COLUMN: Rice will suffer from blow to race-based admission policy

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by Sheffy Gordon

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THE TUESDAY before last (March 19), Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana were stunned by the decision of the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, which barred the use of race as a factor in school admission, even in "the wholesome practice of correcting perceived racial imbalance in the student body." The ruling supposes there is a race-blind society which in reality there is not.

Because Rice receives federal funding, this death blow to race-based affirmative action has forced the university to alter its admission procedure, and it will work to undermine some of the progress the university achieved in recent years.

This is unjust because affirmative action is a defendable policy which works to advance equal opportunity by helping to redress problems of discrimination in our present society and contributing to the diverse character of the university.

Rice was chartered as an all-white institution and legally discriminated against non-whites until 1965. In order to alter the original charter, the trustees had to prove to the court that it is mutually exclusive to be a competitive institution of "the highest grade" with the discriminatory policy.

Rice then needed to institute an active affirmative program to convince ethnic minorities to apply to the institution that traditionally discriminated against them.

In a special forum last Monday, President Gillis emphasized that ending affirmative action especially affects Rice because it is the most selective university in the 5th circuit, and Rice's main competitors to the north are outside the jurisdiction and not forced to change their policies.

Rice's current freshman class is the most diverse in history with regards to racial, geographic and socioeconomic composition.

This is mostly due to stepped up measures taken by the admission department to recruit minority students. Male students can finally attest that the male/female gap has nearly been eradicated with a particularly high proportion of female engineers as compared with other universities.

Ethnic minorities at Rice are nowhere near representative of the demography of Houston, however the disparity has been slowly alleviated due to the active affirmative policy over the past twenty years.

Educators and students alike agree that diversity is the cornerstone to a learning environment providing a wide range of vantages and opinions for intellectual discussion.

As Gillis points out at every Matriculation ceremony -- students will learn more from their peers than from their classes, books and professors combined.

The unique feature of a university, especially Rice, is constant exposure of the community to diverse customs, religions, philosophies, experiences and traditions of peoples all sharing the intricacies and beauties of their cultures in ways that others cannot. The mere fact that a person is of color implies he or she has unique experiences.

However, as of last week, with one sweeping blow a federal court has impeded the ability of admission departments to ensure a racially diverse student body.

Conservatives herald the recent ruling as another victory against racial discrimination.

This continues Governor Pete Wilson's (R-Calif.) triumphs forcing a more definitive referendum set for the fall election and convincing the University of California Board of Reagents to disband affirmative action in public school admission.

However, most people do not understand the entire issue because it has become so warped with rhetoric. I will concede that decisions based solely on race do not have a place in an ideal race-blind society and are by definition discriminatory. However, our society is not a race-blind society, and to treat it is as one is naive and irresponsible.

Many ethnic factors are closely linked to socioeconomic obstacles. Troy Duster, a sociologist at Berkeley, compares inequality of the median family income of white students -- $70,000 a year -- with $38,000 for blacks, which he contends is a vestige of the African-American history of discrimination as well as slavery.

There is a disparity of academic preparation due to the environment that every student grows up in. Because minorities generally have had less opportunity to prepare, their SATs will naturally be lower than the scores of the average accepted student; some would be excluded from the Rice profile on the basis of their score.

For minority as well as white students applying from disadvantaged backgrounds, the Admission Committee, according to a report in the Sallyport (Winter, 1996) by Admission Committee Chair Chandler Davidson, compensates for lower scores by placing a higher weight on grades and class rank.

If a promising student has overcome obstacles such as economic and family hardships, the student may have the same potential as a high achiever that did not face those obstacles.

Although it would be ideal to eliminate race from the application procedure and merely determine if the student has maximized his or her potential given the opportunities available, the difficult step is determining from an application what opportunities were available.

There is a general disparity of opportunity in our society based on factors of race, ethnicity, sex and other such qualifiers. Discrimination is ubiquitous in our society; glass ceilings and rejected loan requests attest to its heinous presence.

When applied correctly, affirmative action is not reverse discrimination.

There aren't any quotas, and preference is not given to "unqualified" individuals.

Qualified is a subjective term. Davidson cites that of the 7,000 applicants, Rice can accept 1,700 even though 4,000 could probably compete at Rice. "[Minorities] are given special consideration because of the historical discrimination by Rice and because many of them will add cultural and intellectual diversity to the campus in an era when an essential aspect of a university education is learning how to get along with people of different backgrounds."

Many minority students would of course be accepted outside of their background characteristics, but others would not because their statistics might not add up. President Clinton's report advocates affirmative action provided that the practice does not continue after its purpose has been achieved.

Affirmative action works to give preference to a disadvantaged individual with the same qualifications as a nondisadvantaged individual because that individual has had to overcome obstacles and would likely have succeeded even further if those obstacles had never existed.

As long as there are obstacles, particularly in a race-biased society, affirmative action is justified and necessary.

There is not a level playing field of opportunities to all students. Because the courts have now made it illegal to try to level the playing field, the diversity of Rice may suffer and atrophy to a more homogenous body that has fewer differences to explore.

Education is famed as the great equalizer. There is a general socioeconomic disparity between races that has its roots in the inhumane Jim Crowe era of which Rice was guilty of propagating.

It is therefore unrealistic to expect the same qualifications from individuals with very uneven playing fields. By ignoring race as a consideration, the court is denying this defacto inequality.

It is ideal to adjudicate without consideration of race, but this is not a race-blind society, so race is inherently a characteristic comprising the applicant. Affirmative action will not solve all racial inequalities, but abolishing affirmative action in a society where other favoritisms persist is an unfair handicap.

This item appeared in the Opinion section of the March 29, 1996 issue.

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