Affirmative Action: Yay or Nay?
As a student at the University of Michigan, I can't help but to notice the rather recent "comeback" of race-based issues within the University compounds, both physically and subjectively.
For the past two weeks or so, the article about "being black in Ann Arbor" (and the very hostile reactions it received) and the Diag Freeze (a "freeze mob" to highlight the lack of diversity in the University) seem to be an eye-opener (for me, at least). Although I am not so sure whether the latter is a spontaneous reaction for the former, but the two events (and their subsequent reactions) made me realize something:
I have been ignorant about the race and diversity issue.
I always thought the University is already diverse. I do admit that I do not see that many Blacks and Hispanics around, heck I do think that there are more Chinese nationals alone than both of them combined, but I guess I have been seeing diversity from a different perspective. For instance, as someone who is from a homogeneous country (as compared to United States), there are many different aspects that define diversity for me. Religion, heritage/origin, background etc.
Apparently that is not enough.
As I walked by the Posting Wall, I can't help but to be curious about this one table that has been there for the past few days. I can't really recall the details, but I remembered that it was about defending the affirmative action.
"Defending the affirmative action? That's interesting."
I had to look up for Proposal 2 before I actually understand the issue here. Michiganders, back in 2006, voted to actually abolish the consideration of race in university admission.
"Isn't that a good thing?"
After further readings, the abolishment of the race-based affirmative action seems to affect the diversity among the University community. For instance, the Michigan Law School has seen fewer black students after the ruling.
No doubt, diversity is important, especially in the multicultural and global society right now. The lack of interaction with people of different background might be a problem. Some might resort to blatant prejudices, as a result of such an ignorance, thinking a race is associated with this particular trait and so on. This can be very unhealthy as it creates an imaginary friction, from the prejudices, between the social cleavages.
I do admit that the American system has been unfair to the non-Whites. On top of the social disadvantage that most Blacks and Hispanics face (being raised in a poor community and education, making it harder for them to move up the social ladder), they also have to face social discrimination. I hope that is self-explanatory. Yes, even in the 21st century, racial discrimination still exist. In fact, a lot of discrimination still exist - gender, sexual orientation and religion.
However, I do not believe that race-based affirmative action is the key to solve the problem. Even if affirmative action can have a substantial effect on leveling the playing field, I am quite skeptical with its outcome.
A race-based policy assumes that everyone, or a significant majority, of a particular race has the same problem. It requires one to generalize. Although race and income (zip code) are influential factors in terms of education, I believe that basing affirmative action on income would be more inclusive. Not all whites live in neighborhoods with good schools, and not all Blacks and Hispanics go to broken, under-resourced public schools. Nowadays, I don't think societal problems (e.g. poverty) are limited to just a particular race, although some race might be a bigger "stakeholder" for a particular societal problem.
In addition, I don't think that affirmative action, in the case of university admission, can actually improve the social inequality. In fact, it might worsen the condition. As one of the top universities in the world, University of Michigan has a very rigorous curriculum. It would be hard for a student, who has been at an academic disadvantage for his or her K-12 years, to be propelled into such a system, with no proper transition. It would be unfair to both the university and the student; the former having to sacrifice merit for diversity, and the latter, having to be in a hostile academic environment. Both would have to suffer, which is not the intention of affirmative action.
"However, that would be unfair for those who go to the average schools, with no resources to prepare for all the standardized testing!"
I agree with the point, but if one insists on going with the race-/income-based affirmative action, it should not be the main factor for university admission. If I am not mistaken, being a minority gives you an automatic 20 points, with 100 being the benchmark to admission (120 is the maximum point). Do take this with a grain of salt though, I forgot where I found it. Maybe the point should be reduced to 5 or 10, to ensure that meritocracy is still the core.
Also, I have to admit that I have a bad feeling on race-based affirmative action, even though one of the reasons that I am able to study here is the scholarship from the race-based affirmative action in Malaysia.
Two reasons: it creates a negative perception and it somehow has a detrimental effect.
To cut a long story short, having graduated from a public daily high school in KL, I had to work the extra mile just to prove that they are wrong - that I did not get the overseas scholarship, which many of the smarter minorities are excluded from, just by being a member of the right race.
Also, after 55 years of race-based affirmative action for the majority AND discriminatory policies for the minorities, the return of investment is very low. The Malays are still left behind, economically and academically, even when they had everything they needed - policies, resources and institution. Weirdly enough, the discriminated Chinese are more successful, controlling much of the economy and graduating from top universities in the world. Although some might argue the abuse of such polices by the executive branch is the main reason for the stagnation of the Malays, but I do believe that it is also the result of the nature of the race-based affirmative action: the Malays are spoonfed for everything, making them rather dependent when it comes to survival. Also, I believe that the lowering of the standards made the Malays mediocre. Achieving lower standards require less effort, which is different from the minorities, having to try harder just to reach the same bar.
This might be a different scenario and system as compared to those of the United States (for the majority rather than the minority), but I do feel that the results would be similar.
"So if you reject race-based affirmative action, how can Blacks and Hispanics reduce the social inequality in the system and society that are discriminatory towards them?
A simple 30-second answer?
