perfidy

As I'm sure we all are insanely aware, the Supreme Court is hearing the UMich affirmative action case today. I suddenly find within me an overwhelming urge to support affirmative action, mainly because Justice Scalia is such a penis.

I have been hacking away at a huge wordy essay detailing why I think that affirmative action causes more problems than it solves, and I have axed it in favor of this simple statement: Affirmative action causes more problems than it solves. Rather, affirmative action is not equipped to address the problems it should be, and stands in the way of its own ultimate goal of reducing America's obsession with race.

AA comes from noble sentiments and honorable motives, and I support it in principle. But, without dismissing several hundred years of history and systematic repression, there are many social, cultural, economic, and geographic factors aside from race that determine how a child's education should go. It's my sense that economic factors influence more about a person's educational path than does race, yet colleges do not consider economics when deciding admissions policy. You can show me case after case of a brilliant student who, since he or she is from Bushwick, doesn't have the chance to go to Yale. I will in turn show you case after case of brilliant hillbillies from Bluefield who are in the same boat. Worse, affirmative action stands in its own way. Now, when we want to talk about race-based issues in education, we talk about affirmative action. Unfortunately, AA doesn't address the big race-based education issues that remain. For example, take the high incarceration rate among young black men. A felony rap means not being eligible for federal student aid, a Clinton policy that cut off a large swath of society from easy access to higher education. Affirmative action can't touch that, though it's partly a race-based education issue. Public schools are in the shitter all over the place, and students advance grades without learning basic skills. Affirmative action can't compensate for that either, though that's what it was meant to do. Instead, the debate remains confined to a few issues such as quotas/not quotas, and cuts the real problems out of the debate.

Two problems ensue. First, by leaving some of the biggest issues outside the discussion, AA weakens its own agenda of equalizing access to education regardless of race. Second, every day that AA programs continue to exist is one more day that race remains an issue in education-- hardly a step towards an institutionally colorblind society.

The US is not, and should never be, colorblind. Black identity, and for that matter, Irish identity, Latvian identity, and Ohio Briar-Hopper identity are too rich to discard. But affirmative action is a right-minded half-measure that does not address the full complexity of the problems it purports to solve. Institutional colorblindness (as opposed to social/cultural colorblindness) is a noble goal, and it's becoming clear that affirmative action won't achieve it as currently structured. Am I in favor of getting rid of it totally? Not really. But a major re-thinking of its fundamental premises are in order, to ensure that it actually does the job it's intended to do.

Did I mention that "Scalia" means "penis" in Ewok?

n.b. Reasonable people may differ. I welcome any and all discussion, rebuttal, and ad hominem attacks. I'm a big boy now.

[wik] Dahlia Lithwick has a great synopsis of the proceedings at Slate, including a sound-clip of an extremely eloquent argument from Justice Breyer. From the article: "Everyone seems to agree that the racial divisions in this country are a terrible problem, and almost everyone agrees that they need to be handled via subterfuge: The affirmative action camp is for "critical masses" that look like quotas and for "diversity" that may not bring about diversity. The anti-affirmative action camp is for pretending that other remedies work when it's clear that you can't fix race problems by ignoring race. These are not really legal questions at heart; they are almost insoluble social and moral ones. Take heart in the fact that the court at least respected us enough today to address them as such."

[alsø wik] "Scalia" also means "penis" in the ancient language of Atlantis.