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Michigan Daily Fears Equality, Implies Minorities Fear Equality, Encourages Lawlessness

An unsigned editorial in today?s Michigan Daily sets out to ?talley[] the damage? imposed racial equality has had at the University of Michigan. The edit is sadly revealing.

First, it is disappointing that presumably bright college students would regard the legal obligation to treat all applicants without regard to their race, ethnicity, or gender as ?damage? to be assessed, an ?unnecessary restriction? on the university?s freedom to discriminate to produce ?diversity.?

Next, not only do the Michigan Daily editors themselves reject the principle of colorblind, race-neutral non-discrimination; they imply that minorities themselves have little interest in competing on a racially level playing field.

First, it?s evident that the number of underrepresented minority students who even bothered to apply hasn?t kept pace with general admissions. Although the University saw a 15.6-percent increase in the total number of applicants this year as compared to two years ago, underrepresented minority applications increased at only a third of that rate, a mere 4.6 percent.

More alarming, the number of underrepresented minority applications received this year dropped by 2.0 percent from last year - and that?s despite the efforts to increase minority recruitment that the University says it?s making. This seems to indicate that even before the applications reach the desks of admissions officers, the state?s ban on affirmative action may be taking its toll by discouraging students from even applying.

This avoidance of equal treatment is also disturbing. Of course, college applications are expensive and time-consuming, and it is simple economic rationality to prefer applying where one will receive preferential treatment, or where one?s chances of success without preferences are greater.

It is to the editors? credit that they at least recognized the sky didn?t fall, as the Chicken Littles who opposed the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative loudly predicted. ?Truth be told,? they write, ?the drop in minority admissions isn't as staggering as it could have been,? and they point out that

200 less [sic] underrepresented minorities were admitted this year compared to 2006, although 122 more applied. Granted, overall acceptance rates have also fallen. But any way you slice it, the numbers show that minority students are being hurt by this ban.

Well, no, not ?any way you slice it.? The editors have apparently forgotten that their university?s justification for discriminating against whites, Asians, and others in order to give admissions preferences to blacks and Hispanics was not to provide a benefit to the favored minorities. It was to provide a benefit to all the non-minority students, whose education required their being exposed to a certain number of the preferred minorities. Thus, if this justification is to be believed (of course, no one really believes it), those ?hurt? by the marginally fewer number of minorities admitted were not the rejected minority students, who no doubt were accepted elsewhere, but the poor ?majority? students deprived of the opportunity to be be exposed to those rejected minorities.

Finally, this sorry editorial shamelessly encourages the University to ignore the new legal obligation to treat all applicants without regard to their race or ethnicity.

Opponents of affirmative action have argued that drastic drops indicate that universities are making changes significant enough to comply with affirmative action bans. Viewed in this light, one can't help but wonder [since ?drastic drops? did not occur at Michigan] how much effort the University of Michigan is putting into ignoring the checkboxes it has promised to disregard. And if that effort is minimal, it should be applauded.

Here?s an idea: perhaps the student liberals at the University of Michigan could, following the example of Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, urge University officials to emulate Alabama Gov. George Wallace and stand in the door, refusing to follow the law.

Oh wait, that?s exactly what they?re already doing.

Full post as published by Discriminations on June 16, 2008 (boomark / email).