Harvard and other universities have now been given the lesson that reverse discrimination is still a form of discrimination.
A few years ago, I was schmoozing with a friend who told me that his son was an F-16 pilot in the Israeli air force. In a country of 9 million people, very few individuals can make such a claim. One of the perks of his son’s position was that my friend was able to use an F-16 simulator on his son’s base. He said that takeoff was no problem—pull the stick back, and off he went. The landing was something else. He said that upon crashing into the ground, the simulator made sounds that were horrific. One would never want to send someone unprepared up in an F-16. The same goes for college and work.
Affirmative action, while representing the noblest of intentions—to help those who have historically been the least successful in American society—hurts two—the one who loses out on a legitimate position and the one who is thrust into college or a job for which he or she is not fully prepared. After the Supreme Court’s decision yesterday, I quickly received two emails from my alma mater, Harvard. The first was from President Bacow and the top officials of the university. The second was from Bacow’s upcoming replacement. Both emails took aim at the Supreme Court decision rendering college admission affirmative action programs unconstitutional. I took the liberty to write back to President Bacow to say that maybe Harvard should offer an apology to all of the Asian and other students who were denied admittance due to their skin color, last name, or the origin of their parents or grandparents. Think of a Chinese-American student who was his high school valedictorian, had perfect SAT scores, played soccer, and was first violin in his school’s orchestra opening his Harvard letter to be told that while he is the greatest thing since sliced bread, Harvard regrets to inform him that he is not accepted. Affirmative action is not benign. For every student accepted due to a boost up from affirmative action protocols, there is someone like our stellar student above who is left in the dust. I have previously interviewed candidates for acceptance to Harvard, and I thus found it amusing that Harvard used the interview summaries to shoot down the outstanding Asian candidates since all of their other application material was beyond reproach. This is discrimination, plain and simple. However good the intentions may be.
Years ago, my late father told me that he and other professors at the state university where he taught were told to make sure that affirmative action students progress in their studies, independent of performance or grades. Give them remedial courses, push them along with low grades—whatever you do, make sure that they keep moving along in the degree process. And thus, we see that the second victim of affirmative action is the one who is not equipped for the challenges ahead. I have no doubt that the vast majority of students accepted to Harvard through some type of affirmative action program make the grade. One chooses a major and courses and they probably graduate with few problems. But there will be those who will find themselves in over their heads. Their math and reading training was not strong enough for the demands of a Harvard education, and they will start to fall behind and possibly fail or drop out. Isn’t this a disservice to this student as well? Wouldn’t he have fared better at a school, more in line with the training and skills that he had? By accepting students who are not technically qualified—and during the original trial, Harvard showed the huge decrease in Black and Hispanic acceptance that would occur by pure merit considerations—they are putting them into a situation where they will either fail at Harvard or potentially not be fully competent to move on to the next stage of their post-collegiate life. A friend’s father told me that his engineering firm had had affirmative action students who came to work for them and simply were not as prepared as they should have been.
So what is the solution? Most Americans want all communities, including Black and Hispanic, to succeed and participate fully in the American dream. I think that the answer is clear: instead of accepting undeserving candidates, the schools and government need to invest more time and resources into K-12 education and family cohesiveness. A child needs a supportive environment in order to take risks and succeed. That over 50% of Black children are born out of wedlock means that many Black boys and girls do not have the bedrock family support needed to encourage better and better school performance. Solid black families and more charter schools that avoid the dogma and culture of failure of teachers’ unions will do more to prepare Black students to be accepted to Harvard than all of the affirmative action contortions required to accept a Black student at the expense of a far more qualified Asian candidate.
Is such an approach possible? It depends on those who are in charge. When Georgia strengthened its voting rules to demand a picture ID, some Atlanta officials screamed that they would have a drive to get Black citizens picture ids. Excellent! Instead of complaining about the new but reasonable demand that the person claiming to vote is the one he or she claims to be, they went out and got people's ID cards. Suppose you want there to be no discrepancy between Black and other communities in college and post-university work. In that case, the job starts by building solid Black homes and offering better K-12 educational opportunities. Affirmative action for college admission cannot correct years of failed opportunity or performance. And it’s not just the Asian guy who gets harmed; it can also be the affirmative action student who is in over his or her head.
Do I expect that government and university officials will engage in the challenging work described above? Of course not. Harvard and other schools were ready for yesterday’s ruling. Many have dropped the SAT and ACT and say that they will use a more “holistic” approach in deciding who gets accepted. By not using standardized measures of knowledge or achievement, universities will still be able to choose whomever they wish. Ultimately, nothing will change, only the means by which one student is accepted over a more qualified alternative.