 | Mpatanishi Tayari |
|---|
Two evenings ago, the Michigan Student Assembly was called upon to vote on a proposal that mirrors the sentiment of many of our current lawmakers in Washington.
Proposed by Engineering Rep. David Burden, the MSA Civil Rights Initiative, if passed, would have discouraged the support of affirmative action measures by the University.
Although the bill was ultimately defeated, it is important that issues such as this are brought to the forefront for discussion, rather than left to fester and eventually grow into resentment for many.
Accordingly, I wish to specifically address the issues brought by Douglas Friedman, another MSA representative and supporter of Burden's Civil Rights Initiative, who explained his opposition to affirmative action through an e-mail letter.
To begin, it is important to understand that current affirmative action efforts are a continuation of national efforts to remedy subjugation of racial and ethnic minorities and of women. This is not to punish any race or gender for past wrongdoings, but instead helps make the playing field level, even for present discrimination.
Alternately, Friedman supports his opposition to affirmative action by suggesting that after controlling economic factors, "the retention rate of minority students will approximately equal that of white students, perhaps even exceed it," without affirmative action.
In response, I only point to statistics that show that even with affirmative action, the disparity among races is growing worse. Through availability of student aid programs and aggressive recruitment and retention programs, the college-going rate for blacks and whites who graduated from high school was about equal in 1977. Since then, however, the proportion of black high school graduates enrolled in college is now 25 percent less than whites.
Additionally, Friedman suggests that affirmative action causes people to think of others "not as individuals, but instead as members of some group," and continues to say that since his kids are half Hispanic, affirmative action encourages them to hate him for oppressing them.
I would disagree with both of these assertions. Affirmative action is not the factor that causes people to be seen as groups - American society does this by continuing race and gender discrimination. Affirmative action recognizes and confronts this. I find it unfortunate that the University student chooses to affiliate affirmative action with hate, rather than equality, in 1996.
Finally, Friedman concludes by imposing the question: "What happened to the dream that people would be judged by the content of their character rather than the color of their skin?"
The Fair Employment Council of Greater Washington can explain what happened to the "dream" quite clearly in a series of recent tests done between 1990 and 1992.
This dream didn't exist when a black male tester asked about an ad for a sales position at a Maryland car dealership and was told that the way to enter the business would be to start by washing cars. Alternately, his white counterpart, with identical credentials, was immediately interviewed for a sales job.
An even clearer explanation of what happened to this "dream" is when another Maryland company advertised for a receptionist; when a black tester applied for the position, she was interviewed but heard nothing further. When an identically qualified white tester was interviewed, the employer offered her a better position that paid more than the receptionist job and provided tuition assistance. Follow-up calls by the black tester elicited no response even though the white tester refused the offer.
Even beyond these distinctions between ethnic minorities and whites are those between men and women --an aspect of affirmative action that Friedman neglected to address. For this distinction, I only point to a well-known study of the graduating classes of the University's own Law School from 1972-75 that revealed significant wage differences between female and male lawyers. After 15 years, male graduates earn more than 33 percent above their equally educated female counterparts.
Affirmative action was established as part of society's efforts to address continued problems of discrimination such as this.
Contrary to what was proposed by MSA and what many others would like you to believe in the larger society of courts and Congress, the conclusion is clear: Discrimination and exclusion remain all too common.
- Mpatanishi Tayari can be reached over e-mail at mtayari@umich.edu.