Following the money

Sometime before Feb. 18th, Harvard plans to file a brief urging the Supreme Court to validate race-based affirmative action. President Tilghman has said Princeton may sign on, agreeing that colleges have a compelling interest in considering an applicant's minority racial status a "plus factor" for undergraduate admissions. We believe Princeton should not sign.

Race itself does not determine a person's viewpoint or values. College campuses do need students who can enrich and challenge each other with unfamiliar experiences and ideas, but a surface diversity of race does not necessarily translate into this deeper, more important diversity.

America's real dividing lines are financial, not racial. Children of privilege who have gone to expensive secondary schools, even if they are of different races, have more in common with each other than they do with inner city students of the same race.

Admissions officers should recognize the unfair and unequal distribution of educational opportunity, and should give special consideration to all students who have had to attend failing schools, had to work while others studied, or had to forego expensive test prep classes. In many cases, this approach would give a boost to minority applicants, even though it is race-neutral. Many schools, including Michigan and Princeton, already give some consideration to economics – we think they should weigh it more heavily, and abandon explicit use of race.

We favor this approach because it recognizes that a black or Latino student who has had every material advantage should be held to the same standard as her white peers. A poor Arab student from inner-city Detroit, or a poor white student from Appalachia, is likely to add more real diversity to a college campus than is a differently-pigmented member of the socioeconomic elite.

An appropriately strong socioeconomic affirmative action policy will effectively promote diversity of life experiences, backgrounds, beliefs and even races. — The Daily Princetonian Opinion Board

Dissent: One of many factors

I hope that President Tilghman and the University will join Harvard in an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in support of race-conscious admission policies. I believe that race by itself matters in college admissions.

While race alone does not determine a person's viewpoint or values, it is one of many factors that does. In the language of the affirmative action debate, "diversity" should not be used as a proxy for race, but neither should "socioeconomic status." Both sides of this debate ultimately want to achieve diversity of many kinds, including racial diversity. I don't want racial diversity to be treated as a secondary effect of socioeconomic diversity. Racial diversity is valuable in its own right.

I am wary that socioeconomic policies without significant outreach programs may rely on racially segregated zip codes and high schools and result in less racial diversity on college campuses.

However, mechanistic points-based systems should be dropped in favor of more holistic hand-selective ones that truly afford an institution of higher education an opportunity to consider race as one of many factors.

I hope that one day race-conscious policies will not be necessary. But before then, admission policies that consider race as one of many factors should be upheld, and I urge Princeton to show its support before the Supreme Court. — Silla Brush Managing Editor