We Aren't There Yet

 When I was admitted to a prestigious Northeastern college many years ago, it was almost too easy. First of all, I’m white, as was almost everyone else there, but that wasn’t the easiest part. Though my grades and SAT scores weren’t bad, I wasn’t president of my high school class nor especially athletic; I was not a classically trained musician, and as a teenager, I didn’t found a nonprofit to provide water to villagers in Africa. Why did this college want me? The admissions guy said that instead of creating a class of individually well-rounded students, the college wanted a well-rounded class made up of different kinds of students.

I was close to feeling I didn’t deserve to go there. But I have since come to believe that the D word has, more often than not, been a source of trouble. My mother always said, be grateful for your advantages, and make use of them when they appear. Just look at the news every day. How many people do you see getting exactly what they deserve?  if you get thrown a line, grab it – you may not get another later on.

All of this said, my college had the beginnings of a right idea: a diverse group of students, even mostly within a single gender and race.  A novel concept in those times.

I have never been a big fan of affirmative action; on its face, it doesn’t seem fair. But as  Supreme Court justices Sotomayor and Jackson said in so many words in their dissents to the court majority’s ruling, taking race out of the equation in college admission by fiat doesn’t take it out of real life.

I definitely don’t support blanket cash reparations to members of oppressed minorities. But affirmative action has been a real and meaningful reparation in itself for decades. The only way you will put a dent in racism is by gathering people of different colors together so they can get used to one another. Creating that well-rounded student body means ensuring that qualified members of minority groups are welcomed.

Minorities in general have faced challenges, but it seems like blacks in particular historically had the roughest deal: brought here against their will to serve as slaves. That counts for something.

The Supreme Court ruling means that universities, especially the elite ones that really want to diversify their student bodies, will have to be more careful about how they achieve that goal.  As for racism, it ain’t over till it’s over, to borrow Yogi Berra’s now-too familiar phrasing. We still have some innings to go.