October 1, 2010--Soak the Poor
An up-the-road neighbor and friend, federal appeals court judge Boyce Martin, passed along a book for me to read, Affirmative Action for the Rich: Legacy Preferences in College Admissions, in which he has an excellent chapter about Grutter v. Bollinger, the University of Michigan affirmative action case for which he authored the majority opinion, upheld by the Supreme Court, which ruled that the university and other institutions of higher learning are constitutionally permitted to employ affirmative-action policies, as long as they did not include a quota system, in order to promote diversity in their student bodies.
In his chapter, Judge Martin, makes the persuasive argument that legacy admission practices, giving preference to the children of alums, in effect affirmative action for the privileged, impedes socially meaningful and academically enriching efforts to diversify student bodies.
Over dinner two night ago, we spoke about how sad and revealing it is that affirmative action programs that are ethnically or socio-economically based are discussed passionately and frequently challenged in the courts by those who feel discriminated against (from California v. Bakke to Hopwood v. Texas to Grutter) while the one's that favor the affluent continue to thrive largely under the radar.
And then yesterday, in the lead op-ed piece in the New York Times, the volume's editor, Richard Kahlensberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, summarized the little-discussed and essentially unlitigated legacy admission practices of most of the nation's most selective private and even public colleges, which one would think, since public institutions are largely funded with taxpayers' dollars, would not be allowed to admit students in this discriminatory way. (Linked below.)
Martin and Kahlensberg both cite overwhelming evidence that legacy practices do not act as a kind of tiebreaker, as elite colleges claim, when equally qualified applicants seek admissions. In fact, the hidden hand tipping the scale in favor of the children of graduates is the equivalent of 160 SAT points. Hardly a tiebreaker but rather more a decisive and unearned benefit to the next generation of less-worthies. Junior, doubly-privileged, thereby gains a 20 percent point boost in his chances for admission.
A point I added is that these unfairly assisted applicants tend to come from the same kinds of families who shamelessly whine about how outrageous affirmative action practices are when they favor people of color.
A classic case of Hypocrisy 101.
In his chapter Boyce Martin concludes:
Our next dinner will perhaps be for vegetable lasagna at our house where we can continue this "seminar" in the meaning of American history and our noble aspirations as a diverse people.
In his chapter, Judge Martin, makes the persuasive argument that legacy admission practices, giving preference to the children of alums, in effect affirmative action for the privileged, impedes socially meaningful and academically enriching efforts to diversify student bodies.
Over dinner two night ago, we spoke about how sad and revealing it is that affirmative action programs that are ethnically or socio-economically based are discussed passionately and frequently challenged in the courts by those who feel discriminated against (from California v. Bakke to Hopwood v. Texas to Grutter) while the one's that favor the affluent continue to thrive largely under the radar.
And then yesterday, in the lead op-ed piece in the New York Times, the volume's editor, Richard Kahlensberg, senior fellow at the Century Foundation, summarized the little-discussed and essentially unlitigated legacy admission practices of most of the nation's most selective private and even public colleges, which one would think, since public institutions are largely funded with taxpayers' dollars, would not be allowed to admit students in this discriminatory way. (Linked below.)
Martin and Kahlensberg both cite overwhelming evidence that legacy practices do not act as a kind of tiebreaker, as elite colleges claim, when equally qualified applicants seek admissions. In fact, the hidden hand tipping the scale in favor of the children of graduates is the equivalent of 160 SAT points. Hardly a tiebreaker but rather more a decisive and unearned benefit to the next generation of less-worthies. Junior, doubly-privileged, thereby gains a 20 percent point boost in his chances for admission.
A point I added is that these unfairly assisted applicants tend to come from the same kinds of families who shamelessly whine about how outrageous affirmative action practices are when they favor people of color.
A classic case of Hypocrisy 101.
In his chapter Boyce Martin concludes:
I do not know what test will be applied to determine whether legacy preferences in admission policies violate the Equal Protection Clause [of the 14th Amendment] nor whether legacy preferences will survive the tests applied. But it is clear to me that legacy preferences are destructive to the diversity of our campuses and the perception of merit in admissions and that they perpetuate the class and race discrimination that the rest of our laws are fighting to stop.
Our next dinner will perhaps be for vegetable lasagna at our house where we can continue this "seminar" in the meaning of American history and our noble aspirations as a diverse people.
posted by Steven Zwerling at
4:43 AM
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