Open your eyes to anti-affirmative action rhetoric

Open your eyes to anti-affirmative action rhetoric

Juan Alvarado

Okay, here’s the deal. My friend Tia told me her theory about
getting what she wants in life. She called it the catsup theory and
it goes something like this: If, hypothetically, you had a big blob
of catsup hanging 39,000 feet up in the air, if a plane flew by and
couldn’t avoid the blob, some of that catsup would inevitably get
stuck to the plane.

I didn’t get it at first either, so I asked her to explain. She
said that when she wants something, she becomes like that blob of
catsup. She makes herself present and unavoidable to the thing she
wants. Anyone who endures this with her comes out of it like the
plane, no major damage, but just a piece of her sticking to
them.

Why am I even bringing this up? Well, to be honest, partly
because she told me that theory just so she could get mentioned in
one of my columns. Mainly I’m bring it up because I’ve noticed a
lot of people who believe in this theory without even knowing about
it.

I’m talking about all the recent articles about affirmative
action. It hasn’t been a real national issue for years and years
­ sure, it has come in and out of the local spotlight ­
but not since affirmative action began has the national debate been
this active. Now, all of a sudden, it’s a hot topic.

Is it just me or does anyone else feel like they’ve got catsup
on their face? Someone decided that this issue should surface right
now, just in time for the primaries, and that the issue should stay
in the spotlight all the way to the 1996 elections. It’s definitely
not a coincidence ­ it’s actually more like a smoke screen. If
people aren’t careful, other, more relevant issues might be glossed
over while we debate this one.

The fact is that the issue is here, especially in California
where we will soon face a ballot measure called the California
Civil Rights Initiative. And since a debate has at least two sides,
I should tell you where I stand on affirmative action so you can
know my personal biases.

I am attending UCLA today because of affirmative action. I am by
no means underqualified to be here, but if the program did not
exist I would be attending college somewhere else. In high school,
I had a 2.68 GPA and a 1240 SAT (550 verbal, 690 math). I scored
exactly the required 1650 on the achievement tests, fulfilled the
University of California’s A-F admissions requirements and was
enrolled in all the honors and Advanced Placement courses at my
school.

Here’s the supplemental information. I am a Mexican American
from a small, poor neighborhood and school district, and a school
that is definitely underrepresented (only one student was admitted
to UCLA the year before me, one the year before that and I was the
sole admit my year). I was in the band, the academic team and
Mathematics Engineering Science Achievement, where I was named most
outstanding senior for my school.

Well, that’s what the admissions people had to go on when
looking at my application. If there were no affirmative action
programs I would have never gotten in. My GPA alone would have
disqualified me because so many applicants have 3.5s or better. I
figure that since I was about average in academic criteria, the
supplemental information really helped to get me in.

The point I want to make here is that if it weren’t for
affirmative action programs, lots of you reading this would not be
here either. Enough applicants come in every year with a 3.5 or
better, or 1100 or better on the SATs, that anyone under could kiss
their chances goodbye.

Sixty percent of UCLA students are admitted on purely academic
statistics and the other 40 percent are admitted based on a
combination of academics and supplemental criteria. Affirmative
action is not just about ethnic minorities, it’s about balancing
our society so the school won’t be filled with only rich white
males like it was before the programs were created.

Even if every minority student was admitted to UCLA through
affirmative action, we still represent only about 20 percent of the
school’s population. That leaves 80 percent of admits who are
non-minority. Now that is a big if, and as much as you may not want
to believe it, a good percentage of minorities are admitted on
purely academic criteria. So that makes the percentage of
nonminority affirmative action admits even larger.

So now, let’s think about these cries of "reverse
discrimination" for a second. Percentage-wise, it is more likely
that the person who takes the spot of a 4.6 GPA candidate is a
nonminority from a disadvantaged background. Maybe they had to work
all through high school and couldn’t spare enough time to study.
Maybe they had to worry more about living another day than doing
more homework.

I’ve known students like this. You are out there, you know who
you are and you are here at UCLA because of affirmative action.
Something to think about when you are asked where you stand on the
issue.

So what about the California Civil Rights Initiative? The two
supposedly apolitical college professors who authored the
initiative are anything but apolitical. They would like you to
believe the proposition was inspired by their desire to take the
civil rights movement to its next logical step by removing all
mentions of race from California hiring and contract granting
practices.

Tom Wood, one of the two professors who authored the initiative,
has an axe to grind with affirmative action. He was told after a
job interview that he would "walk right in if he were the right
gender," and the job was given to a woman. What he doesn’t
emphasize, however, is that he wasn’t offered lots of jobs, and
affirmative action is not to blame for those. In fact, in a 20-year
span since he got a Ph.D. he has landed a grand total of three
temporary posts from dozens of attempts. In my opinion, if he were
a good professor, those temporary positions would have become more
permanent. Most likely, it is easier for him to blame affirmative
action and be bitter than to face that simple fact.

The other author, Glynn Custred, is actually an employed
professor. He claims he has no axe to grind, but feels for all
those out there that have endured what his friend Tom has. A
conservative activist, Custred does all he can to turn back efforts
to open institutions of education to people of color. In 1989, he
co-founded the California Association of Scholars, an organization
that lobbies to relax standards defining racial and sexual
harassment. In 1992, Custred brought on Wood as executive director
of the organization. The group then worked to block the adoption of
a policy statement by the Western Association of Schools and
Colleges that called for addressing the issue of preparing students
to work in a multiethnic, heterogeneous society.

My mission in writing this column is to open your eyes to the
hypocrisy of most of the anti-affirmative action rhetoric going
around.

It’s not about civil rights, it’s about anger, resentment and
racism. I’m asking you as intelligent people to really think about
the issue of affirmative action, where it came from, what it’s
doing, and what it has done.

Alvarado is a fifth-year computer science and engineering
student. His columns appear on alternate Fridays.