Affirmative Action: Truth vs. Fact
I won’t beat around the bush: affirmative action has been a hot topic of debate since its initial creation in the 1960s. Many of us have heard numerous arguments for and against, pros and cons. And yet, there still largely exists confusion about what, exactly, affirmative action even is. Let’s boil it down.
I’m going to focus specifically on race-based affirmative action in terms of the college admissions process, although affirmative action exists in many other places, including the workplace.
Affirmative action has a long history, so let me just cover what affirmative action is today. In the college admissions office, affirmative action is used to diversify the student body. This does not exist in the form of bonuses of quotas, nor does it exist as a way to undo past discrimination. Instead, affirmative action allows colleges to consider the race of individual applicants — but only if it is a “factor of another factor” (as stated by Vox’s 2018 What we get wrong about affirmative action). Basically, an applicant’s race can be considered in the admissions process if they are, for example, a member of the Black Student Union, or a volunteer at the Latino Cultural Center. If an applicant’s race is important in their application, then it’s important in the admissions process — in the same way that a STEM applicant might have STEM-related extracurricular activities. This narrow method to diversify student bodies is today’s affirmative action in its entirety. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the common arguments against affirmative action.
1) Affirmative action is racially discriminatory against white applicants and places race as the dominant factor in college admissions.
Actually, affirmative action isn’t and doesn’t. Ironically, research shows that the those who primarily benefit from affirmative action are white women, not racial minority students. A former college dean explains that white men still have an admissions advantage over white women (and, of course, minority students), despite the fact that more of the white female applicants were qualified. African-American and/or Hispanic students are actually more underrepresented (percentage-wise) on top college campuses today than they were thirty-five years ago. If affirmative action were to be banned, minority students would further experience a 23-point decline in the likelihood of their admission to top colleges, and a student body admissions process that is even less representative of broader population demographics. Although Black and/or Hispanic students still face large numbers of underrepresentation, affirmative action has seen significant and direct progress linked to an increase in diversity of student bodies. Its elimination would harm all students. The small but significant increase of diversity afforded by affirmative action has been proven to benefit students of all races, including white students. Having a more racially diverse student provides improved critical-thinking, problem-solving, and creativity — especially because students can find collaboration in an intersection of differing backgrounds and identities. This makes for a better education.
2) Students accepted to college via affirmative action are often unqualified/not ready for the academic rigor of a top college.
I’ll start by saying that there has been no research whatsoever which supports this claim. In fact, most supporters of affirmative action oppose the admission of unqualified applicants for the sake of diversity. Furthermore, in the case of employment, hiring unqualified workers via affirmative action is actually against federal regulations. Under a similar executive order, the college admissions process works the same way. Although black students have a higher dropout rate than their white counterparts, statistics show that this is due to disproportionate minority populations and preexisting racism at colleges. And even further, at top institutions, black graduation rates differ by less than 10 percentage points as compared to their white counterparts, and have been improving over the past fifty or so years. The issue isn’t qualification: it’s the racism that affirmative action fights against.
3) Affirmative action reinforces racist stereotypes by implying that minority students are “stupid,” and “in need of help” for the college admissions process.
An overwhelming number of studies have showed that minority applicants have experienced no decline in confidence in their ability due to affirmative action. Instead, minority applicants may have higher confidence levels due to employment or college opportunities. Furthermore, the stigmatization which exists around affirmative action arises from the racist and sexist idea that a diverse applicant cannot possibly be qualified for a top college or university, and thus must have been accepted due to their diversity. Not only does the very definition of affirmative action refute this, but studies prove that race isn’t truly a determining factor in the college admissions process — including for top colleges or universities. It is misinformation that breeds stigmatization.
In conclusion, affirmative action has made significant progress towards increasing diversity on college campuses. While it’s not perfect, no policy ever is, and it’s doing the job it was meant to do.
