Rebecca Hooker
Sep 7, 2018 · 2 min read

So it’s either diversity or excellence of thought? It can’t be both? Interesting.

I wish I’d known that when I spent those four years at one of the top five liberal arts colleges in the country, studying 35-40 hours a week (Plus class time, sports practice, and game time. Yep. I’m using the Oxford comma.) along with my white classmates, so that I could be prepared to join in on highly intellectual discussions about all kinds of topics, in subjects all throughout the arts and sciences. These discussions helped me prepare for the three graduate degrees I have earned (including a PhD) and my current job as a college professor at another liberal arts college. Paying it forward, my friend.

Was my race a factor in my admission? Absolutely. When a college admits 5% of its applicants, some people are not going to get admitted who are as qualified as those who do. But I was equally qualified, more so in some cases, but not less qualified. I can assure you that my high school grades and test scores could withstand even your scrutiny, and I more than held my own in the college classroom. My situation illustrates the point of affirmative action policies in college admissions. It’s not to scrape the bottle of the barrel for people of color and reject the great white candidates. It’s to look at impressive, qualified candidates, no matter who they are, and then use other factors to decide between them when everything else is equal.

I was also chosen because I was living in Europe at the time and had been for a while, because of my father’s military service, because I was an athlete, because I was interested in theatre, and because I played a musical instrument and wanted to be involved in the orchestra on campus. There were a lot of factors that went into the decision to include me as a part of my graduating class, only one of which was that I am black.

I know about how the decision was made to include me because after I graduated, I got a job on campus that made me a part of the admissions committee, and I was involved in making the kinds of decisions I’m describing. Committee meetings were time consuming, because we took every application seriously, trying to build the most balanced, diverse class we could. We looked at racial and ethnic diversity, gender diversity, socio-economic and geographic (worldwide) diversity, personal viewpoints, and even diversity in terms of upbringing and interests. However, every single one of the students we considered was academically and intellectually qualified, which you clearly worry about so much.

Your position is based on faulty logic, and it’s insulting to all of us who are accepted to the colleges you clearly think we’re unqualified to attend, since we are people of color and therefore inferior thinkers. We are not. Get over your antiquated and wrong-headed thinking.

Rebecca Hooker

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