Claremont Independent

Last Updated: 12/19/06 Section: Opinion

Hoover Institution Fellow Thomas Sowell

To many, using an affirmative action policy to ensure "equality of opportunity" seems only fair. Many people, however, are unaware of or simply deny the real flaws behind affirmative action. The foremost argument against it is the implicit unfairness of any policy that discriminates based on race. The Supreme Court in 2003 affirmed that race-based affirmative action is acceptable to promote "diversity," which led states like California, and in this most recent election, Michigan, to pass propositions banning the practice.

To illustrate the unfair consequences of race-based admissions, imagine two high school students, one Caucasian and the other of a minority race (of course, Asians excluded). Both students go to the same high school; both students have the equal opportunity to choose among similar classes. They may both receive extra help at home, or none at all, and they may both belong to low-income families, or both to high-income families. Despite an equality of opportunity shared by the two students, the minority student gets extra consideration in the admissions process of some universities just because he is a minority.

Proponents of affirmative action do not boast the unequal outcomes their policy creates. For instance, few tell you that increasing evidence shows that affirmative action primarily hurts Asian applicants, not whites. Contemporary arguments on its behalf, a la Sandra Day O'Connor, focus on how a need for racially diverse backgrounds creates a need for discrimination, because people of similar races, of course, have similar ideas and similar experiences. For the sake of keeping my article limited, however, I would like to focus on the real reason anyone wanted to shred the Declaration and the Fourteenth Amendment (only to ensure their higher ideals, I am sure): to use social engineering to guarantee success for minorities in a socially stratified world. The probing issue is rather simple: How likely are individuals to succeed who are thrust into demanding colleges and universities with the help of affirmative action? The answer appears to be unlikely, and thus the true purpose of affirmative action comes into question.

It is a fundamental tenet of affirmative action supporters that attending prestigious universities is the pathway to affluence and success in America. This belief is false, and it requires but a brief refutation. Research funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and conducted by economists Stacy Berg Dale and Alan Krueger shows that it is not the aspect of attending the university in itself that leads to higher incomes, but rather the work ethic and the "superior talents and special personal factors" with which students come to those universities that is the cause of their future success. The experiment was simple. They took individuals who were accepted and rejected by similar colleges and compared those who actually went to the first tier colleges with those who, though accepted to first tier colleges, went to second or third tier schools for any number of reasons. The two economists concluded, "Students who attend more selective colleges do not earn more than other students who were accepted and rejected by comparable schools but attended less selective colleges." Therefore, affirmative action proponents, if they just choose to look at the evidence, can finally relax. Attending a prestigious college is not the clear-cut avenue to success, but rather it is the work ethic and characteristics of the individual that guarantee his success.

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