Yesterday the Supreme Court handed down the judgement that affirmative action should not be a guiding principle in college admissions. MSNBC immediately did a harbinger-of-doom piece suggesting that the world will now go to hell in a handbasket. Me? I'm ambivalent, but I have my own recommended solution.
My Background
I'm white, German/Polish, male, and from a small town and a relatively poor school district. By "relatively poor," I mean that when I was 15, some 23 schools in Pennsylvania were labeled as unsuitable and unsafe. Seven of those schools were in the collection of small mining towns comprising my school district. By "unsafe," I don't mean that people were selling drugs (much) or taking guns to school. It meant that the schools themselves were dilapidated and falling down around students' ears.
I spent the first 10 years of my life in half a double my father was able to rent for $50 a month from the elderly women next door because my grandfather, the milkman, was considered an honorable and respectable man. My father did various chores for the two women to augment the $50 rent payment. Winter nights were somewhat cold in the Dietz household at that time. Heat was at a premium even though my grandfather also wildcatted coal at night from mines all over the county.
Being white, German, and male did not aid me in my attempts to go to college. What paid the bill was a National Merit Scholarship because I managed 1450 on the SAT and graduated first in my high school class. At Penn State, I still had "Popcorn Tuesdays" where all I ate was popcorn because my scholarship sort of covered my expenses, but not by much. And yes, I had a roommate in my studio apartment. And yes, my friend on the track team sneaked me into the athletic cafeteria for an occasional free meal.
This is no "Coal Miner Elegy" riff. It was all banal stuff to be overcome.
Ambiguity as a Plus
I have a friend who is half Caucasian and half Japanese. When applying for college and grad school, this prospective student had the option of labeling as White or Asian and opted for White because whites are held to a lower standard. I saluted the strategic thinking.
On Thursday, CNN's Abby Phillip interviewed Kenny Xu, one of the members of the organization that won the affirmative action case. When Xu rightly pointed out that admittance standards are lowered for Black students, Phillip (who is Black) abruptly ended the interview. Xu had stated that an Asian student must score 270 points higher to be on an equal admittance footing with a Black student. Evidently, one cannot have that on CNN. Would it have killed Phillip to end the interview with "Thanks for the facts," as opposed to "Thank you for your perspective." Recently, CNN seems to have a tough time understanding that "facts" and "perspective" are not synonyms.
I'm not going to weep because race has been downgraded as a college admittance factor. Of course, as populations, Black and Hispanic students are at a disadvantage educationally in the United States. That isn't the fault of the current crop of White students and certainly not the fault of the current crop of Asian students.
My Solution
I haven't mentioned recently that I'm left of Marx when it comes to most mega-societal issues like education, health care, and support of unions. I say that if people want en masse affirmative action, scale college admissions to socioeconomic status. My perspective is radical. Scale admissions to the proportion of candidates in distinct economic categories. Are you the child of a one-percenter? One percent of college admissions are reserved for you. And so on down to poverty levels. That would be interesting.
Okay, so nobody is going to buy that. To those of us who are left of Marx, it's still better than admitting on a curve based on race.
Bob Dietz
June 30, 2023
