On affirmative action in education, Justice Scalia is right

The debate over race and crime still rages across America, evidenced by the series of police misconduct criminal trials taking place in Baltimore, the federal investigation of the Chicago police department and increasing criticism of that city’s mayor.

In the midst of this, many became outraged over comments from U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia that affirmative action might well be counter-productive for black Americans seeking success in higher education.

Justice Scalia quoted several of the premises found in the book “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended To Help and Why Universities Won’t Admit It,” by law professors Richard H. Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr.

Among several incendiary takeaways from Sander and Taylor’s book is the premise that African-American students might fare better in “slower-track schools” rather than more academically competitive colleges.

Simply stated, I agree.

Affirmative action was the conceptual equal opportunity “magic wand” intended to create access specifically for ethnic minorities, including African-Americans and women who had been denied access to “elite” colleges and professional education.

The theory behind higher-education affirmative action was that some African-Americans should be entitled to quota-based access to these elite universities and professional schools. These African-Americans were not considered equally qualified with their non-black classmates on the basis of empirical criteria such as grades or test scores, but their presence was deemed to serve a broad, though ill-defined, “value” added to the overall academic experience for all students – worthy of allowing them to jump to the head of the line past some arguably more academically qualified applicants.

What affirmative action never fully addressed was how those non-minority applicants who were “passed over” were supposed to embrace this patent unfairness, which some argued prevented them from acquiring the benefit of an elite education.

I don’t blame Justice Scalia one bit for recognizing the 10,000-pound elephant in the room. Just because one makes reference to something “racial” does render them a “racist” nor discount the truth in their words.

Either way, the sad takeaway from “Mismatch” still exists. What good is it to accept someone to an elite academic institution if they are unprepared to perform academically? The rolls of African-American students who populate the ranks of those on academic probation or who never graduate or who change their major from math, science or engineering to “African-American Studies,” or “sociology” or “undeclared” has reached a disproportionate level of critical mass that should be called out by our own community leaders.

Why is the African-American community silent on an issue that affects us more directly than any other?

I applaud the authors of “Mismatch” and Justice Scalia for raising the issue. By the way, when Justice Scalia raised this issue in oral argument, I wonder what facial expression his colleague, Justice Clarence Thomas, the U.S. Supreme Court’s sole Black justice, was wearing. It is well known that Justice Thomas entered Yale Law School via affirmative action.

I am a proud product of affirmative action. I was admitted both to my undergraduate and professional school as a result of government imposed “quotas.” Having said that, I was also the product of a low-income household growing up in South Central Los Angeles and, sadly, a deficient public education as segregated as any you would find in pre-Brown vs. Board of Education America.

It is not fair that inner-city public schools are deficient and that those who are the highest performing students are at a significant disadvantage when admitted to prestigious, highly competitive universities and professional schools. However, as my grandma used to say, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

Quota-based affirmative action based solely on race is wrong. Period. Those based on economic discrimination have some value, but must be examined on a case-by-case basis. Let Justice Scalia’s reference to “Mismatch” light a fire of discourse on the unfairness of race-based affirmative action.

This story was originally published December 18, 2015 at 5:29 PM with the headline "On affirmative action in education, Justice Scalia is right."