Promoting Diversity

[Arkady]

As I understand it (I haven't read the decision yet, so I'm going off summaries), the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action essentially says that colleges can keep considering race as a factor in admissions if their goal is to promote student body diversity, but that lower courts should scrutinize such programs closely to make sure that universities have no race-neutral alternatives. It strikes me as a limp attempt to make the lower courts do the hard work of deciding if there are, in fact, race-neutral alternatives that work just as well. But maybe that can be justified by the fact those lower courts are in a better position to cause defendants to produce facts to justify their actions.

Anyway, my opinions about affirmative action and diversity are largely informed by my experiences on the job. For several years I regularly had lunch with a group that, on paper, was a diversity-lover's wet dream. We had an Hispanic man, an Asian man, a black woman, a Native American man, a Caucasian woman, and a Caucasian man. Yet, in terms of meaningful diversity of opinion and background, the group was sorely lacking.

Of the six of us, five had very typical upper-class backgrounds. They were all private-school educated, with at least one parent who'd been a high-paid professional (a couple doctors, a lawyer, a senior business exec, and a professor -- I was the lone exception with a public school education and an arguably working-class upbringing). All six of us had been raised in Christian households, with four mainline Protestant and two Catholic, and five out of six were still nominally Christian (again, me being the exception). All had lived almost entirely in suburban settings. All six of us had local roots, and only two of us brought any diversity of geographic experience (having lived for an extensive period away from the local area). We'd all had identical educations from college onward: elite undergraduate universities, followed by elite law school educations. The only diversity was that one person had taken a year off to work between undergrad and law school, and one person had worked for two years for the government, before going to the private sector.

Long story short, we looked "diverse" only as long as you looked skin deep. We were incredibly homogeneous when it came to the things that actually informed our life experiences and worldview. None of us had ever seriously struggled for money, in adulthood. None had ever been in trouble with the law or even had a close family member who had. None had been raised in a foreign culture, or had practiced a non-mainstream religion, or had worked a blue collar job in adulthood, etc. And that showed up in remarkably non-diverse viewpoints in the kinds of discussions we'd have around the table.

So, although I understand why many think there's value in using race as a factor when building a diverse student body, I'm skeptical about its utility. I think class would be a much better consideration. I think if you took a race-blind admission of six people whose parents had come from each sixth of the income structure, you'd get wildly more diverse worldviews and backgrounds than the multi-hued six I was lunching with. The current admissions practices, amount to collecting a rainbow of skin-tones from essentially the same socio-economic box. How can there NOT be a better approach, if your honest goal is a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds?

 

[freyasman]

As I understand it (I haven't read the decision yet, so I'm going off summaries), the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action essentially says that colleges can keep considering race as a factor in admissions if their goal is to promote student body diversity, but that lower courts should scrutinize such programs closely to make sure that universities have no race-neutral alternatives. It strikes me as a limp attempt to make the lower courts do the hard work of deciding if there are, in fact, race-neutral alternatives that work just as well. But maybe that can be justified by the fact those lower courts are in a better position to cause defendants to produce facts to justify their actions.

Anyway, my opinions about affirmative action and diversity are largely informed by my experiences on the job. For several years I regularly had lunch with a group that, on paper, was a diversity-lover's wet dream. We had an Hispanic man, an Asian man, a black woman, a Native American man, a Caucasian woman, and a Caucasian man. Yet, in terms of meaningful diversity of opinion and background, the group was sorely lacking.

Of the six of us, five had very typical upper-class backgrounds. They were all private-school educated, with at least one parent who'd been a high-paid professional (a couple doctors, a lawyer, a senior business exec, and a professor -- I was the lone exception with a public school education and an arguably working-class upbringing). All six of us had been raised in Christian households, with four mainline Protestant and two Catholic, and five out of six were still nominally Christian (again, me being the exception). All had lived almost entirely in suburban settings. All six of us had local roots, and only two of us brought any diversity of geographic experience (having lived for an extensive period away from the local area). We'd all had identical educations from college onward: elite undergraduate universities, followed by elite law school educations. The only diversity was that one person had taken a year off to work between undergrad and law school, and one person had worked for two years for the government, before going to the private sector.

Long story short, we looked "diverse" only as long as you looked skin deep. We were incredibly homogeneous when it came to the things that actually informed our life experiences and worldview. None of us had ever seriously struggled for money, in adulthood. None had ever been in trouble with the law or even had a close family member who had. None had been raised in a foreign culture, or had practiced a non-mainstream religion, or had worked a blue collar job in adulthood, etc. And that showed up in remarkably non-diverse viewpoints in the kinds of discussions we'd have around the table.

So, although I understand why many think there's value in using race as a factor when building a diverse student body, I'm skeptical about its utility. I think class would be a much better consideration. I think if you took a race-blind admission of six people whose parents had come from each sixth of the income structure, you'd get wildly more diverse worldviews and backgrounds than the multi-hued six I was lunching with. The current admissions practices, amount to collecting a rainbow of skin-tones from essentially the same socio-economic box. How can there NOT be a better approach, if your honest goal is a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds?

Well, that makes sense to me, but if you used a "class-based" criteria wouldn't that be an admission that we do in fact, live in a class-based society?

 

[Arkady]

Well, that makes sense to me, but if you used a "class-based" criteria wouldn't that be an admission that we do in fact, live in a class-based society?

Not only is it a class-based society, but data now show it's more so than the traditionally more classist societies of the Old World. Your chance of rising or falling from your parents' position in the income structure is now smaller in the US than in the nations of Western Europe.

We're even developing that "Eliza Doolittle" effect, where people cue off subtle hints of class in people's speech and demeanor. When a new person gets hired in my department, if I pick up that he "smells like money" (in all those little social cues), I predict that he's going to fly up the corporate ladder fast, whereas if he has working class signals (in this area, it shows up as a kind of Peter Griffin accent, among other things), I predict that his career will be stalled. That assumption is pretty much never wrong. Those in power reward those who come from their own socioeconomic caste, and keep out those who just don't fit in with the country club set.

Income-based or wealth-based admissions (based on, say, old tax returns of one's parents) would help to break that down, and give us more socioeconomic mobility. It might also result in a higher intellectual level in schools, since you'd be selecting the smartest and most hard working of each group, rather than taking a lot of "also rans" from the upper class, who merely out-compete the lower and middle class because they had all the benefits of their parents' financial means, top school systems, and their class's expectations to help them along.

 

[freyasman]

Not only is it a class-based society, but data now show it's more so than the traditionally more classist societies of the Old World. Your chance of rising or falling from your parents' position in the income structure is now smaller in the US than in the nations of Western Europe.

We're even developing that "Eliza Doolittle" effect, where people cue off subtle hints of class in people's speech and demeanor. When a new person gets hired in my department, if I pick up that he "smells like money" (in all those little social cues), I predict that he's going to fly up the corporate ladder fast, whereas if he has working class signals (in this area, it shows up as a kind of Peter Griffin accent, among other things), I predict that his career will be stalled. That assumption is pretty much never wrong. Those in power reward those who come from their own socioeconomic caste, and keep out those who just don't fit in with the country club set.

Income-based or wealth-based admissions (based on, say, old tax returns of one's parents) would help to break that down, and give us more socioeconomic mobility. It might also result in a higher intellectual level in schools, since you'd be selecting the smartest and most hard working of each group, rather than taking a lot of "also rans" from the upper class, who merely out-compete the lower and middle class because they had all the benefits of their parents' financial means, top school systems, and their class's expectations to help them along.

I agree, of course, that we do live in a class-based society; the problem I see is getting the oligarchy to admit it.....

 

[Zam-Zam]

As I understand it (I haven't read the decision yet, so I'm going off summaries), the Supreme Court's decision on affirmative action essentially says that colleges can keep considering race as a factor in admissions if their goal is to promote student body diversity, but that lower courts should scrutinize such programs closely to make sure that universities have no race-neutral alternatives. It strikes me as a limp attempt to make the lower courts do the hard work of deciding if there are, in fact, race-neutral alternatives that work just as well. But maybe that can be justified by the fact those lower courts are in a better position to cause defendants to produce facts to justify their actions.

Anyway, my opinions about affirmative action and diversity are largely informed by my experiences on the job. For several years I regularly had lunch with a group that, on paper, was a diversity-lover's wet dream. We had an Hispanic man, an Asian man, a black woman, a Native American man, a Caucasian woman, and a Caucasian man. Yet, in terms of meaningful diversity of opinion and background, the group was sorely lacking.

Of the six of us, five had very typical upper-class backgrounds. They were all private-school educated, with at least one parent who'd been a high-paid professional (a couple doctors, a lawyer, a senior business exec, and a professor -- I was the lone exception with a public school education and an arguably working-class upbringing). All six of us had been raised in Christian households, with four mainline Protestant and two Catholic, and five out of six were still nominally Christian (again, me being the exception). All had lived almost entirely in suburban settings. All six of us had local roots, and only two of us brought any diversity of geographic experience (having lived for an extensive period away from the local area). We'd all had identical educations from college onward: elite undergraduate universities, followed by elite law school educations. The only diversity was that one person had taken a year off to work between undergrad and law school, and one person had worked for two years for the government, before going to the private sector.

Long story short, we looked "diverse" only as long as you looked skin deep. We were incredibly homogeneous when it came to the things that actually informed our life experiences and worldview. None of us had ever seriously struggled for money, in adulthood. None had ever been in trouble with the law or even had a close family member who had. None had been raised in a foreign culture, or had practiced a non-mainstream religion, or had worked a blue collar job in adulthood, etc. And that showed up in remarkably non-diverse viewpoints in the kinds of discussions we'd have around the table.

So, although I understand why many think there's value in using race as a factor when building a diverse student body, I'm skeptical about its utility. I think class would be a much better consideration. I think if you took a race-blind admission of six people whose parents had come from each sixth of the income structure, you'd get wildly more diverse worldviews and backgrounds than the multi-hued six I was lunching with. The current admissions practices, amount to collecting a rainbow of skin-tones from essentially the same socio-economic box. How can there NOT be a better approach, if your honest goal is a diversity of viewpoints and backgrounds?

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Except, of course, in relation to college admissions. Then skin color should obviously be a factor, and not that content of their character stuff. What was Dr. King thinking?