Viewpoint: Oppose the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative
Melton LeeApril 6th, 2005
Upon reading the column Support the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (03/23/2005) a couple of weeks ago, I was dismayed to be once again confronted with the same type of fraudulent and misleading assertions I had long ago come to expect from Michigan Civil Rights Initiative advocates when pushing their anti-affirmative action agenda.
As part of their misleading campaign, proponents of the MCRI have made regular foolhardy attempts at framing the debate by misconstruing select quotes from the 1964 Civil Rights Act and even Martin Luther King Jr., and then rehashing them out of their original context. After reading Section 706(g) of the act and the totality of King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, the deception becomes apparent. Moreover, the impudence behind the aforementioned misconstruals is almost as absurd as the thought of me audaciously declaring that the celebrated “all men are created equal” notion of America’s Founding Fathers was actually originally intended to apply to people like myself — let alone any other racial/ethnic minority or woman for that matter.
History-savvy readers know better. At the inception of the United States, class privileges for white males didn’t need to be explicitly laid out — they were simply assumed.
This sense of entitlement lurks perpetually in the collective psyche of contemporary mainstream American society, and its resulting antagonism becomes most visible when a person of minority status happens to collect one of the relatively scarce “tickets” to upward social mobility — a set of opportunities including (you guessed it) admission to an elite college or university such as the University of Michigan.
Appearing after the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, affirmative action policies were intended to help minorities (in the face of oppressive discrimination and the transgenerational effects thereof) gain social and economic equality in addition to their newly federally reinforced legal equality. Opening up previously excluded educational and occupational opportunities to underrepresented minorities helped them to overcome the blight of segregation by allowing for higher incomes and stability, and thus greater freedom in deciding where to live and educate their children.
However, the critical task of improving primary and secondary education for disadvantaged students has remained a catch-22 due to the high levels of residential segregation that continue to exist in the United States. Public school districts mirror housing patterns — segregated, unequal communities produced segregated, unequal public schools, which in turn perpetuate comparative educational (and eventually employment) disadvantages for underrepresented minorities. Yet it should be noted that “disadvantaged” does not mean meagerness — in addressing concerns of minority student retention at Michigan, it is somewhat disturbing how opponents of affirmative action are so ostentatiously swift in citing the academic inadequacy of these students while boldly ignoring other critical explanatory factors, such as financial capability, stereotype threat, racial stigma and cultural adjustment, among other things.
Furthermore, the percentage system, the much-touted, more class-based alternative to affirmative action, remains fundamentally flawed. Under this arrangement, state college admissions would be guaranteed to hardworking high school students who graduate in a top percentile of their class (as determined by the state) — but, while this approach would undoubtedly be a grand success in promoting diversity in college admissions, it would do so mainly because this system relies intrinsically on the continued existence of racially and ethnically segregated schools. Coincidentally, Michigan has the disgraceful distinction of being one of the most racially segregated states in the country, and the demographics of the K-12 public school systems are directly reflective of this. The Great Lakes state claims three of the United States’ top 10 most racially segregated metropolitan areas: Detroit, Saginaw/Bay City/Midland and Flint.
A wise man by the name of Leonard Sidney Woolf once observed that “There is nothing to which men cling more tenaciously than the privileges of class.” I agree wholeheartedly. Although subtle, less overt prejudices do indeed linger on in our society, clearly the majority of MCRI supporters aren’t bigots — they’re simply classists. And they impulsively cringe at the thought of losing one of the proverbial “tickets” to the wealth and security of the American Dream for any reason — even the likelihood that they have received direct or indirect privileges from the historical oppression of targeted minorities.
And thus, the fundamental necessity of affirmative action remains.
Amid several key concerns regarding underrepresented minorities (retention, declining enrollment and residence hall segregation), the University is certainly not without its deficiencies. However, current policies can and should be improved to better promote the dynamic campus diversity this institution has consistently strived for. But by supporting MCRI, voters would only help perpetuate the very social and economic segregation of minorities in this state that caused the notorious opportunity gap in the first place.
Lee is an LSA senior as well as an MSA representative and co-chair of the Minority Affairs Commission.
Printed from www.michigandaily.com on Sat, 26 May 2012 19:00:44 -0400