (if it was at all possible financially) to take a Kaplan or Princeton Review SAT prep class. But where I think I failed these students was in not really challenging them enough academically. That was probably in large part my failing as a teacher, but it was also because even in honors classes so few students were prepared to be challenged the way kids at suburban high schools were challenged.
As a former legal head-hunter in New York City, I understand the value of an elite degree, the opportunities such a degree offers. I really want my former students to have those opportunities. A few times in a class discussion one of my students would talk about whether or not they should check the (minority) “box” on a college application. I encouraged them to do what they thought was right, but that I thought they should take every advantage they could get. I still think that.
But despite this, or perhaps because of this, I think racial preferences are wrong. I don’t resent them personally. But I truly believe that we as a society should be moving towards color blindness. I understand we are nowhere near that yet. But we are a heck of a lot closer to it today then we were when I was born 40 years ago. To me, the question is: what is the best course to get to a color blind society? I think first and foremost the government should treat everyone equally as an individual, not as a representative of an ethnic group. Universities should drop race as a consideration and seek out real diversity of experience, culture, and opinion. Do you think the admissions office has ever asked itself if there is a lack of NASCAR fans at Harvard? Of Republicans? Of students whose parents didn’t go to college?
As for my former students, I say keep working for your goals. No matter where you go to college there will be opportunities. How hard you work can be just as, if not more, important than where you go to college. Don’t complain about discrimination, work harder and you can overcome it. But if someone wants to give you an advantage because of your ethnicity, I say take it. Maybe that’s hypocritical, but just because someone is a hypocrite doesn’t mean they are wrong. My Dad after all told me not to smoke even though he smoked nearly his whole life. Didn’t make him wrong.
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Great Job!
Although I must correct you on one small thing, the term to address spanish-speaking people is Latino. Meaning that we do not deny our European, Indigenous, or African descent. Hipanic is a term giving to us by the government to categories us. Yet I do agree with you that race, your ethnicity shouldn't be taken into consideration when it comes to a decision such as college acceptence, etc. I do believe that there are certain individuals that do need that extra push to help them succeed and reach that point in which they "belong" at. Even though right now, the year 2008, your ethnicity/race shouldn't be such an important factor, but things haven't change much from 10-20 years ago, things are now in days are placed under a blindfold. A person should be judge on their ability to perform the task. As you said, yet if the opportunity is given to you because of your ethnicity or cultural background, accept it, and use it to your advantage.
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