November 27, 2006
In Defense of “Phony Diversity” Posted by Joshua Zeitz at 10:45 AM EST John Steele Gordon responded to my criticism of his statement that American history has been “very white and very male” by attacking the University of Michigan’s support of affirmative action in college and graduate school admissions. This is one of Mr. Gordon’s favorite rhetorical devices: When he’s on shaky ground discussing apples, he shifts quickly to a discussion of oranges. But he raises an important question.
Mr. Gordon supports a proposed amendment to the Michigan state constitution that would “ban public institutions from using affirmative-action programs that give preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, gender, color, ethnicity or national origin for public employment, education or contracting purposes.” I’m curious as to whether Mr. Gordon thinks this list should be extended to include the children of alumni; the children of university donors and benefactors; the children of political and entertainment celebrities; students from select high schools; and persons from select geographic regions. College admissions officers routinely use these categories to favor candidates from wealthy and elite families, families with financial or legacy ties to their home institution, and candidates who hail from under-represented states and counties (the latter policy favors white rural applicants, among others).
Perhaps Mr. Gordon is consistent on this question. But I certainly don’t hear him crying out in righteous indignation that legacy applicants and the children of white farmers from Idaho enjoy extra privileges in the college admissions game. Neither do I hear conservative stalwarts like David Horowitz express much concern about these long-established forms of affirmative action.
There are two questions at play in this debate. First, is affirmative action legal? Second, does affirmative action enhance a university’s ability to educate its students? I’m not qualified to address the first question, and neither is Mr. Gordon. We’re not lawyers or constitutional scholars. My layman’s reading of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Civil Rights Act leaves me with a lot of doubt about the constitutionality of affirmative action in college admissions, but to paraphrase an old adage, the law is what the courts say it is. In this instance, the courts have agreed that quotas, set-asides, and dual admissions standards are unconstitutional, but that race, gender, or ethnicity may be taken into extra account in the interest of securing diversity. This prevailing (if confusing) standard rests on the assumption that universities have a vested interest in, and right to pursue, diversity.
So does demographic diversity enhance a university’s ability to educate its students? Based on my six years as a university teacher, I believe so. In a 15-person seminar or discussion group, the makeup of the class largely determines the tenor and quality of the discussion. I suspect that most people who’ve taught in a university setting would agree. I can (and have) taught about the social construction of race to an all-white seminar, just as I can (and have) taught the history of gender to groups that were all-male or all-female. It works on some level. But the quality and depth of the discussion is generally much better when the seminar is diverse.
As an instructor I cannot choose my students. But given a choice, I’d much prefer to teach a group of students who bring diverse demographic and ideological perspectives to the table. I prefer it because my experience tells me that such groups achieve a higher level of discussion, which enables individual students to prosper more from the intellectual experience of the seminar. Just as it enhances the intellectual and cultural environment of a university to include musicians, artists, athletes, and activists, it enhances the intellectual and cultural environment of a seminar to include students from a wide variety of backgrounds.
The universities have presented the courts with precisely this argument, and to date the courts have allowed the universities some leeway in securing diverse student populations.
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