Affirmative action needs broader criteria

Affirmative action is a commonly misrepresented public
policy.

Those who challenge the narrow notion of merit-based decisions
are accused of “lowering standards,” but how reliable
are these standards?

UCLA holds the dubious distinction of being the university that
rejects the largest number of applicants ever year.

Consideration is given to students for non-academic,
non-meritocratic criteria, yet there is no uproar over its use.

Where are the defenders of merit when it comes to the issue of
athlete admits?

The sound is a deafening silence.

The Daily Bruin editorial on affirmative action (“New
holistic approach still lacks definition,” Nov. 1) highlights
the messy nature of race-based affirmative action and concludes
that institutions should implement a less controversial
economic-based affirmative action.

On the surface, this is an interesting proposal, but it does not
hold up under deeper scrutiny.

Essentially, these proposals argue that economics is the true
proxy for disadvantage. The central fallacy in this argument is the
assumption that racial discrimination does not affect economically
advantaged minorities.

In addition, there are poor people of all races, and to rely
upon socio-economic status as a proxy for race requires
underrepresented minorities to be both racially and economically
disadvantaged.

As Stanford Professor Claude Steele’s work on stereotypes
illustrates, black students’ test scores are artificially
depressed because of the additional pressure they face when forced
to disprove stereotypes.

Thus, Steele illustrates how economically advantaged minority
students can still be dragged down by racism.

While there are movements of people to maintain race-based
affirmative action in higher education, the same cannot be said for
economic affirmative action.

At their root, arguments that support this alternative program
are simply against race-based affirmative action.

This is not to say that economic affirmative action should not
exist.

To the contrary, it should be one component in the admissions
process just like race and gender-based affirmative action.

We need to assume a sophisticated affirmative action plan so
admissions are based on more than a single axis of
disadvantage.

Additionally, the Daily Bruin editorial stated, “The days
of race quotas are long behind us.”

This is a statement of the obvious, as racial quotas have been
illegal since the 1978 Regents of the University of California v.
Bakke decision.

Associating affirmative action with quotas furthers the myth
that black and Latina/o students on campus are
“unqualified.”

Federal regulations only allow race-based affirmative action
that uses race as one of several criteria used for admissions
decisions.

Affirmative action is a small but significant means of
addressing pronounced racial inequality.

Dealing with systemic racism is a difficult project that
requires all of us to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

There has yet to be any program that can act as a substitute for
affirmative action.

In the words of Justice Harry Blackmun from the Bakke decision,
“In order to get beyond racism, we must first take account of
race. There is no other way.”

Cabrera is a graduate student in the School of Education and
Information Studies. Fortier is a third-year neuroscience and
public policy student.