DOCUMENT RESUME ED 471 736 HE 035 569 Corcoran, Jerome M. AUTHOR Should Affirmative Action Be a Factor in Admissions for TITLE Higher Education? 2002-00-00 PUB DATE NOTE 22p. Reports Evaluative (142) PUB TYPE EDRS Price MF01/PC01 Plus Postage. EDRS PRICE *Affirmative Action; *College Admission; *Diversity DESCRIPTORS (Student); *Higher Education; *Racial Factors; *Selective Admission ABSTRACT Selective higher education institutions using race-sensitive criteria as a basis for admissions risk litigation by nonminority applicants with impressive test scores and class rank who find themselves denied admission. Are the benefits of a diverse student body worth the risk? In an ever increasingly diverse population, this paper concludes the end justifies the means. There is more than enough evidence to support the benefits of diversity on campus for all students. The use of affirmative action helps higher education achieve the goal of providing the best possible learning environment for everyone. (Contains 29 references.) (SLD) /IL= *0 0 s-D Affirmative Action 1 Running head: AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN HIGHER EDUCATION Should Affirmative Action be a Factor in Admissions for Higher Education? Jerome M. Corcoran Northern Illinois University PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION arccr(ill Office of Educational Research and Improvement EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) This document has been reproduced as received from the person or organization originating it. TO THE EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES Minor changes have been made to INFORMATION CENTER (ERIC) improve reproduction quality. 1 Points of view or opinions stated in this document do not necessarily represent official OERI position or poky. BM COPY AV 2 Affirmative Action 2 Abstract Selective higher education institutions using race-sensitive criteria as a basis for admissions risk litigation by nonminority applicants with impressive test scores and class-rank who find themselves denied admission. Are the benefits of a diverse student body worth the risk? In an ever-increasingly diverse population, the author concludes the end justifies the means. 3 Affirmative Action 3 Should Affirmative Action be a Factor in Admissions for Higher Education? Of all the issues facing higher education in 2002, none seem more potentially volatile than the practice of admitting students based on criteria outside of grade point average and standardized test results. In California, Texas and Maryland, college affirmative action programs have been abolished and the number of underrepresented minority students may drop at some of the most selective institutions as a result of this action. Defenders of a race-sensitive admissions policy feel that the action is justified by the need to atone for years of oppression and ongoing discrimination in society. It is not uncommon for admissions officers to look beyond candidates' test scores and grades by considering athletes and legacies as criteria for acceptance. They argue that admitting a diverse class gives students of all races better preparation for living and working in an increasingly diverse society (Bowen & Bok, p. xxiv). Critics of a race-conscious admissions policy for selective institutions maintain that it is fundamentally wrong to place nonminority applicants with good grades and high test scores behind minority candidates with equal or less impressive grades and test scores on the basis of race. They suggest that admissions officers could end up accepting minority students who are not disadvantaged, but actually come from wealthier and more privileged lifestyles than those being rejected. Some also feel that by admitting students with less-impressive credentials, one is actually stigmatizing and demoralizing minority students by forcing them to compete with classmates of greater academic ability. Overall, critics claim that race-sensitive policies accentuate racial differences, intensify prejudice and impede progress toward a color-blind society (Ibid., p. xxiii). 4 Affirmative Action 4 Literature Review To fully understand affirmative action, one needs to begin by reviewing its origin. The concept was introduced in 1941 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in Executive Order 8802 which stated there should not be discrimination in employment in the defense industry or government because of race, creed, color, or national origin. It was assumed that blacks were the intention of this action (Skrentny). The term "affirmative action" first appeared in President John F. Kennedy's Executive Order 10925, and was repeated in 1964 by President Lyndon B. Johnson's Executive Order 11246 which encouraged, "affirmative action to ensure that applicants are employed, and that applicants are treated during employment, without regard to their race, creed, color, or national origin" (Ibid.). That same year, the Civil Rights Act was passed and two offices were created to enforce non-discrimination: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance. One of the challenges that goes with discussing affirmative action is that it groups together a large number of differing areas and programs, i.e., awarding contracts to minority-owned businesses, policies for hiring and promoting, and, for purposes of review in this paper, admissions policies in higher education. The question of who should go to college has long been debated. If one assumes that educational attainment should have an effect on financial and professional success, then a strong case can be made for ensuring access to public higher education for everyone. Unfortunately, our nation has a long history of treating people differently because of their race. The height of segregation was the decision in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) that stated an 1890 Louisiana law called "An Act to Promote the Comfort for Passengers" by 5 Affirmative Action 5 providing separate-but-equal accommodations on passenger trains for whites and people of color was constitutional and applied to education. At that point, the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment had become subject to custom and tradition no matter how clearly the law affected a particular classification of people (Alexander & Alexander). The Supreme Court ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) was the first major step toward school desegregation in the South (Bickel). Linda Brown had been forced to travel twenty-one blocks to attend an all black school despite living only two blocks from a local school. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) saw this as an opportunity to challenge the "separate but equal" doctrine and filed a brief on behalf of the Brown family arguing that the Fourteenth Amendment indicated that the policy established by Plessy was unconstitutional. The court ordered immediate desegregation of public schools, and for the first time in the nation's history, blacks would be admitted to Southern white schools (Ibid.). In 1955, Martin Luther King led efforts to desegregate public transportation, schools, and places of public accommodation in the South. By the mid-1960s, there was a rising concern over civil rights and a few Northeast colleges and universities began actively recruiting students of color. However, the number of minorities actually enrolled in select institutions in New England made up only one percent of the total student population leading schools to review their standards for admission and financial aid (Bowen & Bok). 6 Affirmative Action 6 In 1965, the Harvard Law School unveiled a special summer program for juniors from historically black colleges to interest them in law. One year later, the school began enrolling black students with test scores below those of white classmates. Soon, a number of the leading colleges and universities realized that besides having a role to play in educating minority students, they also wanted to enrich the education of all students by including race as a criterion for admission so as to develop a diverse student population with varying talents, backgrounds and perspectives. Their efforts began to pay off as the percentage of blacks enrolled in Ivy League Colleges rose from 2.3 percent in 1967 to 6.3 percent in 1976 (Ibid.). In June 1978, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), regarding a charge of reverse discrimination. Bakke alleged that the medical school's special admissions program excluded him from the school because of his race in violation of his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Court found that the admissions program implemented a racial quota by designating sixteen places in the class of one hundred as reserved for minority applicants. The Court held that the Equal Protection Clause requires that no applicant can be rejected because of race in favor of another person less qualified, as measured by standards applied without regard to race. Justice Lewis Powell wrote that the purpose of helping a group perceived to be the victims of general societal discrimination does not justify a classification that imposes disadvantages upon other individuals who are not responsible for whatever harm the alleged victims of societal discrimination have suffered. Although Justice Powell 7 Affirmative Action 7 emphasized the compelling nature of the state's interest in attaining the goal of a heterogeneous student body, especially in an area like medicine which serves a heterogeneous population, the special admissions program focused only upon ethnic diversity rather than a competitive consideration for race or ethnicity similar to Harvard's admission program. The Harvard admissions process considered race and ethnicity, educational experience and performance, personal talents, work or service experience, leadership potential, maturity, demonstrated compassion, history of overcoming disadvantage, ability to communicate with the poor, or other important qualifications. This kind of competitive consideration of a variety of relevant qualities and characteristics allowed the institution to preserve discretion in determining the diversity of its student body without explicit racial classification. The Court ordered Bakke's admission to the California medical school (The College Administrator and the Courts, pp. 5/61-64). In 1981, The California Supreme Court heard the case of De Ronde v. Regents of University of California (1981). De Ronde was an unsuccessful applicant to the University of California-Davis Law School who challenged the admissions policies. The school received over 2,000 applications and accepted over 400 students into the freshman class. The formula used for admission considered grade point average (GPA) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores, combined with several factors including ethnic minority status. The school's position was that bringing minority students into the classroom was a valuable cultural experience for everyone and increasing the number of minorities would enhance their participation in the democratic process. There were no quotas or a fixed number of spaces for minorities. Although there were 69 minorities 8 Affirmative Action 8 accepted who had lower overall scores than De Ronde, there were over 800 rejected applicants, including 35 minorities, with higher scores. The California Supreme Court ruled that the consideration of ethnic minority status as one of several factors in the admissions criteria did not violate the equal protection provisions of the Constitution. The Court looked to Bakke in making its decision and particularly Justice Powell's reference to the Harvard Plan that considered ethnic background as "a plus," but did not set up a quota (The College Administrator and the Courts 5/65-66). For many years following the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Department of Education allowed higher education institutions to take race into account to a greater extent in financial aid awards than admissions, as long as the aid earmarked for minorities represented less than 50 percent of the total aid program. In 1990, the Bush Administration said that race could only be used as a "plus factor" in decisions concerning financial aid awards. After hearing from the American Council on Education (ACE) and other associations in defense of minority-targeted aid programs, the Clinton Administration returned to the more permissive pre-1990 policies. However, the University of Maryland's Banneker Scholarships which were initiated in response to a federal investigation of discrimination against blacks were declared by a circuit court to be unlawful because they were limited to blacks, as found in the case of Podberesky v. Kirwan II (1994) (American Council on Education 2001). In 1996, the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit ruled in Hopwood v. Texas (1996) that the University of Texas Law School could not consider race for admissions unless it was necessary to remedy past discrimination (Bowen & Bok). Cheryl Hopwood, the mother of a child with cerebral palsy, could have used her unique situation as a factor 9 Affirmative Action 9 for consideration for admission by the school, but she did not. She provided no letters of recommendation and no personal statement that could have possibly made a difference in the school's decision for admission. Instead, she was convinced that she was displaced from her rightful place by lesser-qualified minorities (Altbach, Berdahl, & Gumport). The Court ruled that the law school's admissions plan considered white and minority applicants on separate tracks in order to increase the number of minority students admitted. The Court held that the school could no longer use race and ethnicity as factors. Judge Jerry Smith said that using race to pick students "makes no more sense than choosing by blood type" ("The Hopwood effect," 1996). In 1995, the Board of Regents of the University of California voted to eliminate the use of racial preferences in hiring and admissions decisions. In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 209, making the affirmative action ban statewide. At two of California's most selective institutions, The University of California at Berkeley and The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), the total number of minority students began to drop significantly. By 1999, admission levels of underrepresented minorities blacks, Hispanics, and Native Americans dropped below where they were prior to Proposition 209, i.e., at Berkeley down 44 percent and UCLA down 36 percent. The law schools at Berkeley and UCLA also showed drops in their underrepresented minority student pools over the same period, i.e., 44 percent and 69 percent respectively (Cantor, 1999). Although the overall number of underrepresented minority students at some of the universities within the California system have risen, they have dropped significantly at the most selective schools. This data is cause for concern since research suggests that minority students attending selective universities are more likely to graduate than 10