Affirmative Action Law

7/11/2011: Richard Kahlenberg has a good roundup of recent events, at the Chronicle, followed by this interpretation:

Historically, the “diversity rationale” for affirmative action was an important strategic advance for supporters of the policy. The original “remedial rationale”—that racial preferences were necessary to correct for a history of egregious discrimination—suffered from a built-in time bomb, becoming less persuasive as the history of slavery and segregation receded into the past. The diversity rationale, by contrast, suggested that the educational benefits of having a diverse class were compelling irrespective of the nation’s history of discrimination, thereby extending the life of affirmative-action policies.

But the diversity rationale now faces its own ticking time bomb: the idea of “critical mass.” In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t say universities could employ racial and ethnic preferences to achieve proportional representation of groups, only that they could employ preferences to create a critical mass of students necessary to enhance discussion. In Grutter, critical mass was satisfied in a class that had a combined black and Hispanic representation of 14.5%.

In the UC system, however, Latinos alone now constitute 26% of the incoming freshmen class, without any use of racial or ethnic preference. To be sure, California’s general population is more diverse than most states, and the elite universities within the UC system are less diverse than the system as a whole. But the demographic change sweeping the country will, over time, reduce the need for affirmative-action policies to create a critical mass of minority students.

Proponents of affirmative action, perhaps sensing this reality, advanced a new argument in a recent challenge to affirmative action at the University of Texas: suggesting that the critical mass requirement applies not to a college as a whole but to every classroom. This notion, however, is unlikely to fly with the U.S. Supreme Court—just as the challenge to Michigan’s affirmative-action ban is unlikely to be sustained. For those of us who care about racial and economic justice in higher education, the nation’s dramatic demographic changes hasten the need to find viable alternatives.

The last link takes you to Kahlenberg’s book that advocates replacing race and ethnicity based programs with programs base on socio-economic status. This approach has been anathema at OIED under Charles Martinez. We’ll see what the new Diversity VP will be like. Given what I’ve heard at the “visioning sessions” run by Scott Coltrane and Robin Holmes I’m not optimistic. Holmes will soon be going from co-chairing the search committee to collecting a nice stipend as Interim Diversity VP, while Martinez is simultaneously double dipping at OSLC for a few more months. The current setup is a gravy train for too many administrators.

Meanwhile, check out the latest from Senior VP for Academic Affairs Russ Tomlin – “Faculty Search Advocates” trained to push a narrow racial/ethnic/gendered view of diversity, then put on faculty search committees. I’m guessing Russ has already blown the cash equivalent of 5-10 full ride scholarships for low SES kids on this bullshit – none of which is incorporated in UO’s AA Plan. Which the law requires.

Do the math Russ – the faculty is representative of the available pool of PhD’s and has been for years. It’s Johnson Hall that has a problem. Like when Joe Wade sued Moseley and made Frohnmayer create OIED. Or like when Lariviere appointed Jim Bean provost without bothering with an AA compliant search. Speaking of which, was there a search before Tomlin was appointed VP? I sure can’t find anything.