Posted on 07/19/2004 9:06:10 PM PDT by Huntress
Thirty-nine years ago, in a landmark speech at Howard University, President Lyndon B. Johnson called on the nation to achieve not just legal equality for all races in America, but "true equality."
Though Johnson never spoke the words "affirmative action" -- the phrase had not yet been coined -- he was signing on to the spirit of the idea. He called on Americans to make a special effort to counter the "devastating heritage of long years of slavery" and "a century of oppression, hatred and injustice."
But at the nation's top universities today, despite great strides in admitting more black students, many civil rights leaders and scholars contend the success of affirmative action is little more than skin deep. Yes, they say, more black students attend elite universities -- but who exactly are they?
As reported recently in the New York Times, a high percentage of undergraduate black students at top universities are West Indian and African immigrants or their children or, to a lesser extent, children of biracial couples. In the case of Harvard University, only about a third of the black students are the descendants of African-American slaves, born into families hobbled by generations of segregation and racism.
"If people think the current registration of African Americans in elite colleges is somehow addressing past wrongs, that's not entirely true," Princeton sociologist Douglas S. Massey said. "We should be debating and talking about this and coming up with some kind of seat-of-the-pants policy, rather than deceiving ourselves."
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said, "Universities have to give weight to the African-American experience because that is for whom affirmative action was aimed in the first place. That intent must be honored."
Most universities, including Northwestern and the University of Chicago, don't keep tabs on the origins of their black students. But Massey, who is studying the achievements of black students at 28 colleges and universities, found that 41 percent of these black students were immigrants, children of immigrants or biracial.
'Successful, smart people'
This curious makeup of the black student population at top universities has been discussed quietly on campuses for years, but became public only earlier this year when Harvard law professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. raised the issue bluntly at a reunion of Harvard University's black alumni.
Before then, academics tended to skirt the issue, in part because there is no agreement on the proper goals of affirmative action and in part because criticism might be misconstrued as an attack on immigrants.
"I think all the elite institutions need to be more open and straightforward about what we are seeking to achieve," said Kenneth Warren, professor of English and co- director of African and African American studies at the University of Chicago. "Affirmative action has multiple goals, and I don't think that's stressed enough."
In addition to redressing past wrongs against African Americans, Warren said, affirmative action simply creates more diversity on campus, much to every student's benefit.
Jonica Witherspoon, 22, who graduated from Northwestern this past spring, said that, given her test scores, she probably wouldn't have made the cut to attend Northwestern if she were not African American. But, she said, she never resented students from places like Jamaica or Nigeria who may have taken a spot that would have gone to somebody from, say, Chicago's West Side.
"What matters most is that this school is diverse, not where everybody comes from," she said. "And, in a way, it's good for you. You see these successful, smart people out there who are black and you think, 'Maybe I can be one of them. Maybe I can do better.' "
Jessica Baker, 20, a junior majoring in communications at Northwestern, said the rich ethnic mix among black students -- with all their differing points of view -- gives her a sense of greater intellectual freedom. When she makes a point in a classroom discussion, she said, she doesn't worry as much that it might be taken by non-black students as "the black ideal or the black statement."
Free of American racism
When it comes to being accepted into a top school, blacks who are immigrants or the children of immigrants typically enjoy major advantages over indigenous black Americans.
"Like their wealthier white counterparts, many first- and second-generation immigrants of color test well because they retain a national identity free of America's racial caste system and enjoy material and cultural advantages, including professional or well-educated parents," Harvard law professor Lani Guinier recently wrote in the Boston Globe.
"Class is a big explanatory factor in this," said Martha Biondi, associate professor of African American Studies & History at Northwestern. "This does reveal the gap between the haves and the have nots."
Biondi is studying arguments made by protesters in the late 1960s and early 1970s who demanded more black students on campus.
"What struck me is that the students' emphasis was not on actual diversity, but to give opportunities to those students who had been denied opportunity," Biondi said. "That was their goal -- to bring in students who systematically and for generations had been locked out. It wasn't necessarily about past discrimination, but present discrimination. . . . And they were very cognizant of the idea of recruiting from local high schools."
If universities hope to fulfill the original intent of affirmative action, Biondi said, they'll have to do a better job of recruiting students from urban public schools and offer more financial aid. "They don't have to lower their standards," she said. "It's about being creative and looking for those uncut diamonds."
Kimberly Hardy, a doctoral student at the School of Social Service Administration at the University of Chicago, said she learned firsthand that top universities often don't even consider applicants from poor inner-city schools. "I've been a clinical school social worker and I've seen a lot of really amazing kids in the city who, just because of the school's reputation, don't get a shot," she said.
What are the odds.
"Jonica Witherspoon, 22, who graduated from Northwestern this past spring, said that, given her test scores, she probably wouldn't have made the cut to attend Northwestern if she were not African American. But, she said, she never resented students from places like Jamaica or Nigeria who may have taken a spot that would have gone to somebody from, say, Chicago's West Side."
I resent her taking the place of some white man, with higher test scores, who may have discovered a cure for cancer, invented a fuel to end our dependency on Arab oil...
OK, now I'm confused. When I went to college, I was told that learning differential equations with an Arab sitting next to me would "enhance my educational experience".
That is simply not true.
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