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Last fall I took a political science seminar on “Race and Politics” with professor David Canon, whose work has given the intellectual case for black majority districts its fullest expression. The course itself was marvelous. But it might have benefited from some diversity. There were no Hispanic or black students in the course — not a single person to interpret the material through their personal experiences dealing with institutionalized racism. One student had the courage to suggest that by only offering the course through the honors program, where minority recruitment is very low, the political science department guarantees this lily-white demographic.
It is absurd that on this campus, it is possible for a “Race and Politics” seminar to enroll not a single minority student. Yes, ethnic studies classes exist with less disparate enrollment. But for me, the racial makeup of that fall seminar symbolized how far we have to go on the diversity issue. With the generally unsuccessful results of Plan 2008, the University of Wisconsin’s just-expired 10-year diversity initiative, campus is waking up to UW’s failure to optimize the college experience of minority students. While Plan 2008 indeed increased minority enrollment by 64 percent, these numbers could only have skyrocketed given 1998 levels.
The simplest, and best, solution for our lack of diversity and “achievement gap” is to impose rigorous affirmative action quotas for black and Hispanic enrollment, supplemented with improved undergraduate advising for minorities. But the university’s hands are tied here, since the Supreme Court in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke and Gratz v. Bollinger ruled quotas and point-based systems for minority admissions were unconstitutional. We can consider race in admissions, but we can’t take action to guarantee minorities seats. (Try following that logic.) By requiring admissions offices to depend upon a bottlenecked applicant pool itself representative of institutionalized racism at the secondary-school level, the Supreme Court violates the spirit of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Since universities have been denied their constitutional right to quota-based affirmative action in admissions, it is not a surprise to see our administration floundering to achieve diversity through more indirect means. If we’re not to the mountaintop yet, this does not reflect a lack of will. It simply means the Supreme Court has stripped American universities of their climbing axes and boots.
Where do we go from here, then? Damon Williams, vice provost and chief diversity officer at UW, is a good choice for leading the effort against racial disparities on campus. Williams’ approach, a five-year plan less structured and more intuitive than Plan 2008, is on the right track. I have some hope the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates, by increasing need-based financial aid, will by extension increase minority enrollment. And though I can already anticipate the cynical sneers and jeers, I’m optimistic about the social justice center proposed as an addendum to this initiative. But we still have a long, long way to go.
Part of the problem is student apathy. Students will always care about diversity in the same way they care about recycling and organic food and helping the homeless. We care, but not enough to think constructively about the problem or identify it as an existential challenge. It is very difficult for students, most of us white and middle-class and planning our careers, to admit some things can be worthwhile for their own sake — that even if it feels like a footnote, experiencing racial and ethnic diversity is a precondition for living an educated life at all. We need to start caring. This might begin with a better sense of outrage about how difficult our lawmakers have made it to solve this problem. Without a major paradigm shift, we’ll be here five years from now spinning another minor diversity improvement as a brilliant victory for diversity.
Eric Schmidt ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in political science and legal studies.
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Hey Eric, I have an idea. Let’s sneak down to Chicago and kidnap a bunch of black people and bring them back to Wisconsin. We can enroll them and sign them up for the classes where there are few or no minorities. And to make sure they don’t miss class we’ll slap some GPS anklets on them so we’ll always know where they are. Pretty cool, huh?
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I think you’re off base. Students do care about diversity, but the question is do they care about it enough to possibly sacrifice quality of the student body? Before you acccuse me of racism, consider this: shouldn’t the BEST students, regardless of race, be the ones admitted to the university? Simply put, a lot of students dislike affirmative action because sometimes it means they see people less qualified than themselves get admitted to universities they did not just because of their race. Race, gender, sexual orientation should never be a factor in these types of decisions. I don’t disagree that your class would have been improved if you had minority students in it, but at what cost does that come?
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I have a dream, that one day my children will be admitted to college not based on the color of their skin but on the merit of their scholastic efforts! I have a dream…..
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“Hey, I was promised real, live African-Americans in this class. Where are they! I paid good money! There was a lab fee!”
Perhaps the average African-American student on this campus is tired of the pandering and patronizing attitudes of white guilt and of bearing the “responsibility” of having to be the example of “institutionalized racism” for your benefit and just wants to, you know, concern themselves with their own education, not yours.
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White is a race too.
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“I have a dream, that one day my children will be admitted to college not based on the color of their skin but on the merit of their scholastic efforts! I have a dream…..”
8:45 am, my instinct is that you think paraphrasing Dr. King like this is a brilliant rhetorical move. It’s certainly consistent with popular media depictions of Dr. King, which sanitize the intellectual depth out of the most radically-socialist individual to ever be honored with a national U.S. holiday. King supported affirmative action. On this the historical record is non-negotiable, if a bit hidden by people who know how inconvenient it is that King took a view of affirmative action more liberal than the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the pre-Bakke Supreme Court decisions.
If you want to argue against quotas, that’s fine. And if you disagree with Martin Luther King, Jr., that’s fine too — but you need to have the moral courage to say this instead of misrepresenting King outright. Your side’s only strategy for a decade — and I have no shame calling Ward Connerly and conservative African-Americans out on this too — has been to obscure the legacy of Dr. King and use him as a puppet for conservative ideologies towards which he had nothing but contempt. You owe it to your own arguments to not make this mistake.
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Does all of the learning you do in your life have to take place in a structured setting such as the classroom? If you want these persepctives, why don’t you take some initiative and go talk to the people you are so interested in? No one said these people had to be enrolled in your class in order for you to interact and gain persepctive—it’s just easier and more comfortable for you that way.
Stop complaining, explore the world, and learn. Some of the greatest minds never set foot in a college class room.
No Excuses!
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The constitutional right to quota based affirmative action was actually going to be Madison’s 11th amendment, but he forgot to add that in. Damn the supreme court for not remembering that.
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“Perhaps the average African-American student on this campus is tired of the pandering and patronizing attitudes of white guilt and of bearing the “responsibility” of having to be the example of “institutionalized racism” for your benefit and just wants to, you know, concern themselves with their own education, not yours.”
I am African American I am totally agree with this statement, students of color by and large simply don’t care if white people think we just got in because of our color. It’s not true but we can’t worry about changing the minds of every single white person on campus.
“Hey Eric, I have an idea. Let’s sneak down to Chicago and kidnap a bunch of black people and bring them back to Wisconsin. We can enroll them and sign them up for the classes where there are few or no minorities.”
Why Chicago? First off there are alot of white people who are here who don’t deserve to be. I been in classes where white students were in danger of flunking out because of low grades. Again whites make of the majority of the population so how are students of color actually benefiting? Most simply choose not to come here because of the lack of diversity.
Just because you are white doesn’t mean you got in because of good grades and high ACT/SAT scores. White people have their own form of affirmative action its called white privilege and its been giving unqualified, lazy white people access to goods and services since the formation of the United States.
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“Since universities have been denied their constitutional right to quota-based affirmative action in admissions, it is not a surprise to see our administration floundering to achieve diversity through more indirect means.”
The Constitition calls for equality before the law regardless of race. This is a basic principle of individual rights. Racism is the practice of judging people by their race, which is irrational and immoral.
The racial makeup of a classroom is irrelevant. Demanding a diverse mix of races is just as much racist as calling for 100 percent one race.
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Eric,
You are completely correct about Dr. King’s support of affirmative action in the 1960’s. That however does not mean that he would neccessarily still be a supporter today. Just about everyone can agree that affirmative action was necessary in the past to correct racial injustice and that eventually we would like to see a world in which affirmative action is no longer necessary. You correctly point out that he agrees with the first of those statements and his most quoted line indicates he agrees with the second, but no one infer with any degree of certainty at what point he would have liked to see affirmative action ended. Therefore, its completely inappropriate to for either side to pretend that Dr. King would have been on their side. You’re just as guilty as the anonymous commenter.
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12:19pm, you are a white female. I’ve been waiting to see if your comment gets posted. In case you didn’t notice I was looking over your shoulder while you were typing in the lab. Next time use your own PC in a private place so you won’t get ratted out. Sorry to blow your cover, but I prefer a little honesty. And lose that nose ring! UGH! That is soooo 90’s!
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Jim,
The “reverse racism” charge really needs to be put to bed. It reflects an ahistorical understanding of the reasons why racial disparities in the U.S. exist. After World War II, as you know, the G.I. Bill was administered to guarantee separation of the races (both geographic and economic) and enforce what is correctly called “black disaccumulation.” Our federal government presided over the strategic divvying up of mortgages to blacks and whites, funneling whites into suburbs with escalating home values and black into…well, ghettos. This was a racist policy, as I hope you agree . The administration of the G.I. Bill post-WWII was affirmative action for whites. It made the playing field much, much more disparate than would have otherwise been the case.
So you have a government whose policies post-WWII guaranteed unequal conditions for whites and blacks in this country, on top of injustices which already existed. You have 100 years of African-Americans in many states unable to vote for elected representatives — and thus 100 years of non-representation at every level of government. You have gerrymandering whose sole purpose is to dilute black votes which sneak through. You have a whirlwind of unconstitutional action.
And yet you are arguing that the government has no responsibility to clean up after the conditions we have created, besides simply saying “We’re colorblind now, because the Constitution says so.” I’m sorry, but that’s an inappropriate and all-too convenient interpretation of the Constitution for our purposes. You shouldn’t get to choose when the federal government decides to be colorblind — not least because the Fourteenth Amendment has absolutely nothing to do with colorblindness, but rather with equal protection (at the group level as well as the individual.) It is unconstitutional, per the Equal Protection Clause, for the government to systematically impose unequal protection for 100 years — and then withhold any remedial measure to address the consequences of unconstitutional policy coagulating over time. That sounds more long-winded than it is: this is a relatively-simple and non-negotiable interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment. And it has the added benefit of being the correct and historical one.
I know there are sincere people who don’t believe it is constitutional or moral to consider race, ever, and who think they are representing the legitimate interests of the civil rights movement by saying so. But when neglecting race postpones indefinitely the equal protection of specific races, we have a serious contradiction — which, thankfully, the Constitution has never forced us to endure.
With respect, Eric
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If there is a case for affirmative action, you have made it in your column and subsequent responses. Well said, Mr. Schmidt.
Regards, Gerald Cox
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Eric, you are smart. I like you. Keep it up.
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My ancestors were German immigrants that came to the United States sometime in the late 1800s. The phrase “how long must we pay for the sins of our fathers” doesn’t even apply to me, but in this case my race is pulled into play. How long must white people suffer because of the mistakes of their ancestors? I have no problem with affirmative action existing for a set time, but indefinite affirmative action scares me. What will happen at that point in the next 100 years when there no longer exists a racial majority? Does everyone get to use affirmative action as an excuse or even free pass because every race is no longer a majority? I am not going to say there is no racism in our world or country because clearly there is, but there will need to be revisions made soon to keep affirmative action a relevant and still fair policy.
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Eric,
You wrote: “The ‘reverse racism’ charge really needs to be put to bed.”
But it IS racism. Judging people based on their race is racism. Pretending that it’s not won’t change the fact that it is. Now if you’re in favor of reverse racism, okay, but it IS racism.
I don’t agree that a historic wrong is corrected by instituting the same wrong. The wrongs of racism in the past are not remedied by enacting racism today. This is true for two reasons.
First, the people being punished today are not the people who were responsible for racist acts in the past. It is not an act of justice to punish someone born today for sins committed before their birth. Justice demands treating each individual by their actual character and actions, not by the actions of their ancestors.
Second, racism is harmful to everyone, even those who receive special favors because of their race. It is not to their advantage to be judged on the basis of race anymore than it is to someone’s advantage to judge others based on race. To be judged based on an attribute that one has no control over and has no significance on their character and achievements is harmful to that person whether the judgment is positive or negative. It is the irrational judgment that is unjust and harmful.
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1:59pm
Sorry to break to you but I am African American! You didn’t see me writing anything because I was at home when I wrote it. So you whoever you are stalking I feel bad for him or her!
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Jim Allard, go away Come again another day No wait…don’t.
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I’m floored by how quick people are to assume that whites are “harmed” or “punished” somehow by affirmative action. Good grief.
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“My ancestors were German immigrants that came to the United States sometime in the late 1800s. The phrase “how long must we pay for the sins of our fathers” doesn’t even apply to me, but in this case my race is pulled into play. How long must white people suffer because of the mistakes of their ancestors?”
How long must I pay the price of people racists assumptions because of my race? How much longer do I have to defend being at this university wasn’t just some act of affirmative action? When I can I be able to speak for myself and not for my race? When will white people stop acting as they have it so bad and using the same pointless excuses? More importantly….when will the Badger Herald let a person of color write about the importance of diversity and not some white student who think they have the answers?
“First, the people being punished today are not the people who were responsible for racist acts in the past. It is not an act of justice to punish someone born today for sins committed before their birth. Justice demands treating each individual by their actual character and actions, not by the actions of their ancestors.”
People being punished not responsible for the racist acts in the past? You act as if segregation was a long time ago when the people who had apart of it are STILL alive today! What are about racist white people who are alive and well today!
No not all white people are racist or had something to do with the problems of today but it would be lie to say that white people (immigrants or not) don’t benefit from the racist institution that exist in the United States. I don’t care who is the president.
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8:08: “it would be lie to say that white people (immigrants or not) don’t benefit from the racist institution that exist in the United States.”
No one benefits from a racist institution. There is no such thing as “beneficial racism” anymore than “beneficial bank robbery.” A bank robber may get the loot but he is harming himself nonetheless.
“What about racist white people who are alive and well today!”
What about racist people of any color? They should be denounced for being racist.
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“No one benefits from a racist institution. There is no such thing as “beneficial racism” anymore than “beneficial bank robbery.” A bank robber may get the loot but he is harming himself nonetheless.”
Comparing apples to oranges. There is a racist institution and yes white people do benefit in terms of economic and social benefits. But yes they are limited to learning about different people and society is harmed by it.
Enough comments on this article. Nothing is going to change unless people stop assuming and start reaching out to different people.
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Two wrongs don’t make a right
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8:08 “More importantly….when will the Badger Herald let a person of color write about the importance of diversity and not some white student who think they have the answers?”
Did you just implicitly call the BH racist? That’s why Gerald and Ammar constantly are in the opinion section…Gerald’s columns are better than 90% of the other crap in here because he actually looks at both sides of issues.
Also if you are “a person of color,” then submit your ideal solution so we can read it, or submit a piece saying there are no good answers. If you are white, STFU. I didn’t agree or disagree with Eric, but I thought he wrote a good column. At least he has the balls to try instead of bitching about it.
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The thing is, there are more possible solutions than “affirmative action” or “nothing”. What about investing in children in low-income areas? Improving elementary, middle and high schools? Increasing tutoring opportunities and after-school activities? Providing mentors? That way, we wouldn’t even need affirmative action in order to achieve diversity on college campuses. Affirmative action is like putting a band-aid on a severed limb. Let’s get out the big guns and stitch this country back together.
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“How much longer do I have to defend being at this university wasn’t just some act of affirmative action?”
Until this university stops using affirmative action.
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“experiencing racial and ethnic diversity is a precondition for living an educated life at all.”
Wow! Really? So the largely homogeneous populations in Asia aren’t really educated at all?! I knew we were better than them!
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Actually students don’t care to give people like you something to be faux-outraged about. We’re helping you out in your SWPL status-jockeying.
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“Until this university stops using affirmative action”
Quit your whining! Students of color only make up a small portion of the population, are they preventing you from getting your education!
Wow I would think that since this was a college people would be so open minded and understanding. But I had met more ignorant people here than I ever had back home.
Just a bunch of white people complaining while students of color get their education and move on!
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“Just a bunch of white people complaining while students of color get their education and move on! “
Sometimes in place of more qualified white kids…so there is the problem. Who is to decide where that cutoff exists for white people when it clearly doesn’t exist for minorities with policies like Affirmative Action? I’m not racist or ignorant. I just think there is too much of an emphasis on diversity when current policies have already failed to diversify. It should be focused at all races equally based on need.
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“experiencing racial and ethnic diversity is a precondition for living an educated life at all.”
So Japan, China and India are all losers, eh?