Historical commentary on affirmative action debates and university admissions policies

4.2.12 WC: 191694 The State...may not proceed by racial classification to force strict population equivalencies for every group in every occupation, overriding individual preferences. The Equal Protection Clause commands the elimination of racial barriers, not their creation in order to satisfy our theory as to how society ought to be organized. The purpose of the University of Washington cannot be to produce black lawyers for blacks, Polish lawyers for Poles, Jewish lawyers for Jews, Irish lawyers for Irish. It should be to produce good lawyers for Americans... Justice Douglas’ dissenting views quickly became the standard approach of old fashioned liberals committed to Martin Luther King’s dream of a color blind America where every student was judged “not by the color of their skin” but rather by their individual achievements in light of the barriers they have had to overcome. I became an active advocate for an aggressive affirmative action program at Harvard based on non-racial criteria. I participated in numerous campus and faculty meeting debates, and believed that I was on the side of the angels, favoring a system that would produce real diversity without violating the racial equality mandate of the constitution. And I had Justice Douglas on my side! But not every liberal accepted Justice Douglas’ race-neutral approach. Many Black leaders saw the issue not as one of individual rights, but rather as one of group aspirations. Blacks had a collective right, under thus view, to “reasonable representation” in the student bodies of universities and other institutions, both public and private. Some went so far as to argue for “proportional representation.” This raised the spectre of “quotas,” which might limit the number of those accepted or hired to their proportion of the population. The fear of quotas or proportional representation increased as schools throughout the country adopted affirmative action programs with many different elements. Some contained “targets” for the number of admitted Blacks. Other had “floors.” Non black students who were denied admissions to schools with such programs began to file lawsuits. As these cases made their ways through the courts, a conflict arose between some leaders of the African American and Jewish communities. Most African American leaders were deeply committed to race-specific affirmative action programs that gave advantages to all Black applicants, regardless of their individual backgrounds. Most colleges preferred this group approach as well, since I was simpler and they preferred to admit wealthy, well educated, and privileged Black candidates over poorer, less well educated and more “difficult” inner-city Blacks. Derek Bok, first the Dean of Harvard Law School and then the president of Harvard University, candidly acknowledged that it was far easier to integrate African American graduates of Groten, Fieldston, and St. Paul’s into Harvard than it would be to integrate inner city public school graduates. (GET BOK QUOTE) Many Jewish leaders were worried that the hard-earned access of Jews to elite schools would be endangered by what they regarded as “racial quotas”. They recalled, with bitterness, the “quotas” that had limited Jewish applicants to single digit “Jewish places” in college and university admissions. There is, of course, a difference between “floor quotas” and “ceiling quotas”. Blacks were seeking a floor on the number of affirmative action admittees: no less than 10 or 15 percent. 293 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_017380