In search of fairness: a better way - UCLA shows that class-based affirmative action won't lead to a 'whiteout'

Washington Monthly, June, 1998 by Richard D. Kahlenberg

The fact that UCLA's experiment with class-based affirmative action provided substantial SES diversity and some racial diversity is a very hopeful harbinger for its use in other academic settings. For one thing, as a top 20 law school, UCLA's racial preferences had been more substantial than those employed at less selective law schools -- or at most undergraduate colleges -- so the racial dividend of SES preferences was harder to sustain than it will be elsewhere. Moreover, Sander says, racial declines in California and Texas public universities were "much worse" than they might otherwise have been because UCLA, and others were competing for minority students against universities in 48 states (as well as against private universities in California and Texas) not subject to racial bans. Predictably, academically talented people of color shied away from California and Texas public law schools -- knowing that fewer people of color were going to be admitted and not wanting to find themselves racially isolated. The number of black applications at UCLA dropped by one-third, and this drop accounts for one-third of the decline in blacks admitted, Sander says.

If the U.S. Supreme Court overturns its 1978 decision in University of California Board of Regents v. Bakke -- so that all public and private universities are barred from using race in admissions -- class-based preferences would have a dramatic effect, Sander says. "If you look at the big picture of what would happen to American legal education if you did this systemically, the racial effects would be incredible." With a racial ban, studies find that blacks are likely to shuffle down two tiers in law schools, and large numbers won't attend at all, since unlike colleges there are no non-selective law schools. Using class-based affirmative action would stem that tide, Sander says, reducing the number of blacks no longer attending law school to those who might well have failed law school or the bar anyway. "Globally, the impacts are much greater than we're talking about here [at UCLA]."

Sander's numbers suggest that even with an improved class-based affirmative action system accounting for aggregate differences between black and white poverty and giving a generous SES boost, economic status does not entirely explain the black-white test score gap and so will not result in the same level of racial diversity as the old system of racial preferences. There is no better way to ensure an entering class that is, say, 8.2 percent African American than to count race per se. If the question is framed in terms of what provides the most efficient and ironclad way of guaranteeing a given racial representation, class is an imprecise proxy for race. But the whole point of recent court decisions and the vote in California on Proposition 209 is that people no longer accept the idea that we should mandate a given racial outcome, and fairness be damned. The fairness of racial preferences turns on whether the continuing racial gap, after factoring in economic obstacles, is due to discrimination, genetics, or culture.