COLUMN: A Place of Diversity?

From Abby Beshkin's, "All Set," Fall '95 From Abby Beshkin's, "All Set," Fall '95This past July, the University of California's Board of Regents voted on a series of affirmative action rollbacks, planning to phase out affirmative action policies for hiring and contracting by 1996, and for student admissions by 1997. And while affirmative action debates cropped up in varied contexts throughout the summer, arguably the most volatile one found itself where national arguments often do -- in the center of a college campus. In reality, the vote may not change very much. Anita Jenious, the executive director of the University's Office of Affirmative Action, points out that the University of California will still have federal regulations to comply with in terms of hiring. In terms of admissions, the vote may not herald any noticeable differences in student diversity. The chancellor of UC-Berkeley said he plans to collaborate more closely with inner city high school officials in an attempt to raise grades and improve test scores. But what is so striking about this summer's debate, a debate that swelled the passions of people from all political walks, is that it happened on a university campus -- an American institution which is often regarded as only slightly less than prophetic in terms of dictating change in American policy. What it did, then, was broaden the issue of affirmative action into a question of the role of universities. If a university's commitment to creating a more tolerant and diverse society can be called into question, then whose job is it? Theoretically, affirmative action was meant to be temporary. Its original supporters hoped it would suffocate itself, eliminate the very climate that created the need for affirmative action in the first place. It was designed to create workplaces and educational institutions which would no longer need guidelines to render them diverse. Universities as American institutions should be the segues into new eras -- they generate the next researchers, the next crop of business, social and educational leaders. So the rollbacks -- while they may not change much at the University of California, mean a lot symbolically. For they have targeted the one institution that should aim extra hard to be a place of diversity. A kind of diversity that transcends debates about quotas and standards and political correctness, a place where people from traditionally underrepresented minorities can be part of the gateway into what should be a new phase. People who want truly to see an end to affirmative action should not advocate an abrupt and artificial termination to the policy. Instead they should aim to eliminate the need for affirmative action. Most universities have no hard and fast rules for admissions standards. That is why an "A" average from one person's high-school means something different than a "B" average from someone else's. Maybe the admissions office "relaxed its standards" a few years ago for me, because I fell short in one area, but excelled in something else. The more staunchly universities retain their commitments to diversity, the more diverse the next workforce will be. When I spoke to Jenious the other day, she told me that University of California's decision is merely "indicative of the political wave that's riding the country," and that it probably would not be far-reaching. Certainly, she said, the University has made no move to change its policies. Yet the vote at University of California has made the goal of affirmative action just that much farther from being realized. If a university can not assume responsibility for educating a diverse group to be the next workforce, who will?