I grew up in suburbia and attended a private Catholic school. As a child I had little contact with diversity. Coming to Penn changed that. I loved the diverse atmosphere, the opportunities for exploration, and friendly people. But despite my enjoyment at discovering new cultures, I still wasn’t convinced of the merits of affirmative action. Giving preferences based on race didn’t seem like the way to go.

The rhetoric coming from back home, where Michigan was deciding on an affirmative action ban, colored my view. Pro-affirmative action groups like By Any Means Necessary flooded the media with demands that affirmative action be kept legal. They claimed that proponents of a ban were purposefully trying to exclude minorities from public universities. They claimed that affirmative action would rectify the wrongs of a racist electorate.

The book that changed Dan Brickley’s life — or at least his view on affirmative action (The Brookings Institution)

After the infamous University of Michigan Supreme Court decision supporting affirmative action, opponents of affirmative action turned to the voters for an outright ban. As I prepared to vote for the ban, a professor assigned The Black-White Test Score Gap by Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips. Filled with scientific studies, a subdued political agenda, and cold, hard numbers the book spoke to me. And it changed my vote.

See, as a member of the American majority, I never had to confront racism, experience the trials of poverty, or suffer through inadequate schooling. Rhetoric speaking of inherent rights to admission, due to terrible acts that happened before I was ever born, just didn’t click. Instead, cold hard facts about the black-white test score gap, the inability to explain this phenomenon and the importance of test scores in university admissions, do click.

Militant (their word, not mine) groups like BAMN scare away the majority of voters like me. Mass demonstrations with scores of screaming pro-affirmative action youth does little for the cause. Logical, fact-based discussion should take hold, allowing people from every background, including me, to understand the true reason for affirmative action.

BAMN may be a valuable legal resource, but their public voice obviously rests on the emotional issues of slavery, segregation, and the civil rights movement. Arguments resting on these issues may be the easiest to make, but, as shown by failures in Michigan and California, they just don’t work.

If the leaders of the affirmative action movement want to change America, they must start with their own movement.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 20th, 2007 at 2:12 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.