It’s Time to End Race-Based Affirmative Action
New York Times | John McWhorter
FAIR Advisor and Columbia professor John McWhorter speaks of his daughters, "shudder[ing] at the thought of...[an] admissions committee...reading their dossiers and finding their being biracial...the most interesting thing about them. Or even, frankly, interesting at all."
McWhorter explains his thesis: “ Affirmative action should address economic disadvantage, not race or gender… a mature America is now in a position to extend the moral sophistication of affirmative action to disadvantaged people of all races or ethnicities.”
McWhorter also questions what “diversity” role students of color are supposed to play at places like Harvard:
“I will never forget a line from a guidebook that Black students at Harvard wrote two decades ago: ‘We are not here to provide diversity training for Kate and Timmy.’ …If we salute the enterprising undergrads who wrote that, we must question the general thrust of the sundry amicus briefs that will be offered in the Harvard and U.N.C. cases, about how kids of color are vital to a campus because of their diversity, echoing the statement of Harvard’s president, just this week, that ‘Considering race as one factor among many in admissions decisions produces a more diverse student body which strengthens the learning environment for all.’”
Making it personal, he asks, “How would you feel about looking a Black undergraduate in the eye and saying, ‘A lot of the reason we wanted you here, on our campus, is your differences from most of the other students and the life lessons they can learn from them’? …[And] how would you feel about your kids being admitted to a university because of their ‘diverseness’ from other kids rather than, well, their selves?”
He then questions the entire premise of addressing inequality: “Where is the evidence that maintaining racial preferences in admissions, at the nation’s most selective universities, is the only, the best or even a reasonably effective way to rectify…inequalities?… The persistence of the wealth gap, after generations of affirmative action, suggests that somewhere along the way, we’ve missed the mark, policy-wise.”
