An Affirmative Answer

Fifty years into the aftermath of the civil rights movement, and less than a decade since the start of the dismantling of affirmative action, race is still the central motif in the American drama. Yet many would have us believe otherwise.

Aren't the members of formerly excluded groups now present in the highest posts of the political and economic system? Don't they command universal veneration in sports and entertainment? So much has the racial plane been leveled, some say, that reverse discrimination should command renewed attention. Who among us has not heard about deserving white students shunted aside to make space for less qualified applicants of a darker complexion?

Immersed in the nugatory details of local experience, we fail to take stock of broader realities. Race, especially the black-white divide, remains a paramount vector of inequality. The clustering of impoverished populations in inner-city tracts has increased, not diminished, during the last 30 years. More than half of African-American children are born into poverty and are four times more likely than whites to spend their lives in neighborhoods bereft of adequate resources in education and employment. In some urban settings, infant mortality surpasses that of underdeveloped countries.

Equally disturbing is the steep representation in jails and prisons of young black men often convicted of lesser crimes. And contrary to a generalized opinion, most impoverished African Americans are not welfare leeches. They hold jobs that offer wages so small as to prevent incorporation into the middle class. Secluded from the gaze of the larger society, impoverished blacks are increasingly moving away from the normative American experience. Their racially tinged poverty is an imprecation to the national ideal of democracy and fair play.

Institutions of higher learning, especially elite colleges and universities, play a major role in addressing racial inequalities for two reasons. In a country where every study confirms the salience of education as a vehicle for economic and social advancement, the incorporation of racial minorities is a necessity. Knowing what we know about the positive effects of schooling on individual earnings and status, it would be unconscionable not to make the greatest possible effort to admit members of excluded groups. That was the principle underlying affirmative action programs. Nevertheless, our goals must reach beyond instructional betterment.

Universities like Princeton bear responsibility in setting high moral and civic standards. It is to Princeton's everlasting credit that even as the attacks against affirmative action multiplied during the last decade, it renewed its efforts to recruit members of minority groups, thus firmly establishing the suitability of racial criteria in admission policies. Efforts to promote racial inclusiveness may have waned, but thanks to institutions like Princeton, they will not die.

As is often the case with intrepid actions, Princeton's determination to maintain a diverse community has been met with some misgivings. Rumblings about the decline in the quality of new student cohorts are never far off from critics who fail to realize that admission standards have, in fact, tightened. They were truly lax earlier on, in the absence of standardized tests, or when wealth, position and a manly deportment were the main requirements to enter an Ivy League school. Privileged children of yesteryear would have been hard pressed to compete in the present, heated environment — one that includes talented women as well as minority students.

The fuss over declining student quality dims by comparison to concerns about breaches in equity. Is it fair, many ask, to make allowances for minority students at the expense of better-equipped applicants whose only flaw is not to be black or Hispanic? The problem in that formulation is that it rhetorically calls for an answer without considering historical and economic facts.

At an abstract level, justice is purely a matter of language; in the here and now, it is about the unequal distribution of resources and its impact upon academic performance. We must therefore respond with another question: Is it fair to exclude competitive members of racial minorities who have reached adequate levels of proficiency notwithstanding the absence of proper means to do so? Even the avatars of abstract morality should be able to answer no.

The problem in today's university has little to do with declining student quality or the violation of equitable norms in admissions. Leave those old concerns to the opportunistic musings of pundits and politicians. New dilemmas lie elsewhere. An increasing number of minorities in institutions like Princeton are either international students or children of immigrants. In a highly desirable way, they too contribute to a vital and diverse climate on campus. Nevertheless, their experience bears little resemblance to that of youngsters growing up in the mean ghettos of American cities, a population for whom the spirit, if not the letter of affirmative action, was originally intended.

International students often come from the cultivated segments of their own societies. They may exhibit deficiencies resulting from a lack of familiarity with American ways but, for the most part, they have not been exposed to the mind-numbing deprivation of inner-city poverty. The same is true about Caribbean and African people — they may have limited material assets but often possess vast educational aspirations and the skills to fulfill them. Perhaps even more important, the foreign born are unfamiliar with the devastating effect of racial stigma. In their ignorance resides their power and optimism. Buoyed by families with strong national identities, immigrant children rapidly surface on the campuses of elite institutions. Their color may be dark but their identity is not.

In other words, as we continue debating the tired shibboleths of race — whether affirmative action is fair (it can be) or whether racial inclusiveness lowers academic standards (it doesn't) — new social realities are already subverting the genuine intent of diversity. The most enlightened recruitment efforts cannot make up for centuries of neglect in American cities. That requires something larger, a transformation of the national spirit, a concerted plan to improve the elementary and secondary schools from which new college candidates may emerge.

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What was true in the past is still true. How to transform the abysmal conditions that condemn a good number of America's own to a life as outcasts is the main challenge facing institutions of higher learning in this most bountiful and generous of nations. Patricia Fernandez-Kelly is a professor in the Department of Sociology and the Office of Population Research. She can be reached at mpfk@lotka.princeton.edu.