Harvard's "Diversity" Model being Scrutinized;
Does UMass Have a Problem?

By Paul Moreno
April 2001

A system of "soft" racial preferences that was perfected by Harvard and used as a model by colleges all over the country may soon be outlawed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

The University of Massachusetts may also have a serious problem.

The Court may be close to declaring that colleges cannot take race into account when admitting students.

Schools have been permitted to use "diversity" as a factor when choosing their students since the 1978 case of Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Even though outright, hard-and-fast racial quotas were banned in that case, it still allowed a student's race to be considered a "plus" factor where a college wanted to achieve a "diverse" student body.

This is what most big universities do today. And recent litigation has shown that the racial "plus" is a big one.

The Court accepted the argument that students get a better education if they are exposed to students of different races.

Harvard admitted at the time: "In practice, this new definition of diversity has meant that race has been a factor in some admission decisions. When the Committee on Admissions reviews the large middle group of applicants who are 'admissible' and deemed capable of doing good work in their courses, the race of an applicant may tip the balance in his favor just as geographic origin or a life spent on a farm may tip the balance in other candidates' cases. A farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer. Similarly, a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer."

The Court wrote, "The applicant who loses out on the last available seat to another candidate receiving a 'plus' on the basis of ethnic background will not have been foreclosed from all consideration for that seat simply because he was not the right color or had the wrong surname. It would mean only that his combined qualifications, which may have included similar nonobjective factors, did not outweigh those of the other applicant. His qualifications would have been weighed fairly and competitively, and he would have no basis to complain of unequal treatment under the Fourteenth Amendment."

Several federal courts have reconsidered the 1978 Supreme Court precedent. In 1996 the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals (covering Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi) held that the University of Texas Law School could not granted racial preferences to members of preferred minority groups for the sake of "diversity." A federal district judge in Atlanta made a similar decision. The U.S. Supreme Court did not accept an appeal of these decisions, thus implying that they were a correct statement of the law.

More recently, the most liberal U.S. Court of Appeals, the Ninth Circuit in California, and a U.S. District Court in Michigan have upheld Harvard-style diversity programs. The U.S. Supreme Court will soon have to hear an appeal and decide which federal courts are right.

Harvard Prof Doubts Harvard President's Defense of "Diversity"

In the meantime, the defenders of affirmative action have been trying to prove the educational value of diversity.

Former Harvard President Derek Bok has written a book (with former Princeton president William Bowen) that claims to show the far-reaching benefits of preferential admissions for blacks in elite schools.

"When the Supreme Court decided Brown," Bok says of the 1954 decision that banned segregation in public schools, "it relied heavily on social science studies. We hope [that] our data influence the current Supreme Court when it rules on affirmative action."

Bok fails to note that the "social science" used in the Brown case was very flimsy and has been criticized by both supporters and opponents of the decision.

Bok says that survey data shows "how positively the great majority of students regard opportunities to learn from those with different points of view, backgrounds, and experiences." This argument assumes that skin color is a fair indication of view, background, and experience.

Harvard historian Stephan Thernstrom has criticized Bok and Bowen's use of data. "SAT scores broken down by race at many of the nation's leading colleges and universities were in the possession of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education," he wrote in a review of Bok's book. "In theory, the Consortium's data are available for research by faculty members at any member school." Even though Thernstrom teaches at Harvard, his attempt to see the data when researching his book, America in Black and White, was "flatly denied."

He notes that Bok's use of data that is available only to "totally trusted insiders obviously compromises the search for truth. If the only medical records available to determine whether cigarette smoking causes lung cancer had been controlled by the tobacco companies, and if the companies had given access only to scholars who doubted the link, scientific progress in resolving the issue would surely have been impeded."

Thernstrom points out, "It is common for scholars involved in large-scale social science research projects to make the data available for reanalysis by other scholars." But Bok's book, using a "restricted data base," cannot be scrutinized like most social science works.

Thernstrom also highlights the vast gap that separates white and black applicants at elite colleges (the gap in SAT scores ranged from about 100 points at Harvard to 300 points at the University of California). The Supreme Court, he says, "sanctioned the use of race as one of many considerations - little more than a tie-breaker. These schools clearly do not conform to the Bakke standard; for many black students, race is the controlling factor that decides their admission."

Massachusetts Continues to Use Racial Preferences

Several states (California, Texas, Washington and Florida) have recently done away with race-based admissions to public colleges.

Massachusetts continues to use racial factors in admissions even though the Boston Globe reported last summer that, "For the first time since affirmative action became widespread, freshmen planning to attend the University of Massachusetts at Amherst...were not admitted under policies that heavily benefited minority students."

But the school still does look at race. It says that it now looks at applicants' high school grades and Scholastic Assessment Test scores. Those with lower grade point averages and SAT scores are then given extra points for Massachusetts residence, extracurricular activities, economic status and race.

The chancellor of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, David K. Scott, says, "Our goal is to achieve a multicultural campus where men and women of diverse racial, social and economic groups...come to understand and appreciate the variety of perspectives which diversity makes possible. In pursuit of this goal we seek to redress the imbalances described in the current Affirmative Action Plan. Of course in achieving this objective we will be in compliance with State and Federal policies in this area."

Last year, when the University took steps to comply with recent federal court rulings and was accused of dismantling affirmative action, Scott replied, "We have not stopped using race as a factor in admission as have California, Washington, and Texas, and I deeply regret the widespread perception that we have. Nothing could be further from the truth. For many years, it has been the goal of the University of Massachusetts Amherst to recruit and graduate students who reflect the diversity of the Commonwealth's high school seniors. That goal is unchanged today. In recent years, in addition to academic qualifications, race and other factors have been considered in making admissions decisions. This policy will not be changed."

There has not been a significant effect on minority enrollment.

Copyright ©2001 Massachusetts News, Inc. Photocopying and data processing storage of all or any part of this issue may not be made without prior written consent.