A momentous decision ahead

Sometime before the end of its current term in June, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on two affirmative-action cases involving the admission procedures of the University of Michigan. At stake is a simple but momentous question: Can public universities reject white or Asian applicants in favor of black or Hispanic applicants who may be academically less qualified?

The argument against rejection rests on two grounds: The 14th Amendment's assertion that no state shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws," and the provision in Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which prohibits discrimination "on the grounds of race, color or national origin" in any program or institution receiving federal financial assistance.

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The arguments in favor of such discrimination (or "affirmative action," as it is called) have varied over the years, but the arguments before the Court boiled down, essentially, to the proposition that a university's interest in the "diversity" of its student body – i.e., in having a racial or ethnic mixture of certain desired proportions – should outweigh the traditional principle that admission ought to be based strictly on academic merit.

Some of the arguments put forward in support of the latter view are easily dismissible. It is true that colleges often give preferences to the children of alumni or to good basketball players. But the Civil Rights Act doesn't prohibit all discrimination against applicants with better academic credentials – just discrimination "on the grounds of race, color or national origin."

As for "diversity," one can't help wondering why, if it is so important a part of the educational experience, the political science and economics departments of most universities are so monolithically liberal when it comes to their faculties. Shouldn't students be exposed to a wide variety of political views?

Moreover, recent inquiries into the impact of diversity on college student bodies raise considerable doubt as to just how desirable it is. A just-published study by Stanley Rothman, Seymour Martin Lipset and Neil Nevitte – professors at Smith College, George Mason University and the University of Toronto, respectively – reports that "the greater the school's diversity, the less students were satisfied with their own educational experience. In addition, greater diversity was associated with perceptions of less academic effort among students and a poorer overall educational experience."

Much has been made of the fact that Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf and other notable military figures have submitted briefs to the Supreme Court in support of affirmative action. But training officers (for example) in how to lead our racially mixed armed forces obviously requires teaching them special skills.

We tend to forget all too readily that affirmative action – which is to say, reverse discrimination in favor of some minority groups – is not a "victimless crime," an innocent little favor done for a member of a minority with a long history of inexcusable abuse. College admission is a zero-sum game, and for every black applicant admitted as a result of affirmative action there is somewhere out there – unpublicized and forgotten – a white or Asian student with superior academic credentials who was rejected solely because he or she had the wrong skin color.

That is not a prescription for racial harmony. The Supreme Court has the unenviable task of choosing one of two possible future courses for America:

A course that commits this country to playing favorites among its racial and ethnic blocs, based on supposed disadvantages in their ancestral history, or one that judges individuals on the merits they themselves have displayed.