Affirming affirmative action

It has been more than 40 years since the doors of U.S. schools were legally opened to people of all races. In these years, the U.S. educational system has been drastically reformed, but one remnant of our policy to rectify past wrongs remains. This critical remnant is affirmative action.\nAffirmative action, first officially practiced in the 1960s, is a concept whereby organizations (the most prolific of which are universities) recognize diversity as a goal when selecting applicants. Since the 1978 Bakke ruling, publicly funded schools have been precluded from imposing rigid quotas on incoming classes, but have been able to take race into consideration as one of many factors when selecting classes. \nJust as in 1978, affirmative action is once again under fire. This time, two cases regarding the University of Michigan's affirmative action policies are before the Supreme Court. \nThe specifics of these cases aside, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to dismantle affirmative action and send the policy to the history books. This is an option the Court must think through carefully before settling upon.\nIt is a sad statement indeed that there is still a debate over affirmative action in the year 2002. But like it or not, we need to face up to the fact that racial inequalities still exist in this country.\nThe statistics speak for themselves: According to the American Council on Education, in 2000, 43 percent of white high school graduates attended college, compared to 38 percent of black students and 36.5 percent of Hispanic students. While these statistics may seem fairly insignificant, it's important to note that according to the IDS, the University of Michigan has told the Supreme Court that without affirmative action, "Minority attendance in freshman classes could drop to .04 percent."\nSimply enough, while this country has made gains towards equality in post-secondary education, these gains could be lost quickly if affirmative action were overturned. But, why? Am I saying that African-American students are less capable? Of course not. What we must accept is that fundamental inequalities still exist in America.\nWhile I, along with many students at this university, have been blessed to go to a good public school and have strong parental figures, many people are not so fortunate. While not a panacea, affirmative action allows schools to take into consideration students' backgrounds. As much as we proclaim that Americans have "equal opportunity," we're fooling ourselves if we believe such a statement. The reality is that our social policy and our elementary and secondary education policies have failed to rectify racial inequalities created by years of oppression.\n If we eliminate affirmative action in schools, we can hold our heads high as idealists who say "race plays no role in college admissions," but we would have to hang our heads as pragmatists realizing that, without affirmative action, the racial gap in the United States might increase once again.\n We can hope that the Supreme Court will realize the unfortunate reality that without affirmative action, diversity in higher education will be greatly diminished. Diversity is not only beneficial to minority students, but it is beneficial to all students. University of Michigan professor Patricia Gurin said, "Students learn more and think in deeper, more complex ways in a diverse educational environment."\nThe Supreme Court should choose to uphold diversity in higher education and hold open the doors of U.S. colleges to all Americans. In 2002, we must reject policies that allow opportunities only for a privileged few and embrace those serving to provide opportunities for all, regardless of background.