Affirmative Action
Hacker, Andrew
It is wrong, we increasingly hear, to give favored treatment to individuals simply because they have African ancestors. Hence, too, the argument that we no longer reserve places for persons of...
...Instead of race, we might give special attention to all the individuals who have incurred disadvantages...
...With regard to the low-income whites, very few were raised in Appalachian trailer courts...
...And as many fathers seek to avoid college bills, they often insist that the mother be listed as the sole provider...
...Notice that all 148,319 of these students carry the low-income credential...
...But not so fast...
...So the new dispensation would end up favoring Caucasians and Asians...
...For exFALL • 1995 • 465 Affirmative Action ample, people who are born blind or who suffered serious abuse as children...
...Black students from low-income homes would receive a quarter of the special admissions and scholarships, considerably less than what they are now being offered when preferences are based on race...
...But the principal proposal has been that affirmative attention be given to those who have endured hardships associated with low incomes...
...Presumably, then, special allowances would be made for low-income applicants, and they might be admitted with lower scores than more affluent candidates...
...In sum, preferences ostensibly based on poverty will mainly benefit middle-class whites and Asians...
...This is an apt example of how other institutions have to foot bills for personal decisions that have social consequences...
...In fact, most of the poorer Asians who do take the test have middle-class family backgrounds: over half of their parents attended college in their native countries...
...Indeed, given the lower scores of black students, any special assistance for them would be seen as reverting to a racially based affirmative action...
...Under the settlement, she gets the house, not least so the children can continue within the suburban school system...
...To start, whites would get about 40 percent of the places set aside for this affirmative attention group...
...But the bottom line thus far is that the principal beneficiaries would be white...
...So let's see how such a program might work...
...If race was bad as a barrier, it should not be used to justify preference...
...Once Asians rise above $20,000, which most of them soon do, they start recording higher scores than whites at comparable income levels...
...The admissions director of an Ivy League school recently told me that his office grants millions of dollars in aid to erstwhile middleclass children whose parents have divorced...
...As is common in middle-class divorces, the mother's in466 • DISSENT Affirmative Action come goes down, since support payments are rarely generous and not many divorced mothers have well-paid careers...
...That these students may have had a less than auspicious preparation is suggested by the fact that LOW-INCOME COLLEGE APPLICANTS Numbers and Average SAT Scores for Students with Family Incomes under $20,000 Whites 60,324 40.7% 872 Blacks 36,034 24.3% 693 Latins 25,180 17.0% 734 Asians 19,827 13.4% 845 Others 6,954 4.6% 796 Total 148,319 100.0% 798 their average SAT score was 798, measurably below the 902 average for the entire group...
...The accompanying table provides numbers and scores by students' ethnic backgrounds...
...But first, we should look at the cohort of students in the under-$20,000 group...
...Also, they are still learning English, which explains why their children's scores are lower than those for poorer whites...
...I suspect that those calling for income-based affirmative action know this will be the result, and it is really what they want...
...The poorest tend to be the most recent arrivals and have yet to establish an economic foothold...
...In 1993, of the 1,044,465 high school seniors who took the Scholastic Aptitude Test, 148,319 came from families with incomes under $20,000...
...And to judge by SAT scores, the preference would clearly go to whites and Asians...
...One -premise is that a college seeking a diverse enrollment would want a sprinkling of poor students...
...And together withAsians, they would take somewhat over half...
...What will pass for preferences geared to low income can have application only at the educational stage...
...Still, some who profess to a social conscience are offering an alternative...
...It is hard to see how special attention in hirings and promotions will be given to adult candidates because their parents happened to be poor...
...Needless to say, the real losers will be black and Hispanic students, who will see their representation on college campuses dwindle by at least half and probably as much as two-thirds...
...At this point, well-off black applicants are often offered college acceptances—and even scholarships—ahead of white candidates from poverty-level homes...
...And who are these low-income teenagers...
...Hence, too, the argument that we no longer reserve places for persons of European descent, so it is time to remove race as a basis altogether...
...However, certain priorities will have to be established, since there will very likely be limits on available places and financial assistance...
...Where the Asians are concerned, hardly any are Laotians or Cambodians, because few of them are likely to get to the SAT table...
...A race-blind system would cure that inconsistency, as well as allay much of the current resentment...
...Because all are poor, the obvious ranking would be on academic merit...
...What makes them poor is that their parents have divorced and they are now living with their mother...
...Note that the entire under-$20,000 group makes up less than 15 percent of those taking the test...
...Certainly, if it wanted that, it would admit a fair number of inner-city blacks along with whites who had been raised in decaying trailer parks...
...Much like the Asians, the largest contingent among poor whites were raised in middle-class households and attended middle-class high schools...
Vol. 42 • September 1995 • No. 4
