Aristotle & Kant in comparison to Gerald Ford and LBJ

Written by Michael Aaronson

In the 1999 New York Times article entitled Inclusive America, Under Attack, former President Gerald R. Ford states that, “At its core, affirmative action should try to offset past injustices by fashioning a campus more truly reflective of modern America and our hopes for the future.” Ford highlights former President Lyndon Johnson’s speech in which he stated, “To be black in a white society is not to stand on level and equal ground. While the races may stand side by side, whites stand on history’s mountain and blacks stand in history’s hollow. Until we overcome unequal history, we cannot overcome unequal opportunity.” While I see their points, I find it hard to believe that the solution to past injustice is more injustice.  From this, it seemed appropriate to examine this concept from various philosophical perspectives in order to truly evaluate the morality of this claim.

I began by utilizing the principles of Immanuel Kant. I was fortunate enough to find an article that actually addressed this theory from a Kantian perspective. According to an article by Stanley Fish entitled, Revisiting Affirmative Action, With Help From Kant, Kant would have most likely disagreed with the claims of our former presidents. According to the article,

“He would have said, as many opponents of affirmative action do say, that it is wrong to respond to past acts of discrimination by discriminating in the present, even if your intentions are good. If discrimination – the unequal treatment of inherently free and equal citizens – is to be condemned when the motives behind it (to preserve power or maintain a way of life) are suspect, it is also to be condemned when the motives behind it (to redress an historical injustice or have the student body reflect the diversity of America) are benign. Otherwise the calculation of happiness (at least by someone’s lights) will have taken precedence over the upholding of principle.” 

From this, it appears that this concept is not morally sound. However, in order to strengthen this claim, I also examined it from an Aristotelian perspective. Unfortunately, I was unable to find an article that presented an aristatelian analysis of this theory, so I was forced to do it the old fashioned way. 

In his work, Aristotle seeks a way to express our goodness through action. He argues that to achieve happiness (eudaimonia) is to become a virtuoso of the activity of being human. The question becomes, how does one accomplish this? According to Aristotle, to attain eudaimonia is to choose to do the right thing because it expresses ones good habits. Additionally, every practice can be done with excellence (Aretē) or not.  This concept of Aretē has a characteristic relationship to the effect that emotions have on us. Because of this, Aristotle would argue that a virtuous relationship is one that enacts a “mean relative to us,” or the balancing of our emotions. To tie everything together, our excellence has to do with how well we handle our emotions, and our excellence is essential to achieving eudaimonia.

In my opinion, by letting the past influence their current decisions, individuals such as Ford and Johnson who aim to offset past injustices are not balancing their emotions. They are letting their feelings of shame and embarrassment for what their ancestors did sway them towards a decision. As justice is a virtue to Aristotle,  the ancestors of these individuals may have acted with deficiency by discriminating against races, but the people who hold these views are acting in excess of this by arguing for more discrimination to right this wrong. Overall, I believe that Aristotle would argue that these claims are unjust as they do not enact a mean relative to us.

A Utilitarian Analysis of Affirmative Action

Utilitarianism is a moral theory popularized by John Stuart Mill that is centered around the idea of the greatest happiness principle and its relation to utility. According to the greatest happiness principle, the right action is the action which produces the most utility, or pleasure and absence of pain, for all who are affected by the action. Everyone enters into the calculation on equal footing, so that no one individual's happiness is placed above anyone else's. The "pleasures" taken into account under the greatest happiness principle differ in quantity and quality, with pleasures of the intellect regarded as being more valuable than those of sensation.

Taking these ideas into account, I will try to analyze the morality of affirmative action from a utilitarian perspective. 

Argument for Affirmative Action:

Minorities benefit from affirmative action in the sense that by giving them the opportunity to a higher education, the university is adding pleasure for them and removing their pain:

• pleasure of higher education
• intellectual stimulation
• college education
• exposed to a plethora of fields and career opportunities
• cultural stimulation
• interacting with students from various aspects of life
• higher pleasures
• duration of the pleasure
• life
• removal of pain
• the pain of ignorance
• not realizing one's full potential
• possible pain of financial instability
• no college education = less job opportunities
• sense of accomplishment
• create utility for future generations
• children more likely to attend university
• starts a cycle - children will attend college, their children will attend college, so on...

Although those in the majority group are expected to suffer some "pain" (in terms of the greatest happiness principle) as a result of affirmative action, the pains they suffer pale in comparison to the higher pleasures experienced by the individuals in the minority group:

• discomfort from being exposed to minority culture - lower pain than the pleasure minorities receive of education
• discomfort = sensational pain
• education = intellectual pleasure
• duration of the pain
• temporary
• not necessarily all in the majority are affected

Affirmative action can be evaluated in terms of the sanctions that push us to adopt the greatest happiness principle. External sanctions motivate our sense of duty to promote affirmative action, which is motivated by sympathy and enacted through education. This leads to our duty to the minorities being internalized, which then leads us to broaden the scope of the duty, or to more heavily promote diversity:

• external sanctions: pressure, destruction of reputation for not having diversity, praise for having diversity
• promote affirmative action through education
• duty internalized = increase promotion of diversity 
• social feeling for humankind strengthened

Argument Against Affirmative Action:

By pure definition, if affirmative action is rejected by the majority, then it is violating the greatest happiness principle because it is not fostering the greatest amount of utility for the greatest amount of people. The majority constitutes the greatest number of people, so if pleasure is being taken away from the majority in favor of the minority, the action is not moral under utilitarianism. However, this does not take into account the quality of the pleasures.

A possible drawback to affirmative action is the addition of pain for those in the minority:

• sense of isolation
• could feel alienated in their own environment
• ex: black students speaking up on Twitter with "#BBUM", detailing the struggles of being black at the University of Michigan and trying to create a sense of community and belonging in a "hostile" environment
• http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/25/on-twitter-being-black-at-the-university-of-michigan/

Conclusion:

Affirmative action is supported under utilitarianism. Ultimately, the advantages that minority groups reap from affirmative action outweigh the possible disadvantages suffered both by the majority and minorities because the value, duration, and amount of the benefits exceeds those of the drawbacks. 

Alternatives in Florida and California

According to an article by Peter Hinrich entitled, The Effects of Affirmative Action Bans on College Enrollment, Educational Attainment, and the Demographic Composition of Universities, the following alternatives to affirmative action (similar to the 10% plan in Texas) currently exist:


California:

"Under California’s 'Eligibility in the Local Context' policy, those in the top four percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to at least one campus of the University of California."

According to the University of California's site for student affairs,

"The ELC program fulfills an important UC admissions goal: to recognize and reward the academic accomplishment of students who have made the most of the opportunities available to them. To be designated as ELC, a student must have attended an eligible, participating California high school, satisfactorily completed a specific pattern of 11 UC-approved courses prior to the start of senior year, and have a UC-calculated GPA that meets or exceeds the top 9 percent GPA benchmark established by UC for their school. To maintain the ELC status, the student must maintain a 3.0 GPA and submit an official copy of ACT with Writing or SAT Reasoning Test scores."


 Florida:

"Under Florida’s Talented 20 Program, those in the top twenty percent of their high school class are guaranteed admission to at least one public university in Florida."


According to the Florida Department of Education website,

In order to qualify for the Talented Twenty Program, the student must:

• Be enrolled in a Florida public high school and graduate with a standard diploma
• Be ranked in the top 20% of the class after the posting of seventh semester grades
• Submit test scores from the Scholastic Reasoning Test of the College Board or from the ACT of the American College Testing program prior to enrollment to a university in the State University System
• Complete all eighteen core course requirements for state university admission.

The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA criticized the program by arguing that it is "not race-neutral and is not an effective alternative to race-conscious affirmative action." The website argues that,

1. "The Talented 20 plan has led to the admission of very few students to the state university system who would not have been admitted under pre-existing, non-race-conscious rules."
   
2. "The Talented 20 plan provided no guarantee of admission to the two most highly selective campuses in the system, the University of Florida (UF) and Florida State University (FSU)."
   
3. "Only an insignificant number of 'newly eligible' minority students achieved access to the system."
   
4. "The Talented 20 includes far more White and Asian students than Blacks and Hispanics, the two groups most underrepresented at UF and FSU."
   
5. "The minimal success of the plan relies on race-attentive recruitment, retention, and financial aid policies."

Kant and Affirmative Action

It's really hard to figure out what Kant would say about affirmative action and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of debate about that (at least in the internet realm, but that's where most of us millennial-aged students look for ideas - let's be honest)

In a New York Times article, one Professor who teaches Kant at his university wrote his thoughts on why Kant might be against affirmative action in response to the effect of Proposal 2 on the University of Michigan. To Recap the event of Prop 2 for UM students, recall that:

- Proposal 2 was a state ballot banning Affirmative Actions that give preferences to any persons and groups based on race, gender, ethnicity, or nationality

- When is was successful, President Mary Sue Coleman was not happy

- University of Michigan Lawyers tried to appeal, asking to wait until admissions for that year ended

- The Federal Court declined the request, forcing UM to change its policy immediately

He explains that, although Kant might put an emphasis on freedom and equality when it comes            to political thought - Affirmative Action formulated with the intent on making up for the                    disparities of past injustices would be morally incorrect. 

“It is because Kant insists on distinguishing what works (at least in the short run) and what is right that he would, I believe, be against affirmative action. He would have said, as many opponents of affirmative action do say, that it is wrong to respond to past acts of discrimination by discriminating in the present, even if your intentions are good. If discrimination – the unequal treatment of inherently free and equal citizens – is to be condemned when the motives behind it (to preserve power or maintain a way of life) are suspect, it is also to be condemned when the motives behind it (to redress an historical injustice or have the student body reflect the diversity of America) are benign. Otherwise the calculation of happiness (at least by someone’s lights) will have taken precedence over the upholding of principle.”

I think this thought is very interesting. It should be noted that the author struggles struggles between his desire for justice - he wants Affirmative Action to happen. But he's torn between what he feels is right and what he thinks, based on Kantian first principles, is right.

We know that Affirmative Action can take different forms. Most Affirmative Action advocates push for it based on the same reasons as above. Perhaps if an Affirmative Action policy was proposed based on a different intention, it would pass this moral problem of using it to redress past discriminations.


source: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/01/14/how-kant-might-view-affirmative-action

An Interview with the President of the College Libertarians

One of our aims to give a voice to the students of the University. We are here with Travis Mazer, the current President of the UM Libertarians. Travis is a neuroscience undergraduate  student who will be representing the case against affirmative action. We will keep the topic focused on affirmative action as a philosophical and moral issue.

Hey Travis, thanks for letting us interview you for our blog. So Aristotle writes that people best  live by flourishing and by virtue. As a libertarian, what virtues do you believe a libertarian  values? What is a libertarian?

That’s an interesting question. Libertarians are a very diverse group of people. They have wide-ranging views and moral ideas, however the one thing that typically unites all libertarians is the non-aggression principle. The most important of libertarian virtue, philosophy, and morality is whether or not someone is harmed by an action. And by harm, we mean through the initiation of force, so someone punching you for saying Skrillex is good music is an initiation of force that is unjustified (despite how bad Skrillex is :) ), but defending yourself is a response to that force and is therefore acceptable. That can be described in terms of rights or in social good, but generally we are concerned with institutions we have or could potentially have in relationship to harm and the individual.

What virtues and values the University of Michigan could stand to pay more attention to? As  a libertarian, what are your goals?

We could focus more on that notion of harm. A lot of emphasis is needed in that area. For instance, UofM has been seen infringing on freedom of speech. The organization FIRE is a legal organization that primarily focuses on this issue and has seen several cases on speech controls on UofM campus within the student code. The fact that there are rules on what is suitable speech and fines for “unacceptable speech” is archaic for an institution that supposedly prides itself on intellectual diversity and openness. These fines and restrictions are a form of harm as the University initiates force on individuals in the form of fines in response to students’ free expression.

Tell us about your opinion on the moral consideration of implementing affirmative action  policies. Why or why not is, in terms of ethics and morality, affirmative action a good thing for higher education? 

Whether or not affirmative action is acceptable really does depend on who is conducting the action. For instance, many private schools such as Harvard practices affirmative action and libertarians would be fully comfortable with that sort of behavior. They are a private institution that has the right to affiliate with people that it wants to affiliate with and run its business the way it wishes. However, if we look into issues such as public institutions and institutions that are responsible to citizens of the US – it’s really an issue of whether or not discriminatory policies are being used. In some cases of affirmative action with the UM, such as the Jennifer Gratz case in the early 2000’s, the UM used discriminatory practices and in that regard we would not be comfortable utilizing it. It is a clear violation of the Constitution’s equal protection clause and is therefore in conflict with the rights of citizens funding and seeking access to a public institution.

John Stuart Mill says that the right thing to do is the action that promotes the greatest utility  and the absence of disutility. Many argue that affirmative action is just because it alleviates the injustices of the past that have resulted in the suffering minorities today. Others argue that public universities should be made to better reflect the racial demographics of the country or of the community. Do you agree or disagree, and can you justify why this is just or unjust?

According to recent research on affirmative action acceptances, students accepted through this mechanism end up much more likely to drop out of college than their peers, so all you get for your good intent of improving these people’s lives is saddling them with college debt for an unfinished degree. But whether or not affirmative action is a good idea isn’t as relevant to this question seeing as it is a policy that’s attempting to create a demographic ratio from a highly selected group of students. The K-12 education system is already causing trouble for a large number of students and looking into graduation rates and grade point averages, the K-12 system especially fails for those who are susceptible and less privileged. Affirmative Action at the University level is, in my opinion, too late. If you truly want to have a better distribution of demographics, a better area would be improving the K-12 education system so that those demographics are better situated.

So why is that? Do you propose that we better equip students in the K-12 system?

I believe that they need to improve in that the sense that they better cater to those students who are less privileged seeing as those are the ones who receive the most disutility from the system. I also think that students should have choices in their education, so escapes from the failed system we have today should be readily available and not as heavily discouraged as they are today.


 A New York Times writer who teaches Immanuel Kant (a philosopher who is famous for the basic idea of ‘the ends do not justify the means’) at the University of Michigan argues in that Kant would have been against affirmative action. He writes that the debate of affirmative action it is a matter of “legislating in response to perceived social needs” vs “legislating with an eye to first principles (aka what action is the right thing to do)”. Do we judge policies as being more or less likely to have the consequences we seek in the present, or do we judge policies as being more or less compatible with first principles that know no time but are always applicable? Do we ask, will it work? Or do we ask, is it right? What do you think?

We can look at it in both ways. We can, one, look at it from a Kantian perspective and think whether or not it would be acceptable to have discriminatory policies in every situation and we can also look at it from a utilitarian perspective and think well we can see that universities that are able to have a distribution of students that reflected the demographics of their community as a whole without Affirmative Action policies, such as top 10% acceptance systems. And so we can see in both perspectives that there are arguments against the implementation against Affirmative Action that can still lead to the desired result of Affirmative Action.

The college libertarians once hosted Jennifer Gratz as a speaker at the University. Did you attend this? What are your thoughts on the issues and response to the criticisms of her case?

What I see this case as is difficulties with free speech that UM has. The case reflects how the UM can have difficulties with respecting different points of view, especially with ones that may be completely in contradiction to what the UM holds in the case of Jennifer Gratz.

Where does harm play a role in this case?

I see harm playing a role in that students being told that the funding they have to give will be used fairly and then not being used fairly, its basically a violation between a contract between the university  and the students

To clarify, my question is about Jennifer Gratz’s case itself.

In that case, because UM is an institution that is supposed to be responsible to the citizens of the United States through the equal protection clause of the constitution it does not have the right to discriminate between citizens of the United States based on race, or ethnicity or other factors. It’s an important distinction to make with public institution and with institutions that are responsible to the citizens of the United States. The reason why Jennifer Gratz sued the UM was because it was found that the UM was using discriminatory policies based on race and ethnicity which was in clear contradiction to the UM’s own claims of fair and non-discriminatory policies of admission as well as the Constitution. She was applying to LSA and she was not admitted. However it was not necessarily her specific case that was the importance of the lawsuit. The importance of the lawsuit was the discovery of the UM admissions committee using race as a admissions factor. The UM was using a point system based on a certain characteristic such as high GPA and test scores. If you scored higher than a certain threshold of point value, you are granted admission. The problem is that UM in that time was using race and ethnicity as an additional point value for some demographics and not for others, which is inherently discriminatory and against their policies.

Why, do you believe, can that not apply to higher education? Why not use the past as a reason 

for why we implement UM Affirmative Action?

Because it is a violation of the rights of American citizens. If AA is desired, a constitutional amendment must be made that removes equal protection before the law. Additionally, the difference there is that using AA at a UM level only heightens the issue of disparity. For instance, you’re still selecting from a smaller pool from a larger pool of persons who are typically underprivileged. What you see is not the distribution that you want. The demographics would still be skewed toward those who are more privileged in the underprivileged group. You still have that issue those who are underprivileged but still deserving of a higher education are still being blocked out of the U they deserve because of the failures of the K-12 system. Affirmative Action would not make sense as a solution for the K-12 system because those citizens are already required by law to attend those schools so it would be reallocation of resources and a heightened emphasis on students who are falling behind and are lost as a result of the system – treating the underprivileged worse than they deserve to be.

Tell us more on political reimbursement of events, how does that work?

The main rule of the UM funding program is that no events that have a political slant (either left, right or any other direction) or religious are not allowed to be funded. If the UM followed this policy fairly, all political events including the JGRATz event and BAMN protests, should not be funded. The fact that some were and some weren’t on a pick-and-choose basis is unfair and deserving of correction.

Can you tell us on the details and justification of the lawsuit by the UM College Libertarians  against UM? What motivated the lawsuit? What is your opinion on this case?

Cody Chipman and Derek Magill are the two leading proponents of leading that lawsuit. Their motivation for pursuing this is that in attempt to receive funding for Jennifer Gratz to come and speak regarding AA earlier this school year – the issue was not that the Libertarian club failed to receive funding. That was something we were accepting of. The issue was that the motivation for rejecting our request was that our event was political and the same group that rejected our request on the basis of political bias proceeded to give funding for another group known as BAMN. Funding for transportation and lodging to Washington DC in order to support their protesting of the Affirmative Action case being heard at the Supreme Court. This clear and distinct example of political bias and discrimination in funding is something that was unfair and in clear violation of UM’s own policies on reimbursement of political events.

Finally, what are your thoughts on the issue concerning diversity at the University of 

Michigan? What should the University of Michigan do about it if not the current AA policy 

that it is pushing right now? 

I believe that diversity is a highly important aspect of an intellectual community. Diversity is important to stimulating discussion and bringing in new ideas that may not other wise be implement. I believe that the UM could look to the top 10% method mimic its actions in making the demographics of the community

In what ways?

They do not have to use race as a discriminatory factor in apps merely shows that there are ways of expanding diversity without racial discrimination. They are not necessarily more diverse, they just better reflect their community as of right now.

What should we as individual students do about issues facing diversity?

One of the most important things we should do is be more accepting and tolerant of all communities. One of the issues we may see at a nation scale is this notion of mistrust of smaller groups. The country has been improving in this regard, as well as the rest of the world, it is still an issue with homosexual couples who want to marry. The US has tipped finally in that the majority agree that homosexuals should be allowed to marry which is a sign of progress. However that is a very slight majority (about 51-53%). What we as individual students about that is focus on being more open-minded with cultures different than our own and to be more accepting of practices and ideas that we may or may not agree with.

Travis Mazer is a 4th-year undergraduate student studying neuroscience at the University of Michigan. He is the current President of the University of Michigan College Libertarians.

The Controversy Affirmative Action Bake Sales

In the past five years, there have been new reports covering a particularly controversial form of protest known as 'Affirmative Action Bake Sales'. These are most commonly held on campus diags. Student organizations opposed to Affirmative Action hold a sarcastic bake sale that charges the highest for white students and the lowest for minorities. For example:

$2 charged for Whites
$1.50 charged for Asians
$1.00 charged for Blacks
$.50 charged for Native Americans... and so on.

thechoice.blogs.NYtimes

I personally am not a proponent or opponent of affirmative action policies because its out of my scope probably. But in my opinion, I think these forms of protests are rather heavy-handed. I understand what the message is supposed to be. It's that discrimination, no matter what race, is wrong. How can we charge the same person more or less for the same product (the cost of higher education, for example)? That's not a bad point by itself.

But there are other assumptions made in these protests that aren't accounted for. One is that the Affirmative Action Bake Sale over-simplifies the usage of race as a deciding factor in admissions. Most forms of affirmative action aren't based on a quota system in public schools, since the Jennifer Gratz case made it clear that such point-based, racialized quotas would be unconstitutional. But the protests don't account for the question of socioeconomic status, which may or may not have correlation with race (I'm not sure, I'm no sociologist). Especially at public institutions like University of Michigan or Berkeley as shown here, an affirmative action policy based on income is certainly a plausible moral question. If you are wealthy, you might not get certain scholarships to help with tuition and it might be harder for you to compete for admissions. Whether that's fair or not is up for debate. So while there may certainly be trends in socioeconomic status among race, race is just not the only thing universities consider.But that point certainly isn't going to be made in an Affirmative Action Bake Sale.

Protests like these does a sort of disservice to the real issue of diversity on campus, in my opinion. So some question whether a public institution should even value diversity or not... Fine. But we really should step back and consider why we are considering affirmative action in the first place. And no, I really don't think it's just because some people just want benefits for the sake of benefits. It just sort of says something when you have a huge sort of decline in minority enrollment in the recent years.

nativeappropriations.com

Really, I won't put any fancy sociology term behind it. It's just seems 'mean' to me. To many people and to minorities (and not necessarily in the racial sense), college is not a norm. It's a huge accomplishment to make it there and maybe these protests don't address that.

Analysis of a Poll: Is It Time to End Affirmative Action?

Is it time to end affirmative action?

Yes and no; According to a recent Gallup poll (discussed in detail here), 67% of adults surveyed believe that admissions decisions should be solely based on merit, while 58% still generally favor affirmative action programs for racial minorities. In essence, this means that although Americans generally reject affirmative action in relation to college admissions, they still support the government taking action to improve the condition of minority groups. So, while affirmative action itself doesn't seem to be heavily opposed, its implementation into higher education is. This poses some interesting questions: should colleges continue to factor race into college admissions, even though the majority of the public rejects it? If not, how can a university maintain a diverse student body?

gallup.com

Generally, I would say that I fall into the group that rejects the use of race-based admissions. I understand that it's difficult not to consider race, what with pressure from different political and social groups and a looming stigma of racial homogeneity among college campuses. However, I also understand that merit transcends racial boundaries and that no one who is deserving should be denied admission to a university in favor of diversity. A system that rewards "racial points" is as flawed as a system that denies an applicant based on the color of their skin. Such a system devalues each applicant's educational work from achievement to a result of their inborn attributes. When achievements are held in regard to race, the achievements themselves lose value, which seems wrong to me. How are intelligence and work ethic (essential factors in determining if an individual is fit for a university) any more or less valuable depending on race (which is an arbitrary factor - what determines how well-off any one race is and how much leeway its members receive as a result)?

Granted, affirmative action wasn't intended to target the majority. It was intended to help minorities, but the unintended consequences - namely, the alienation of the majority - created a dilemma in that the isolation of these groups is not to the benefit of all considered.

I take a Rawlsian approach to college admissions in this way - when you take away the color of an applicant's skin, their socioeconomic class, etc., you're left with someone in the "original position", i.e. without the social stigmas attached to race or any other social position. Under such a "veil of ignorance", institutions are able to develop a fair system of admissions ignorant to the privilege of certain classes. Each member of society has an equal claim on society's goods, including higher education, which is not affected by natural-born attributes because one doesn't morally deserve his inborn privilege and is therefore not entitled to the full benefit of that privilege. This can be applied to both individuals in the majority and the minority; regardless of social position, no one is entitled to a college education, which is why such a privilege should be earned based on merit and academic achievement and not given based on inborn characteristics. However, I do acknowledge that certain conditions may affect the way an individual can go about achieving that merit, such as learning disorders or the quality of education received prior to college. For this reason I do support government involvement in the improvement of conditions for minorities consistent with Rawls's second principle of justice that inequalities are to benefit the least-advantaged members of society. These programs should target inequalities prior to the admissions process (like improving the conditions of public schools) so that each individual has the opportunity to earn the merit required to be admitted into a university.

gallup.com

Now, I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any promotion of diversity in higher education. I value diversity and I believe that it is necessary for us to grow as individuals and as a culture. However, I don't believe that race-based admissions are the proper way to go about increasing diversity, for it helps some groups while alienating others, which I find to be extremely polarizing. For instance, when examining the graph above, you can see that the different racial groups are divided on the issue of affirmative action, with those who are helped by such programs defending it and those who are hurt by affirmative action rejecting it. The face that the percentage of minorities backing government programs to improve their condition is more than double that of the majority indicates a flawed system in trying to fix the lack of diversity at universities. Diversity should be a way for individuals from different aspects of life to interact, not a cause for divide and racial strife. More inclusive alternatives to affirmative action include the 10% Plan, which equates college applicants in comparison to their own high school class, or the University of Colorado Boulder's plan which looks at economic inequalities in addition to academic achievements.

Ultimately, the Gallup poll highlights an important issue: the majority of the public denounces race-based affirmative action, while many universities continue to factor in race in admissions in spite of public demands. Should universities come to recognize that they need to make a change, how can they maintain a representative student body without ignoring the needs of any one group? I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts about the topic, including counterarguments and possible alternatives to race-based affirmative action.

The Defend Affirmative Action Party

Despite Central Student Government elections being over, I found one party whose message has lasting implications. The Defend Affirmative Action Party (otherwise known as DAAP) seeks to restore affirmative action at the University of Michigan as well as promoting diversity and equality at the university as a whole. The party is attempting to mobilize a student movement against the "years of broken promises and the orgy of privatization" that has set Michigan back in the fight for equality.

What The Party Is Fighting Against

According to the DAAP, The University of Michigan is growing to rely more heavily on funding from private corporations, thereby sacrificing Michigan's "intellectual independence and educational priorities" for donations that represent the values, priorities, and ideologies of investors. As a result of the university's increasing privatization, the student body is becoming increasingly rich and white while representation of minorities and poor families is decreasing. This decrease in diversity is creating a hostile environment for the underrepresented individuals that the university claims to welcome.

As an example of the university trying to mend diversity issues in the past, in 1970 the administration capitulated to demands called by the Black Action Movement to increase black enrollment to 10% within two years. The University of Michigan's agreement to this demand proved to be a recognition of the right for members of all demographic sectors to benefit from higher education at the institution.  However, the university has since seemed to abandon their mission of diversification; according to the article Black Enrollment Falls as the University of Michigan Rejects Affirmative Action, a 2006 ballot initiative blocking race-based admissions only 3 years after they were allowed by the court is now being taken to the Supreme Court with a strong likelihood that the ballot measure will be upheld (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-24/black-enrollment-falls-as-michigan-rejects-affirmative-action.html).

The DAAP denounces the years of broken promises and claims of support for racial and economic diversification from authorities at the university. In spite of the falling numbers of the minority demographic sectors, officials have been congratulating themselves for their "progress" (quoting Mary Sue Coleman: "I am proud...", "I am so proud..."). The DAAP is striking back, saying that an administration that is proud of such a shameful record declares itself "unwilling and incapable of reversing the forty years of broken promises".

DAAP's Program

The Defend Affirmative Action Party outlined their solutions to tackle diversity and equal-quality education at the University of Michigan:

• Mobilize students to call on the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the 6th Circuit Court decision to overturn Proposal 2 (Schuette v. BAMN)
• Proposal 2 was the 2006 ballot proposal that banned the use of race-based affirmative action in Michigan
• The DAAP cites the 10% Plan adopted by the University of Texas (see our post about the 10% Plan here) as support for the abolition of Proposal 2; after instilling the 10% Plan, UT Austin saw significant increases in the number of black, Latino, Native American, and poor white students admitted. Students admitted under the 10% Plan perform as well or better than those admitted based on their SAT scores, showing that an open admissions policy benefits the university and allows access to higher education for the underprivileged and underrepresented
• Double black, Latina/o, and Native American student enrollment at the University of Michigan for 2014 - 2015. Increase minority student enrollment to reflect Michigan's population
• Eliminate the SAT, ACT, and other biased and discriminatory standardized tests in the UM admissions processes and adopt a more holistic approach in order to create equal opportunity and greater access to the university for minority, women, poor, and middle-class students of all races
• Create a University of Michigan and statewide DREAM Act - full access to all public, private, and U of M scholarships and financial aid for undocumented students
• The DREAM Act (Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors) would guarantee temporary 6-year residency and qualify certain immigrants for permanent residency following completion of at least 2 years at an institution of higher education
• Passage of the act would give undocumented students incentive to apply to the university and, if adopted at the university level, "open the door" for immigrant students by creating opportunities for financial aid
• End Department of Public Safety (DPS) & Michigan Union discriminatory policies against social events in the Union - specifically those sponsored by black and Latina/o student groups
• Build the international struggle against racism and for equality. Support the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people, oppose the Israeli military's invasion and atrocities, and stand with the student movement that is growing on this campus and nationally for justice for Palestine
• although not directly relevant to affirmative action, support for Palestinian affairs would show the university's growing support of a richly diverse campus

These objectives, among others not mentioned, make up the Defend Affirmative Action Party's goals to eradicate the University of Michigan's "orgy of privatization" that has shut out affirmative action in favor of the ideologies of the investors that foot the bill of the university. The party hopes to redeem the university after years of ignorance towards minorities and students who, despite representing less and less of the student body's population, show a growing need for higher education.

At the wake of central student government elections, it'll be interesting to see whether or not the DAAP's mission has broken ground at the university. Will students mobilize to salvage affirmative action? Will the university take action to promote affirmative action in response to student pressure, as they did over 40 years ago? In any case, the suggestions outlined by the DAAP remain intriguing propositions in response to the controversy surrounding affirmative action and may eventually find proper footing in amending university admissions.

10% Plan in Texas

 In response the ruling established during the Hopwood v. Texas trial which banned the use of affirmative action with respect to college admissions, the Texas House Bill 588, better known as the "10% rule," was formed. In the state of Texas, every students who graduates in the top 10% of their high school class is guaranteed admission to the state universities. It should be noted however, that while the plan guarantees admission, it does not impact funding in any way. This alternative system has seen both praise and criticism since its inception.

One argument against the 10% plan suggests that individuals are essentially starting to "play the system." According to an article by Peter Schmidt entitled Texas’ 10% Plan Found to Influence Choice of High School, "A recent study showed that a significant share of young people in Texas select a high school based on whether they are likely to graduate with a class rank high enough to guarantee them admission to any Texas public college under the state’s 'top-10-percent plan.' Such decisions to enroll in high school based on class-rank considerations have the effect of making many such high schools slightly more racially integrated while knocking minority students out of the pool of college applicants qualifying for the state’s class-rank-based college-admission guarantee, the researchers found (http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/texas-10-plan-found-to-influence-choice-of-high-school/29601)."

According to Larry Faulkner, president of the University of Texas, a major problem with the current plan is that the universities are being forced to accept too many of these students. A CBS article entitled Is the 'Top 10' Plan Unfair? two thirds of UT's freshman class were "10 percenters." Additionally, the article highlights that if every student who qualified under the 10% plan actually attended UT, the university would not be able to handle it. "Faulkner, who long supported the law, now wants it revised to cap the number of top 10 percenters at no more than half of any incoming class (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-top-10-plan-unfair/).

While some believe that the plan needs to be revised, others feel that it should be eliminated. Wentworth has argued the repeal the law entirely, and has garnered support from many voters who think their kids are now being shut out of the system. Wentworth argues that, "The current situation in Texas is that you can have a young man who is an Eagle Scout, who's president of his student council and captain of his football team. But because he's in the top 12 percent, he's not automatically admitted. But somebody else who's in the top 10 percent, who didn't even take the recommended curriculum for college work, who took the minimum curriculum, automatically goes to the University of Texas at Austin -- and that's not fair." Wentworth also argues that the current plan is unfair to everyone involved. "It's unfair to the more rigorous student. It's also unfair to the other one who's not as prepared. Because what happens is they get in these flagship institutions and they're not prepared academically for the very rigorous training they get at that higher education institution. And some of them don't last. They wind up quitting, very frustrated because they weren't prepared even though they graduated in the top 10 percent of their high school graduating class." (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-top-10-plan-unfair/). While this arugment seems logical, some research actually suggests otherwise.

Larry Faulkner notes that students from minority schools are doing very well at the university. He stated, "I don't think that it's dumbed down the University of Texas. We have the highest graduation rate in this history of the university as well as the highest freshman retention rates. We also have the highest SAT scores and class rank in the history of the university. So I don't think there's any evidence (http://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-the-top-10-plan-unfair/)."

Overall, this alternative to race-based affirmative action in Texas is one that has both benefits and drawbacks. As this plan continues to be scrutinized and adapted, it may remain a viable alternative for college admissions programs.

Getting Your Privilege Checked

John Rawls, the author of A Theory of Justice, believes that the way to determine how to act morally in our interactions with others is by abstracting ourselves from our particular interests and desires. As part of his second principle, he also asks society to adjust in a way that benefits the most disadvantaged.

A popular term circulating the internet, especially in what are called 'Social Justice Blogs', came into being years after the beginning of Rawlsian influence in philosophy. The term, called "Check Your Privilege", merged from both social theorists and tumblr online activists alike. The term is often used in online discussions as a reminder to the participants that their own personal attributes and experiences (wealth, power, intelligence, race, religion, etc) cannot apply to arguments on justice or other political topics.

In our course, we discussed the fairness of University admissions. What if the admission process was reformed in a way that attempted to completely assess privilege, so that all students would have no advantage other than their own academic merit?

Here, we checked our privilege using a totally accurate, sophisticated test at:

http://helloquizzy.okcupid.com/tests/the-social-privilege-test

Take the test yourself and give us your two-cents in the comments?

Michael:

Now you have the chance to speak on your own behalf. How accurate, do you think, was this test based on the results?

I felt that the check your social privilege quiz was an interesting exercise. As a white male from the east coast, I was not too surprised that I scored highly on the quiz. However, there are aspects of the test that I still question. Since the source does not provide information about the weight of each question, I assume that each question is weighted equally in the determination of one’s privilege. With that being said, I do not think all of these questions are equal. Questions such as “how attractive are you?” and “have you ever held a menial job, such as working in a fast food restaurant?” are not equivalent to questions concerning family income. Additionally, as one of our fellow classmates noted during discussion, “different races do not mean different lifestyles.” The various questions about race and ethnicity throughout the quiz make me question whether or not a tool such as this would be useful with respect to college admissions.   

A large number of the questions are actually very similar to the questions UM asks in their college admissions (although UM doesn't ask you to rate your own attractiveness). If we had a better version of this, would it be better if UM took privileges into account?

If some of the flaws I noted above could be examined and minimized, I think it could be beneficial for privilege to be taken into account to some extent. I believe that privilege should be taken into consideration to even the playing field between applicants, so that students from all walks of life can be give equal opportunities to succeed. However, I worry that this criteria can easily be abused, where privileged students will begin to be punished for their upbringing, and would strongly urge the university to guard against this if implementing a privilege based criteria in their admissions.

Let's pull a Rawls and pretend we know nothing of our privileges, wealth, intelligence, race, gender, etc.... Let's say the state had the power to collect very powerful data about you and could collect this kind of information. Would factoring this into public university admissions be fair?

From a moral standpoint, I believe this system would be fair. As I noted above, it would make sense to factor privilege into college admissions to even the playing field between applicants. Ideally, this criteria could be used to help identify those applicants who are truly the most deserving of acceptance. John Rawls argues that “Everyone should have a fair and equal opportunity to be among the best-qualified applicants for positions of economic and social power.” He further defines “fair” and “equal” by stating that, “Chances to acquire cultural knowledge and skills should not depend upon one's class position, and so the school system, whether public or private, should be designed to even out class barriers (p.63).” From this, it seems that Rawls would argue that this system would be moral, as it would help to even out class barriers that exist on college campuses.

Anna:

How accurate do you feel this kind of test was?

I feel that the test was relatively accurate for what it was testing. I wouldn’t say that I have been excessively “privileged” or “underprivileged”, depending on the definition of privilege. This test seemed to focus on things that are unchangeable, such as race, beauty, and height, which I do not believe are accurate measures to test privilege. However, in terms of my upbringing, such as how well my parents were able to support me, my education, etc., I feel that the test was relatively accurate because for most of my life, my family has been able to support me well. However, the problem with the test is that because the quizzer does not know me personally, they don’t know the circumstances of my upbringing; for instance, although my parents are well-off now, the quizzer wouldn’t know the struggles that my family went through financially and culturally as immigrants to the U.S. when I was first born. Although this is just one example, I feel that it highlights a more important issue in the subjective definition of “privilege”. For this reason, I believe that the test is accurate for what it is, but in terms of assessing an individual’s actual “privilege”, it is flawed.

If we had a better version of this, would it be better if UM took privileges into account?


Yes, I think it would be better if UM took privileges into account. However, I feel that in order for UM to more accurately assess privilege in their college admissions, the university should focus less on inborn attributes (mainly race / ethnicity) and focus more on factors that would affect an individual’s ability to get into the university – where the applicant lives (affluent / poor neighborhood), how many children are in the family (more kids = more money going towards college tuition, may deter some parents from sending their kids to more expensive schools), the kind of schools they went to, etc. This way, admissions would be tailored to help those who were brought up in situations that would restrict them from receiving a proper education. For instance, those who grew up in a poorer neighborhood might have gone to a bad school and received a poor education, affecting their performance on standardized tests like the ACT or SAT, therefore affecting their admission into university. An improved privilege test should account for factors like this so that the less advantaged would be better off without affecting the more advantaged.

 Would factoring this into public university admissions be fair?

On a moral basis, factoring privileges into college admissions would be fair because under Rawls, our social system should be blind to factors such as privilege except in the situation where social and economic inequalities are “to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged”. In this case, the privileges in question should be ones that put certain groups in a less advantaged position than others for admission into a public university. This should not be confused with general privileges, such as gender, race, religion, or anything that may put some above others societally, but not in terms of college admissions. Like I mentioned above, the relevant social and economic inequalities should be ones that affect education, such as the kind of school an applicant went to or learning disabilities. Under Rawls, an admissions system that ignores certain factors and focuses on others would satisfy both the veil of ignorance, which discounts irrelevant factors, and the difference principle, which would mitigate the social and economic disparities among applicants.

Andrea:

Now you have the chance to speak on your own behalf. How accurate, do you think, was this test based on the results?

  I think part of the difficulty with these kind of evaluations is that this test has a great amount of subjectivity. Much of the context is very American and I personally spent much of my time living in Indonesia. For example, all my grandparents being college-educated doesn't mean it concludes that my privilege score goes way upward - in the context of their country, it's sort of what they had to do to survive and no American and other country's college systems are 'created equal'. Also, my race held much more weight than a question that asked if I lived in a "3rd world" country (I did) for a different privilege test. That's kind of strange.

  Another instance of weird test format was the 'check your privilege' test that has been popular on Buzzfeed lately. Most people scored 'underprivileged' because the test format was a checklist that asked you to check any disadvantage you've experienced. Interestingly, most people (that is, most people who are procrastinating their homework on Buzzfeed) could identify with about the same number of problems listed, even if those problems were different. It's messy.

When it comes to the assessment of privilege, how much we should factor in 'what were you born with' vs. 'what do you have now'? If the test had evaluated the circumstances I was born with vs. the privileges I have now... well I think would be a very different result. I grew up under terrible political unrest in Indonesia's upheaval of President Suharto's and my family and I suffered a lot in our transition to a life in America. But now, I'm writing this response as a relatively privileged student at UM. There's both work and luck in that. Based on all those little details and those subjective details all people experience in their lives, I'm not so sure a test like this can be consistent.

A large number of the questions are actually very similar to the questions UM asks in their college admissions (although UM doesn't ask you to rate your own attractiveness). If we had a better version of this, would it be better if UM took privileges into account?

That's a tough question. I think it's okay, so long as we take into consideration what the goals of the institution are. If UM's goal is to provide disadvantaged students with a better future, then of course we take privilege into account. If UM's goal is to compete with Harvard or Stanford by admitting and graduating the academically 'strongest' students, then perhaps only pure academic merit could be considered. In the end, UM is a public institution whose goals are, or were meant to, serve that of the community so its probably up to public interest to balance that. Just my thoughts.

Let's pull a Rawls and pretend we know nothing of our privileges, wealth, intelligence, race, gender, etc.... Let's say the state had the power to collect very powerful data about you and could collect this kind of information. Would factoring this into public university admissions be fair?

Aside from being a scenario allowing a great invasion of privacy (though certainly not impossible with the technology of today), I don't see how that could be fair even if I individually would have benefitted from it. But it also depends on what how we factor it in admissions. Thinking from the original position, a federally mandated affirmative action policy applied to colleges or other institutions could pose a violation of Rawl's first principle of economic liberties or distribution of personal liberty. Equality wouldn't be satisfied if we reserved admission or held quotas in universities for any certain group. Competition and benefits would be compartmentalized for certain groups unequally with the rest of the population and thus wouldn't be accepted from an original position. However, I think it would be fair to admit applicants that have achieved the exact same academic merits of others but came from a life of lower privilege. From what I can remember writing my essays for admission here, the University of Michigan does compare the challenges that their applicants have faced in their consideration.

And that's concludes our post! Have you checked your privilege? Let us now in the comments below!

University of Colorado Boulder's alternative to race-based affirmative action

One successful example of a university which implemented a system based on class rather than race is the University of Colorado at Boulder. According to an article entitled, CU-Boulder's Alternative To Race-based Affirmative Action Yielding More Diversity, “a pair of researchers at CU devised a system that looked at students’ experiences of disadvantage, such as their parent’s income and education level, and also looked at whether they had achieved beyond what was expected of students like them when it came to grades and tests like the ACT.” This criteria was used as a determining factor with regard to acceptance. The most interesting result of this program was the discovery that, “the class-based plan yielded a group of freshman that was not only economically diverse—with a larger proportion of poor students—but also slightly more racially diverse than the previous race-based plan.” Based on this evidence, it appears that a class based system may in fact be a better alternative to race based affirmative action, as it could improve overall diversity of college campuses.