David Bernstein writes:
I don't think anyone would argue that the poor quality of an applicant's
pre-college education is a constitutionally impermissible factors to consider in
admissions. But that is a different argument than arguing that Latinos/Hispanics *as
a class* should be able to get special consideration,"
Okay. But what if the poor quality pre-college education is caused by the school's
minority status. That is, the society gives it fewer resources, because the
prevailing assumption is that minority schools are not as deserving of excellence as
white schools.
Here, the student's problem isn't simply a poor quality education. The poor quality
education is a symptom of the negative attitudes of the larger society about his or
her racial group that disadvantage that group as a class in all aspects of their
lives. For example, if the student attends a better quality school, are her
educational aspirations devalued because of thsi perception minorities are not as
deserving of good educations? What other adverse experiences does the student have in
other contexts because of her race, and how does this affect her educational
opportunity?
Moreover, the Grutter argument was that diversity is not just a remedy to an
individual for past discrimination, but benefits the society at large, by promoting a
racially integrated society and power structure, and by hopefully, undermining the
negative treatment of race over time. (The same rationale would apply to allowing
predominantly minority schools to recruit white students to diversify their
educational environment.)
I think the problem is the confusion of race discrimination with economic
disadvantage. Race is not simply an economic class problem, i.e., that minorities are
disproprotionately poorer and thus have fewer advantages. Rather, race discrimination
is a race problem. Minorities are disadvantaged because of the society's attitudes
about race, and they are racially disadvantaged, even if they neverthelesss manage to
become more affluent, or integrated, etc. Race still affects their lives. And it
affects their lives no matter how much they might want to ignore race. Other people
race them, regardless of whether they want to be raced or not.
Now maybe one can argue that there should be limits on how broadly a school could
define a particular racial group - for example - should the white descendants of Sally
Hemmings and Jefferson, who lived all of their lives as whites qualify as a diversity
admit because they recently found out that they are biologically African-American (at
least under the old slavery one-drop rule)?
(Although maybe they should since they likely have a unique experience of race in
america. Take Gregory Williams, former Ohio State Dean (pres CUNY now? He did not
know he had an african american parent until late in life. As he describes it, when he
informed othres this fact, all of a sudden their attitudes towards him changed. He was
exactly the same, but other people treated him differently. This phenomenon isn't as
simple as conscious "racism", but rather it is a consequence of how the society has
defined race over time.
yb
*********************************************
Professor Yvette M. Barksdale
Associate Professor of Law
The John Marshall Law School
315 S. Plymouth Ct.
Chicago, IL 60604
(312) 427-2737
(email:) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
*****************************************************
> ----------
> From: David Bernstein[SMTP:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Reply To: Discussion list for con law professors
> Sent: Friday, June 27, 2003 1:55 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Puzzles re: Grutter and Korematsu - hispanics and segregated
> schools
>
> I don't think anyone would argue that the poor quality of an applicant's pre-college
> education is a constitutionally impermissible factors to consider in admissions.>
> But that is a different argument than arguing that Latinos/Hispanics *as a class*
> should be able to get special consideration, regardless of what school they went to,
> or for that matter the socioeconomic status of their parents, the country they or
> their ancestors migrated from (are Argentine-Americans or Chilean-Americans subject
> to virulent discrimination in the US?), their ties to Latino/Hispanic culture, the
> racial group they identify with and/or appear to others to belong to, or any other
> relevant factors that plausibly suggest either that an applicant should receive
> special treatment for overcoming obstacles or for being able to make a special
> "diversity" contribution to the school.
>
>
> In a message dated 6/27/2003 2:30:51 PM Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> writes:
>
>
>
> Here is the quote from Ginsberg's concurring opinion (Grutter, 2003 WL
> 21433492 at p *25)
>
> "As to public education, data for the years 2000-2001 show that 71.6% of
> African-American children and 76.3% of Hispanic children attended a school in which
> minorities made up a majority of the student body. See E. Frankenberg, C. Lee, &G.
> Orfield, A Multiracial Society with Segregated Schools: Are We Losing the Dream? p.
> 4 (Jan.2003), http://www.civilrights project. harvard.edu / research /
> reseg03/AreWeLosing theDream.pdf (as visited June 16, 2003, and available in Clerk
> of Court's case file). And schools in predominantly minority communities lag far
> behind others measured by the educational resources available to them. See id., at
> 11; Brief for National Urban League et al. as Amici Curiae 11-12 (citing General
> Accounting Office, Per-Pupil Spending Differences Between Selected Inner City and
> Suburban Schools Varied by Metropolitan Area, 17 (2002)).
>
> Whether schools are segregated de jure or defacto, racially segregated schools
> provide lesser educational opportunities for minority students. For example, I
> visited a predominantly black public high school in a working class black community
> on the South Side of Chicago. IT was like walking into a prison or a barracks. The
> walls were dingy, the plumbing leaked, the last paint job was probably in the 50s.
> There was little light, etc. ANd this doesn't even get into educational resources
> like library books, teacher-pupil ratios, science labs, etc. In my own
> neighborhood, a fast developing, racially integrated, upscale, near downtown area,
> a public magnet high school was recently changed from a business curriculum, which
> attracted almost exclusively minority students, who were mostly bussed in, to a
> college prep curriculum, which is now significantly more racially integrated. Since
> the conversion, they have added a new wing, they've redone the walls with the bright
> re!
d tile, and they are trying to kick out an adjoining homeless shelter to add in a
swimming pool, and athletic facility.
>
> Go figure.
> yb
>
>
>
>
>
