On Affirmative Action
Finding guidance in the words of John Adams
The whole people must take upon themselves the education of the whole people, and must be willing to bear the expenses of it. There should not be a district of one mile square, without a school in it, not founded by a charitable individual, but maintained at the public expense of the people themselves.
There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living, and the other how to live.
I love the above quotes by John Adams because they provide inspiration and clarity for moving forward as we await the Supreme Court’s decision on affirmative action (AA).
I believe there is a continued need for it. However, I also believe that it needs to be implemented so that it is targeted to reach in and sweep up the people who have been egregiously left behind despite the last several decades of AA.
1. Only American citizens who are descendants of slavery (ADOS) and descendants of Native Americans should be eligible. AA should be seen as a combination of reparations for past injustices and investment in the country’s future.
2. The parents or grandparents of all other groups came to the US willingly and stayed willingly. They are not owed either any special considerations—reparations, reward, or investment.
3. AA should be based on socio-economic class. Only children of families that earn less than a certain multiple of the US median income should be eligible. The design of this new AA framework should exclude the likes of Pres. Obama’s daughters.
4. AA should be like a magic key that works just once. A candidate should not be able to use the key if his/her parents or grandparents used it. A given candidate should be able to use the AA magic key just once in his or her education and career journey. It may be used at the undergraduate level, or the graduate level, or for the first job—not for more than one of these entry points.
5. No more legacy admissions preferences.
6. No more sports-based admissions preferences.
7. AA should mean more than getting one’s foot in the door. The burden of the high cost of education falls more heavily on students whose families have lower incomes. So, every student (AA-eligible and otherwise) who graduates with a STEM major should get their college cost fully or partially reimbursed. This is a way to address the country’s chronic shortage of STEM workers while also incentivizing students to prepare for and choose STEM majors. The icing on the cake is that these professions are more lucrative.
8. College entrance is way too late to give a leg up to AA-eligible students. Programs should be implemented that start as early as first grade. One idea is to assign a mentor for pods of 3-4 students each. This mentor will work with the pod all the way through K-12, forming an academic coach and mentor relationship that goes beyond both Big Brothers/Sisters (and similar programs) or subject-level tutoring.
9. The original rationale for AA was two-pronged: no quotas and selecting the AA candidate when that candidate was one of several equally prepared candidates. The new AA framework should return to this rationale. Since AA students will have received active support and can therefore be expected to be adequately prepared, each year every interested / motivated AA student should be guaranteed a spot in a college that best matches his or her preferences in terms of location, choice of major, and preparedness index (SAT or something else). Such an implementation will make it possible for AA students to enroll in the college where they are most likely to succeed.
The new and improved implementation of AA should not compromise on merit and excellence. It should focus on developing competence and mastery along with perseverance, resilience, and self-regulation.
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Finally, it is important to remember that having the privilege of doing work of one’s choosing and achieving to one’s potential does not happen in one lifetime. It takes generations, as John Adams recognized so well in the eighteenth century.
I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain.
In that spirit, the new and improved AA framework should put students on the path to self-realization, not automatically at the pinnacle of it.
As in the second John Adams quote above, the new AA framework should make it possible for our most left-behind fellow citizens to both learn how to make a living and how to live.
And, as in the first John Adams quote above, ultimately, it is not just about these beleaguered citizens. It is about our democracy and it is about what kind of society we want to live in.
Photo by Kamaji Ogino: https://www.pexels.com/photo/hiker-holding-hand-of-black-friend-on-road-5065227/
I believe the second Adams quote is actually from a different Adams. The colonial American history scholar John Truslow Adams wrote those words in an essay called "To Be or To Do" just before the start of the Great Depression. (https://www.gazettenet.com/Archives/2014/01/column-zinan0107-hg ) It also doesn't sound like John Adams. In his day, being "educated" = "how to live" (and also reading Latin and Greek) by definition. Job skills were apprenticeship and didn't count as "education". This distinction came from the classical philosophers. Aristotle would agree completely about the importance of "learning how to live"; although he would also reject job training as "education", since Aristotle was a snob who looked down on anyone who worked for a living. (There's a reason he sat in his chair thinking about falling objects instead of climbing a building and dropping some.)
What's tragically farcical is that today's ruling class rejects that there is a "right way to live" at all, that virtue exists, or that tradition has value beyond buttressing your own sense of moral superiority over your ancestors. They don't really believe this -- they still get married, have children, work hard, educate their kids -- though they use their high pulpits to preach the perpetual NOW to the masses. It's a world where everyone is free to choose everything, and the revolution never ends. On my optimistic days, I chalk this up to a belief in absolute freedom and personal responsibility for all; on my more cynical days, it's just a cruel way for the ruling class to reinforce its own power by making the demos atomized and untrusting, and therefore easier to squash.
Good affirmative action ideas BTW. I'm a Burkean conservative and even I could get behind such a proposal.
A very thoughtful and sophisticated analysis and recipe. However, Coleman Hughes makes a strong case for avoiding race in our laws and institutions in his new book. See https://benslivka.com/2024/02/25/the-end-of-race-politics-arguments-for-a-colorblind-america/