Much has been made of the 20 points African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans are awarded toward admission to the University of Michigan’s undergraduate program. So much has been made of those points, and the law school’s admissions policy, that the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether they are constitutional.
At the center is whether race should be neutral and the process colorblind.
What eludes discussion is the selection process itself, which, by the way, awards 20 points for myriad other things in the name of diversity. As I look over the university’s Selection Index Worksheet, I see a lot of wiggle room for decision-makers to use their discretion, despite how formal and objective the process appears.
For example, let’s say you, Joe Candidate, are a Michigan applicant. You can amass a total of 150 points toward admission. You get 80 points if you have a 4.0 or perfect grade point average. Twelve for a top ACT or SAT score. You’re given points for the type of high school you attended (10 maximum), how rigorous your courses were (8 max), whether you live in Michigan (16 max), among other considerations. But let’s fast-forward to the category marked “Miscellaneous.”
Under this rubric, you get a one-time 20 points if you’re an underrepresented racial or ethnic minority, or an athlete, or socioeconomically disadvantaged. There’s also something called “Provost’s Discretion,” which allows the provost to award 20 points any way he or she chooses.
It’s difficult to look around the quadrangle or the classroom and detect who was accepted, say, because his parents were wealthy, powerful or politically connected. Because he hailed from some geographically underrepresented place such as the Upper Peninsula or Stone Mountain, Ga. Because he was economically or culturally disadvantaged. Because he wanted to pursue some obscure field of study.
Of all these categories of preference, race is the easy target because people of color are a lot less inconspicuous. And the prevailing assumption is that they’re on campus solely because of some preferential treatment.
In this case, because of 20 points.
At the University of Michigan, underrepresented minorities make up 13.6 percent of this year’s undergraduate student body. Is that a quota? No more than would be the case for the number of students accepted because of, let’s say, the influence their parents wield.
You hear phrases like “colorblind” and “race neutral” when it comes to admissions. But nobody pushes to neutralize any of the other factors.
If the Michigan policies are struck down, then what next? Universities that see the value in a bunch of bright people coming together who don’t look the same or share the same experiences will continue–within the law–to create student bodies in ways they see fit.
What’s most unfortunate is our inability to reconcile ourselves where race is concerned and learn how to benefit from it. Instead, we prefer to pretend we don’t see race.
When often that’s all we see.
