Heated debate raged Wednesday at the University's Law School as Professor Kermit Roosevelt and Terence Pell discussed the issue of affirmative action in the United States.
Setting the bar high for the remainder of the debate, Pell made the audience aware that affirmative action and "the use of a dual admissions system" based on race "hides a very difficult problem and abandons and buries the real issue."
He used the University of Michigan case heard by the Supreme Court on Tuesday -- after all, Pell is the president of the Center for Individual Rights, who "filed and litigated the cases challenging the University of Michigan's affirmative action practices" -- as his example for the negative effects of affirmative action in our society today.
The fact that "Michigan is running segregated admissions programs," Pell said, allows many students of minorities into the school who are not capable of keeping up with their studies.
As a result, he argued that the black "dropout rate is two times larger than any other group." Failing to meet its objective, Pell claims the "purpose is to boost minority numbers, but [affirmative action] actually makes it harder for them to stay."
Next up was Roosevelt, countering Pell's argument with the notion that the Michigan admissions board will stop using race-biased admissions "when they feel they don't need to anymore."
Roosevelt felt that the standards favoring minorities were not a proxy for anything and that the university used such policies because it simply "wants racial diversity." Michigan officials felt that the percentage of minorities in its student body was not high enough and therefore, favored minority applicants, he said.
As Pell explained, during the admissions process, students at the University of Michigan were analyzed on a point-based system in which a perfect essay earned them three points, a perfect SAT score earned 12 points, but being an "underrepresented minority" earned an impressive 20 points.
Pell pointed out that such a system allowed many students, who otherwise would never have been granted admissions, into the university automatically by pushing them over the necessary number of points.
Thus, the overachieving ethnic groups are denied admissions in a system in which they would otherwise excel, Pell noted, citing Asian students as his example.
After each debater was allowed his initial 20 minutes of speaking time and a five-minute rebuttal, the debate moderator, Law professor Amy Wax, opened the floor to questions. The many Law students in attendance enhanced the debate by bringing to light further issues that had not been addressed in the speeches, such as proposed solutions to the problems raised by affirmative action.
"I thought it was a very illuminating debate that got to the heart of the issues," said Gabe Posner, a second-year Law student. They "showed how it is possible to distinguish between putting a race down and propping one up."
The debate was organized by Lisa Stronawski, president of the Federalist Society at Penn and a second-year Law student.
