Equality from grade one would make affirmative action irrelevant
Joanna Mikulski
Tuesday Voice
I might be the picture of the typical Notre Dame student: white, Catholic school-educated and straight out of the suburbs. Many of my friends fit comfortably into this category. Together we are the picture of homogeneity. This fall a study in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education ranked Notre Dame 22nd out of the 26 top-tier universities in diversity. The lack of racial diversity has left many in the campus community wondering how this school can attract more qualified minority candidates to create a more diverse student body.
This University is not alone in its struggle. Admissions policies at University of Michigan, both in the undergraduate and graduate schools, have come under scrutiny since Barbara Grutter, a white applicant to the law school, sued the school for admission. The lawsuit, now headed to the Supreme Court, claims that Grutter would have been admitted if she were black.
Race plays a definite role in Michigan's admissions process. On the point scale for undergraduate admissions, Hispanic ethnicity gets a student more points than a perfect score on the SAT. In some cases, the test scores and GPAs which gave white and Asian students a slim chance of admittance got African-American candidates into the school 100 percent of the time.
While an honest and well-intentioned effort to create a diverse student body likely lies behind such admissions policies, many argue that the use of race-based admissions policies equates to nothing more than a practice in quotas based on the assumption of underachievement.
Furthermore, in the battle for the best students, diversity is no joking matter. Diversity in the student body gets a school more prestige and a better ranking in the all-important annual USA Today poll.
As a student, I measure diversity in the classroom by the range of opinions and outlooks offered by my classmates. These differences in perspective, which emerge from unique life experiences, open minds and inspire new thinking.
Given the prevalence of racism in American society, race is certainly a factor in the diversity equation. It plays a role in any American's experience.
However, differences in skin color alone do not guarantee diversity in the student body. A black student who attended a private school in a suburban community like my hometown would likely have a more similar perspective to my own than a white student who grew up in a poor urban or rural community.
Yet, at the same time, disparities in wealth and educational opportunities cannot be ignored. Consider the case of standardized tests. Whites are more likely to have the money to buy precious points on the SAT or ACT. The predominantly white private girls' high school I attended not only offered help to the low scorers, it shuttled successful students to a class intended to turn their good scores into National Merit Finalist material.
Few students at nearby city high schools had the benefit of professional coaching, a 500-word vocabulary list and innumerable copies of old tests.
To solve the race, diversity and college admissions puzzle, Americans need to start at the bottom. It seems to me that if schools were equal from grade one, colleges and universities would end up with a racially diverse student body without the help of affirmative action admissions policies.
Until then, the only way to compensate for inherent societal inequalities is to treat each applicant as an individual. Race should be considered not as a defining label, but as one aspect of the full picture of the applicant, the person, the student.
Such consideration requires a measured effort by admissions officers to look well past the numbers, the test scores, the GPAs and race. Given the increasing volume of applicants, this no doubt becomes more difficult each year.
But, in the end, the extra effort would be well worth it. The benefits of a diverse student body go well beyond the numbers on a stat sheet or a ranking in USA Today.
Joanna Mikulski is a senior English and German major. Her column appears every other Tuesday. Contact her at mikulski.1@nd.edu.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Viewpoint Stories for Tuesday, January 21, 2003
