Affirmative Action: Then Hope; Now Flawed
It has been fifty years since the Little Rock Nine entered Central High School. It has been more than Fifty years since Brown v. Board of Education. Since then thousands of schools in the United States have been integrated but many schools have yet to do so. Fifty years later, the nation is in many ways is still very segregated. Because of programs like the FHA and practices like redlining, the racial gap between whites and minorities, partially Blacks Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans, are wide. (Iverem) One of the most radical attempts to bridge the gap was put into place in 1960’s. Lyndon Banes Johnson and the government of the Untied States decided that “Affirmative Action” must be taken to even the racial, economics, and gender discrepancies that existed in the country. This gave birth to controversial “Affirmative Action” legislation. This legislation allowed schools to admit students that did not meet their original requirements on the basis of race, gender, or social-economic status. This legislation has changed and has been misunderstood for years. Affirmative Action, in the beginning, instilled positive change but today its benefits are out weighed by newly installed flaws.
There are many myths surrounding Affirmative Action. First, despite many misconceptions, women were the main beneficiary of Affirmative Action. Women’s numbers have exploded because they were the largest minority recognized by the Affirmative Action and because they generally scored higher than males. Affirmative Action also forced colleges to spend the same amount of money on women sports as male sports, causing the female athletics to expand. (Daly) The benefits can also be seen in the statistics. Women in 1970 made less than 60% of what men made compared to more than 71% in 1993. Black American income during that time has oscillated from as low as 65.8% in 1969 to 71.8% in 1979. (Kangas) Though the numbers are similar, the female income has been steadily on the rise while the Black income changes with the times. The Second myth, that all Black Americans are admitted under Affirmative Action’s racial preference, is also untrue. Many did not need to new legislation to get into college. However many college bound Black students that were accepted into better colleges. (Daly) These myths had lead to resentment that has lead to Affirmative Action’s dismantling and eventually destruction. Nevertheless Affirmative Action was very positive in the beginning.
When it was first initiated, Affirmative Action vastly improved the Black American community. To know its impact all one needs to do is ask a college graduate from that era. Dr. Daly M.D. was part of the first group of Black Americans to reap the benefits of Affirmative Action. In an interview she discussed, how Affirmative Action was and how “things have definitely gotten worse.” According to her, Affirmative Action was all about helping the disadvantaged and creating a student body that reflected the student pool. Affirmative Action benefited minorities, women, and most important those of a disadvantageous social economic background. (Daly) Quotas, varying in rigidity, were filled up with students that met the college’s normal standards. Only when those quotas were unmet did college make an extra effort to recruit those students that demonstrated outside their board scores and GPA that they could handle the college’s work load. (Daly) This created two major groups: the group of minority students that did meet the originally standards were able to go to better colleges than they would have had; and another group of poorer students that wouldn’t have attended college got a higher education. Because of the second group, the Black middle class expanded. So where did the myths that only Blacks benefit and white lose come from?
Affirmative Action today is very different from affirmative action in the 1970’s. One of the biggest changes involves the removal of the quota system. The court case “University of California v. Bakke” removed the race based quotas system policy from most schools. (Richey) Furthermore Proposition 209 abolished Affirmative Action in California in 1998. In short, standards for admittance could not be lower because of a person’s racial background. Both decisions have decreased the amount of Black students to nearly of fifth of what it has been; diminished to amount of Latinos and Native Americans to nearly zero percent; and lessen the amount of whites that attend the UC system while increasing accepting more Asian and Middle Eastern students. (Daly) In her interview Dr. Daly said that the UC system is trying to be more objective. This involves weighing the board scores and grades more heavily than the essays and race. Because a disproportionately high percentage of the top board scores and GPA’s belong to Asian students, they have been accepted more than any other racial group. However this policy has closed the door to many first generation students of including those of Hispanic and Asian descent. These groups have difficulty and struggle on English written standardized tests and or citizenship. (Daly) Because of these changes it is hard to tell whether Affirmative Action was a defective piece of legislation of whether it is a defective idea. This had added to the controversy and fueled modern myths.
The following changes have damaged the Black American community. What the changes in Affirmative Action have created is an exclusive Black middle class.  Affirmative Action no longer benefits those who need it most: the economically challenged. Because education is first most a business, financial-blindness has lessened over the years. Those poorer students that get accepted into college drop out simply because they cannot afford and the school will not give them substantial financial aid. (Daly) Therefore in recent years, most of the Black people that have benefited from Affirmative Action are those who are middle to upper class, and most importantly children of the 1970’s beneficiaries. (Sakes and Thiel) Though this ensures the survival of the Black middle class it has also halted the Black middle class expansion. (Daly) But the dilemma does not stop there. Today, unlike the Black Americans in the upper and middle class neighborhoods, these Black Americans are subjected to the racist legacies of redlining and the Federal Housing Administration. FHA and redlining made it nearly impossible for Blacks to move into suburbia. (Iverem) This led to “defacto segregation” and has created an uneven education playing field. Whites were allowed to move in to new, high values homes in suburbia while Blacks had to stay in low valued urban housing. Why is this important? Educational funding is largely dependant on property tax. (Daly) As houses in suburbia increase in price and urban housing decreases in price, the educational funding follows suite. This had lead to unequal education. It is changes in Affirmative Action that has hurt not just Black Americans and other minorities, but poor whites as well. It is money, more than any outside factor that affects education and college acceptance. Now a days while wealthy children enjoy the benefits of SAT prep courses, ability to apply to multiple colleges and access to college counseling, poorer student struggle to pay for the transportation needed to just take the SAT once. Taking the tests requires money; applying to colleges requires money; staying in college requires money. Textbooks, class room conditions, nutrition, tutors, counselors, teacher, all require money and the legacy of the FHA and other institutions has ensured that Blacks and the poor are disadvantaged. It is not racism, but money more than anything that hinders the Black American’s education. The failure to draw and act upon this conclusion has lead to flawed Affirmative Action policy.
Affirmative Action has become an intensely flawed piece of legislation though out the years because people have failed to recognize the main issues affecting higher education. Because people have been so caught up in the racial, pro-Black attitude of Affirmative Action, they have failed to spot the real problem. The problem with higher education is not racial preference, but lower education. If the lower education was equal, there would be no need for Affirmative Action. To do that money and people of different races, creed, religious backgrounds, and genders are all going to have to be distributed. In short, we need more Melba’s, Ernest’s, and Minnijean’s. And until then, Affirmative Action that actively gives preferential treatment to those of lower social-economic status is the real answer.
Works Cited
Beals, Melba Pattillo. Warriors Don’t Cry. Washington Square Press: New York, 1994.
Daly, Anne, Doctor, Kaiser Permanente. Live Face to Face interview. 05 December, 2006.
Iverem, Esther. Race: The Power of an Illusion (Online) Available http://www.alternet.org/story/15897/ 13 May, 2003.
Mount Union College. Mount Union Students Debate Affirmative Action. (Online) Available http://www.muc.edu/content/view/full/28424 13 April, 2006.
Kangas, Steve. Liberalism Resurgent Myth: Affirmative Action hasn’t worked. (Online) Available http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-aahelp.htm, 05 December 2006.
The Christian Science Monitor. Affirmative Action’s Evolution. http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0328/p01s01-usju.html, 05 December 2006.
Sakes, David and Thiel, Peter. Stanford Magazine. The Case Against Affirmative Action. (Online) Available http://www.stanfordalumni.org/news/magazine/1996/sepoct/articles/against.html, 05 December, 2006.