Thoughts on Affirmative Action

I have the occasion today to do some reading about affirmative action, including selections from Charles Ogletree, Goodwin Liu, Glenn Loury, Carol Moseley-Braun, and, uh, Clarence Thomas. (The last of which is just an excerpt from his dissent in Grutter v. Bollinger.) These selections tend to focus on the 2003 University of Michigan cases, Grutter and Gratz v. Bollinger. I may have more thoughts later, but right now I have what I think basically forms one overarching one: the arguments against affirmative action rely on a deep sense of entitlement. No, not racial entitlement, not the entitlement of white people to own the world, although that is probably a component for many opponents of affirmative action.

It's a more complex form of entitlement than that, and it's well-illustrated by the details given in one of these readings that's basically a biography of Jennifer Gratz, the successful plaintiff in the suit against Michigan's undergraduate admissions system. The University of Michigan had always been her dream school (as she was born and raised in Michigan), and she devoted all her energies toward getting into it. She had a 3.8 GPA, good test scores, loads of extracurricular activities, etc. And apparently, she was "so confident that she'd make the cut at Michigan that she applied to no other colleges." Now, from my own experience of applying to college a few years back, I recall being told over and over by my high school's college prep people that nothing was ever a guarantee. 1600 SAT's and a 4+ GPA (we had GPA's that went above 4.0) weren't a guarantee, anywhere really but especially at the most selective schools. Anywhere you apply, you might be rejected, so be prepared for this both practically (by applying to lots of places) and emotionally. Jennifer Gratz was apparently not emotionally prepared, and sued.*

This is the attitude, the sense of entitlement. It's the idea that, if you have GPA X and Test Scores Y, and you don't get admitted to a school where most people with those numbers did get in, you've been mistreated. Seriously, who the hell sues because they don't get in to college? College admissions are far more subtle capricious than that. Ogletree's contribution to this reading mentions this point, that everyone on the right talks like a "meritocracy" is a) desirable, and b) a simple matter of making admission dependent upon nothing but test scores and grades. That isn't how it works, that's never been how it works, get over it.


*The reading that describes Gratz' life says she first got a waiting-list letter, then a rejection letter, and then tearfully asked her parents whether they could sue. The Wikipedia page for the case says both that she was applying several years before the points system at issue in the court case began and that she declined the offer of entry to the waiting list, a waiting list from which every single member was ultimately admitted. I dunno who's right, and it doesn't really affect the politics, law, or policy considerations, but if the Wikipedia article's right, that severely undercuts her argument that, hey, she's not looking to make a point, she just had spent her whole life trying to go to this specific school and was devastated by not getting in. It strikes me that, were that your genuine attitude about the whole thing, you'd jump at the chance to still have a chance.