The Affirmative Action Bias
The Supreme Court, with the exception of Justice Elena Kagan, is currently considering whether the affirmative action plan at the University of Texas is constitutional which by the way does include the implicit admissions of not only black underpriviledged students. Justice Kagan was recused of the case for her previous work on it in her previous position as solicitor-general.
As being widely reported the usual rancor from Justice Antonin Scalia has bloviated that “I don’t think it stands to reason that it’s a good thing for the University of Texas to admit as many blacks as possible,” his highly regarded remarks were offered to a chorus of gasps in the courtroom when he further explained that “a less advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well” would be more fitting. This was reported by the NYTimes as an “awkward exchange”.
As I contemplate and wipe the proverbial secretions of saliva spewed from the opinion of someone holding an office that no one has ever been impeached from and can be held for life, the affirmative action bias becomes that much more pronounced when apparently, what is good for the goose isn’t necessarily good for the gander in this instance. Affirmative action for whites has been doled out and uncontested for quite some time now.
Abigail Fisher, whose case is being argued before the Supreme Court claiming she was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin and therefore a victim of affirmative action. It has been reported by Slate that …
When Fisher applied in 2008, notes Hannah-Jones, the UT Austin filled 92 percent of its in-state spots with students from the top 10 program. She wasn’t among them. With a 3.59 grade-point average and a modest SAT score of 1180 out of 1600, she was a solid student but not a great one, not for a school with an overall acceptance rate of 40 percent and an extremely low acceptance rate (comparable to Harvard’s) for in-state students admitted outside of top 10.
I hope that it does not come as too much of a surprise to individuals like Ms. Fisher that considerable affirmative action has been granted to her class and specific race disproportionately in the previous three decades, from 1935–1965.
Federal programs such as the New Deal and Fair Deal, the G.I. Bill, the skewed local appropriations of Social Security benefits and access to labor unions of the past that were commonly denied to Blacks as well as other government transfers actually helped to create the white American middle classes. I would like to thank the political scientist Ira Katznelson from the boogie down Bronx, who was schooled at the University of Cambridge and Columbia University for the poverty and race research on this intriguing topic. Katznelson’s article titled When Affirmative Action Was White is superb.
And so here we go again. Apparently left to the devices of certain Aryans, minorities and Blacks in particular should feel some level of moral reproach with what appears to be reverse-discrimination of whites into established institutions like the University of Texas via an affirmative action plan of little scalablility comparably to more generous plans in the past. FYI I am quite sure there are black females with comparable credentials if not better than that of Ms. Fisher and have also not been admitted to this school, but apparently has not reportedly chosen to sue the university over it.
If these established and well-heeled institutions of the “fast-track” and “advanced kind” as Justice Scalia admits are in deed what they promote themselves to be, then it should not seem too challenging in randomly selecting anyone who has applied, and in mirroring the racial makeup of the country of students it serves, and therefore continue to churn out a knowledgeable and productive alumni for society and the future economy. Surely any institution that came along and only opened its doors to students who were priviledged enough to afford the luxury of obtaining and maintaining high grades, along with the access and exposure to impress with their interview applications would easily seem to garner Ivy League status. But is that what truly makes a diversely remarkable and great higher learning institution?
As is usually the case so far Justice Clarence Thomas is silent on the issue. For I too will remain silent on my thoughts on his muted response and temper any expectations of justice served from him. It is quite apparent that there are some minorities who have fallen prey to the self-serving subterfuge and conditioning under the social construct of America.
Justice Scalia seems to echo segregationist values on this topic and I don’t see how his appointment and opinions of the Supreme Court are keeping with plausible representation of the Constitution. Nevertheless it is what it is right?! Under this racial social construct many can ignore certain facts but, blatantly for the rest of us we simply can’t.
