To have a strident conservative magazine attacking affirmative action is not surprising. The argument is often made that such attacks are too commonplace even to merit response. Yet, when attacks on admissions policies come from within a department, from an influential professor who shapes the minds of tomorrow's leaders, it seems that there should be some response other than embarrassed silence. The media are a powerful force in shaping perceptions of reality, and uncontested distortions have an unnerving way of becoming accepted as facts.
Each year, 600-700 people apply to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences' Department of Government, of whom some 40-50 are admitted. Around 30-35 of the admitted students actually matriculate. According to a 1993 article, "The Science of Political Science Graduate Admissions," co-authored by former admissions committee chair Gary King, the original group of 600 is first pared to a select 100 whose applications are then read by every member of the committee. From this group, 45 are selected, and then, "After the primary list is complete, we [the admissions committee] go through the admissions files of all remaining minority applicants to ensure that we do not miss anyone who meets these same criteria." Those who are deemed able to "complete the program if admitted" are then added to the original forty-five.
The Weekly Standard contends that this process involves "separate but unequal admissions tracks." They suggest that any minority student from the entire applicant pool deemed able to complete the program is offered admission--a radically different standard than that for the rest of the students. The article is written to lead one to this conclusion. One would, however, be terribly deluded in accepting it.
It is simply not the case that any minority student who is deemed able to complete the program is selected. One commentator, who asked to remain anonymous, explained that by the time the admissions committee has whittled the applicant pool to 100, "you're working with a group of twice your number, any one of whom you could admit and feel good about." At that level, even scores don't provide much differentiation. Statistical issues make the top 15 percent of GRE scorers hard to tell apart. King notes that "all students who receive scores above 688 are indistinguishable."
Last year, according to an internal departmental source, this process resulted in admission being offered to one minority student. This student eventually chose not to enroll. Usually, 2-3 minority students enroll per year. A November 21, 1995, letter from Kenneth A. Shepsle, Chair of the Department of Government, clarified the issue in response to an open letter to the department from minority graduate students: "Adjustments are made to accommodate the fact that objective indicators are imperfect.... My understanding, moreover, is that for years now, such adjustments, including those based on race, gender, and ethnicity, have taken place entirely within the confines of a process that is merit-based." While "more than half" the students who applied last year could probably perform "successfully," admitted students come only from "the top half of the top half."
Some merit-based selectees are ultimately not offered admission because of their financial circumstances. Financial considerations affect the admission of 3-10 students a year. The Weekly Standard conflates the issue of affirmative action with the issue of an admissions process that is not entirely need-blind.
Stephen Marshall, a second-year graduate student, also black, said, "Mansfield said some inflammatory and degrading things about me and other students in the department. It created a very problematic situation for students of color. When someone makes these kinds of accusations, it puts the onus on you to defend yourself. That's a situation non-minority students don't have to face." Marshall and five other students wrote an open letter to the department and published a guest editorial in the November 27 issue of The Crimson which characterized Professor Mansfield's comments as an "abuse of a natural but unequal power relationship." They called for "principled dialogue" and "constructive discussion" on the issue of affirmative action, and for an end to "irresponsible and malicious" claims which only stir "racial animosity."
Our anonymous commentator would say only this about Mansfield, "He's not being persuasive, obviously," because the admissions process remains unaffected by his criticisms, and he has been voicing the same opinions for years.
The issue of affirmative action based on race, ethnicity, and gender has become terribly complicated by interwoven issues of class and income. Many opponents of affirmative action suggest replacing programs that address race, ethnicity, and gender with ones that address economic disadvantage. Obnoxious and prevalent as it is, income-based disadvantage is not the only form of social injustice. What it is, however, is the most common form of discrimination white men are likely to experience, and hence the form they may be most sensitive to and emphasize from their privileged place in public debate.
The solution to the question of equal opportunity in society is not to eliminate the programs that attempt to address institutional biases based on race, ethnicity, or sex, but to address the much tougher issue of the broader social insecurity characteristic of our era. American society has not become more class conscious, but has perhaps become more insecure about the promise of economic stability. This ought not obscure our understanding of race and racism as factors that operate in the American social sphere and affect people's lives. Race remains a source of social vulnerability, and articles like The Weekly Standard's only make it more so.