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Olivia Roberts
J. Flickinger
RHE 309K
29 April 2016
Audience: Partially White and Partially Nonwhite College Applicants
Mixed Feelings about Affirmative Action
During this day and age, college is practically a requirement if you want to be successful.
Not only is college a gateway to a career, college is also a gateway to the rest of your life.
College is probably the biggest decision you will have to make during your time in high school.
With that being said, there are also many smaller decisions you will have to make during the
college application process. One of the overlooked, but still important, decisions you will have to
make is your race. Why is this decision important? Many colleges account for race and/or
ethnicity during the admissions process; this is one form of affirmative action. If you identify as
a minority on an application for a college that gives admission preferences based on race, your
chances of admittance may increase. This decision is typically easier for people who are not
mixed race, but it is a different story for those of us who are both white and nonwhite. We are
both a part of the majority and the minority, so are we winners or losers in the game of college
admissions? Should we only check “white” and deny any possible advantages from affirmative
action? Or should we try to benefit from our partial nonwhite heritage?
Before making our decision of whether or not we should try to benefit from affirmative
action, there are several questions we must first consider. First: Is affirmative action ethical? If
affirmative action is unethical, it is useless to try and pursue something that is morally damaging
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to its beneficiaries. What has led us to question affirmative action’s ethicality is its highly
controversial history. Several students have claimed that affirmative action promotes reverse
discrimination, or where white people face discrimination instead of minorities. Over the past
several decades, a number of these cases were taken to the Supreme Court. One of the more
notable and recent cases is Grutter v. Bollinger, which concluded in 2003. In this case the
prosecutor, Barbara Grutter, accused the law school of the University of Michigan of reverse
discrimination (Gale, par. 4). The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the law school:
[According to Justice Sandra Day O’Connor] the law school policy “bears the
hallmarks of a narrowly tailored plan… [with a] highly individualized, holistic
review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an
applicant might contribute to a diverse education environment.” (Gale, par. 8)
In laymen’s terms, the court found the admissions policy to be constitutional because its only
goal was to promote diversity. The Supreme Court requires colleges to look at an applicant as a
whole and not use their race or ethnicity as the sole determining factor. As a result, this policy
protects us from the unbelievably ignorant argument that affirmative action beneficiaries are
less-qualified compared to white applicants. On the whole, because the US Supreme Court rules
that affirmative action is indeed ethical, we need not worry about committing a crime if we
receive admission preferences.
Even though the Supreme Court has repeatedly justified universities’ use of racial
preferences in the admissions process, opponents argue that affirmative action takes
opportunities away from white applicants. This argument is easily disproven by government
statistics. According to the US Census 2015 report on educational attainment, 63.8% of non-
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hispanic white individuals, 52.9% of black individuals, and 36.8% of hispanic individuals
attended “some college or more,” (U.S. Census Bureau, p. 2). Likewise, 36.2% of non-hispanic
white individuals, 22.5% of black individuals, and 15.5% of hispanic individuals obtained a
“bachelor’s degree or more,” (U.S. Census Bureau, p. 2). Even with affirmative action policies in
many universities nationwide, the percentage of white individuals with at least some level of
college education is significantly larger than the percentage of minority individuals. From this
information, it is easy to see that we are not displacing white students out of a college education;
if anything, white students continue to displace minority students. Because of this disparity, we
can try to pursue admission preferences without feeling guilty for “stealing” admission slots
from our white counterparts.
At this point, we can clearly see that affirmative action for the purpose of diversity is
ethical, but is affirmative action necessary to maintain diversity? Many opponents of affirmative
action believe that diversity can be achieved without racial preferences in the admissions
process. In Affirmative Action and Racial Preference: A Debate, James P. Sterba defends
affirmative action and analyzes the effects of Proposition 209, which “[prevents] the state of
California from implementing affirmative action programs in public education, public
employment, and public contracting” (DeSipio, par. 1). Sterba observes that:
In 1996, before Proposition 209 took effect in California, there were 89 Hispanic
Americans, 43 African Americans, and 10 American Indians enrolled as first-year
students at the top three University of California law schools. In 1997, these
numbers fell to 59, 16, and 4, respectively. (Sterba, p. 248)
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This data proves that affirmative action is necessary to maintain diversity. Furthermore, statistics
like this are devastating because they elude to the idea that discrimination towards minorities still
exists and it may be preventing minorities from getting a college degree. It is important for
minorities to receive a higher education in order to combat harmful stereotypes about minorities
being uneducated and unsophisticated. Fortunately, affirmative action in the college admissions
process can help fight stereotypes by increasing diversity.
We now know we can pursue affirmative action benefits because it is both ethical and
necessary. The next question we should ask ourselves is this: What is so great about diversity and
how do I contribute? Affirmative action for the purpose of diversity is not only beneficial to
minority students but to everyone on campus. Diversity on a college campus typically appears in
two forms: cultural and physical. When affirmative action promotes cultural diversity, it
promotes cultural education. Students on a culturally diverse campus have the opportunities to
immerse themselves in a variety of cultures. In an article published by The Guardian, language
teacher and assistant principal José Picardo observes that “Global awareness and international
collaboration during the formative years results in more rounded individuals, encouraging our
pupils to see things from different perspectives and helping them to make informed
decisions,” (Picardo, par. 10). Mixed race individuals are an exceptional addition to cultural
diversity because they can share multiple cultures. People who are partially white and partially
nonwhite may bring only one new culture to the table; nevertheless, you may be able to relate to
both the white side and the nonwhite side, allowing you to help dictate the blending of cultures.
Theoretically, beneficiaries of affirmative action should contribute largely to cultural
diversity; however, advocates for a change in affirmative action policy, such as David Bernstein,
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challenge the diversity contributions of many affirmative action recipients. Bernstein questions
specifically how hispanics and partial hispanics contribute to diversity as they become
“increasingly assimilated into American life,” (Bernstein, par. 13). While this is a legitimate
concern, it is easy to refute. People who do not contribute to cultural diversity can easily
contribute to physical diversity by just being present in a classroom. Multiple studies have found
that physical diversity is beneficial to education. One study by two sociology researchers, Sheen
S. Levine and David Stark, looked at the effects of physical diversity on group collaboration and
accuracy. Racially diverse groups and racially homogenous groups were asked to speculate stock
prices, and the outcome was the racially diverse groups were more accurate. The researchers
explain this phenomenon by stating “When surrounded by people ‘like ourselves,’ we are easily
influenced, more likely to fall for wrong ideas. Diversity prompts better, critical thinking. It
contributes to error detection. It keeps us from drifting toward miscalculation,” (Levine & Stark,
par. 13). Because of our mixed backgrounds, we often have a very unique combination of genes
leading to a very unique appearance, which makes us exceptional contributions to diversity.
Therefore, because we can increase both physical and cultural diversity, we should try to benefit
from affirmative action.
While all of the evidence I have provided here may be very compelling, its effectiveness
depends on how you answer the last question:
Do I personally feel deserving of benefits from affirmative action?
Critics of affirmative action often claim that race should not impact our lives and the US
should be a colorblind society. James P. Sterba writes “On the basis of the evidence of past and
present discrimination…race does make a difference in the kind of life people experience in U.S.
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society,” (Sterba, p. 243). Every person in the U.S. faces different consequences because of their
race, whether they realize it or not. Mixed race people often face a unique consequence: identity
confusion. Because of this identity confusion, there may be uncertainty of whether or not you
should take advantage of affirmative action. In theory, people who are partially white and
partially nonwhite are excellent candidates for admission preferences. Despite this, there are still
many partially white and partially nonwhite students that disagree. Some of us feel that we do
not contribute to diversity, physically or culturally. As someone who is half-Mexican and halfwhite and lives in the middle of suburbia, I struggle to keep my Mexican identity alive. I often
feel like I am “too white” to be considered hispanic. It is highly likely many of you have
experienced the same phenomenon where you feel like an outsider in one of your heritage
groups. This is often due to microaggressions, or “[subtle,] brief, everyday exchanges that send
denigrating messages to people of color” (Sue, p. 273). Microaggressions arrive in the form of
challenging one’s heritage, and overtime “experience with microaggressions [results] in a
negative racial climate and emotions of self-doubt, frustration, and isolation,” (Sue, p. 279). To
combat microaggressions, it is important for us to have a solid grasp on our identity. Even though
at times we may feel we are too white, we are diverse people who can help improve society.
On that note, I conclude that affirmative action is necessary, ethical, and beneficial to
everyone. Your heritage makes you deserving of admission preferences. For these reasons, when
you are completing your college applications, you should definitely check more than just
“white.”
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Works Cited
Bernstein, David. "Should Ted Cruz’s Children Be Eligible for Affirmative Action Preferences in
State Universities?" Washington Post. The Washington Post, 14 Dec. 2015. Web. 22 Mar.
2016.
Cohen, Carl, and James P. Sterba. Affirmative Action And Racial Preference : A Debate. Oxford
[England]: Oxford University Press, 2003. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 28 Mar.
2016.
DeSipio, Louis. "Ballot Propositions 187, 209, and 227." The Oxford Encyclopedia of Latinos
and Latinas in the United States. Oxford [England]: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Oxford Reference. Web. 27 Apr. 2016
"Grutter V. Bollinger." Gale Encyclopedia of American Law. Ed. Donna Batten. 3rd ed. Vol. 5.
Detroit: Gale, 2010. 167-168. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
Levine, Sheen S., and David Stark. "Diversity Makes You Brighter." The New York Times. The
New York Times, 08 Dec. 2015. Web. 28 Mar. 2016.
Picardo, José. "Why Students Need a Global Awareness and Understanding of Other Cultures."
The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 25 Sept. 2012. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
The United States of America. United States Census Bureau. Educational Attainment in the
United States: 2015. By Camille L. Ryan and Kurt Bauman. U.S. Department of
Commerce, Mar. 2016. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.
Sue, Derald Wing, et al. "Racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical
practice." American Psychologist 62.4 (2007): 271.