Maybe ‘Supply-Side’ Affirmative Action Would Work Better

Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on Jan 26, 2022

The answer, I suspect, will depend on how well these programs are living up to their promise by their universities that they are opening up opportunities without also being seen as unfairly closing the door on others, based on their race.

As the debate heated up again, a Pew Research Center poll in 2019 found that an overwhelming 73% of Americans said colleges and universities should not consider race or ethnicity when making decisions about student admissions. Just 7% say race should be a major factor in college admissions, while 19% say it should be a minor factor.

That shouldn’t be too surprising. Race-based policies go up against what most people perceive to be fair, including most African Americans, as expressed in the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., dream of everyone being “judged not by the color of their skin but the content of their character.”

But that, alas, is still a dream. In college admissions, people vary a lot on how they think that dream can best be achieved. Some 38% of college graduates were more likely than those with less education to say colleges should consider race as a major or minor factor compared with 22% of those without a bachelor’s degree.

Yet, as a Black first-generation college grad who generally would like to see more opportunities based on class than on race, I was encouraged to see that 57% of the Americans polled thought that being a first-generation college student should be considered in admissions decisions, compared to 43% who felt it shouldn’t.

And the most explosive allegation made by the group that sued Harvard is the charge that the university allowed racism to skew their decisions against Asian American applicants in a modern version of the quotas that limited enrollment by Jews in elite universities in past decades.

Instead of religion, Harvard is accused of using a subjective standard to gauge traits such as likability, courage and kindness to construct a biased standard against them. Lawyers for Harvard deny that while also pointing out that race-conscious admissions policies are lawful.

That could change, depending on what the Supremes decide. While I eagerly await the arguments, expected to come in the fall session, I’m also hoping to see more effort in our country to produce what I call “supply-side” affirmative action — programs and policies to raise the academic performance of all young Americans. That way, when the doors of opportunity open up, as my grandma used to say, there will be ample numbers ready to step inside.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@chicagotribune.com.)