My view on affirmative action changed: here’s why

In the past few weeks, I’ve come to ponder on some of my past thinking on race relations in the United States, and have begun to realize how flawed some of my ideas were. I’m writing this to reflect on my thinking and maybe persuade someone with similar views.

During my high school years, I viewed affirmative action as an unfair practice that undervalued my work while applying to college. I was frustrated and thought I would have to score higher to get the same results as someone else from an underrepresented group. And as an Asian racial minority myself, I felt that I fully understood the struggles that other minority communities face. Based on my own experiences, I claimed that systemic racism today is not prevalent to justify considering race in college admissions. After all, there are no laws today that explicitly discriminate on the basis of race, so it must be that the system isn’t racist. And instead, affirmative action and scholarships for underrepresented minorities must be a form of “reverse discrimination”.

This is where my line of thinking went wrong. The system is not just the laws that exist, but also how frequently and to whom those laws are applied in society. It’s about how different groups of people are represented and the societal attitudes towards them. And in this regard it’s clear that the minorities that affirmative action seeks to benefit are at a disadvantage. African Americans in particular have a long history of being excluded from educational opportunities. Historically black colleges and scholarships for African Americans don’t exist to perpetuate “reverse racism”, but to correct centuries of marginalization in education. The fact that African Americans had to construct their own schools for education rather than use the existing schools in a state is a blemish on American history.

Now some might say that this is a bygone era, that we haven’t had segregated schools for decades. While true, this ignores the fact that there is an inter-generational impact of racist policies. Wealth is transmitted down through generations, often via property. And African Americans in the past rarely had a chance to receive such inheritance. Poor quality segregated education limited their employment opportunities, and even if they did manage to succeed, they were discriminated again in employment. Redlining made predominantly African American communities more difficult to live in, and reduced their access to financial services, health care, grocery stores, among other things. In suburbs where proportially fewer African Americans lived, this problem was not as prevalent. A long history of policies like this has contributed to a wealth gap between African Americans and white Americans.

Now how does this all relate to affirmative action? Well, it helped me realize that affirmative action isn’t about necessarily reducing the standards for people to get in. There is a historical reason why racial disparities in college admissions exist, and giving some consideration to people who are/were marginalized in society is necessary. Many will acknowledge the unique discriminatory history that certain communities in the United States face, but are reluctant to consider affirmative action as a solution. And this is a fair critique if affirmative action is viewed as a way for people with less scores to get in over those with higher scores. But this is not exactly how affirmative action in college admissions works in the United States today.

College admissions in America are holistic, meaning they take into account a variety of factors unrelated to one’s grades or test scores. Race, gender, poverty, and legacy status are all considered in many college applications. Is it true that an underrepresented minority with a lower test score could get in over someone with a higher score? Yes. But it’s also true that the reverse could happen under a holistic system. And someone with a legacy status could benefit in a similar way as well.

Colleges that practice affirmative action (like most colleges) avoid admitting people who wouldn’t succeed. It isn’t necessarily in the college’s best interest to lower their graduation rates in order to increase diversity. If race is considered, the person admitted is still qualified and likely to succeed as determined by the college. Indeed, it’s common for college administrators to acknowledge that they could easily fill multiple classes of qualified students given the profile of the applicants they get. So while race may give a candidate a benefit, so can legacy status, poverty, being a particular gender (depending on the program), among other things. A poor person of an Asian or white background does receive consideration for their poverty. There are a myriad of factors at play here that determine college admissions so applicants can compete on an even playing field.

Is this system perfect? No. It’s a band aid solution on a broader problem of inequality that needs to be addressed by Congress, states, and local communities. But I think that this is a reasonable compromise between explicit quotas and no consideration of race at all. There have been historical injustices that continue to affect our society, and this is the best way we have to help correct for those in college admissions.