You can't always get what you want. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Simple enough to make into one of the world's best rock songs, and yet it is a concept that many in this blessed and prosperous country seem unable or unwilling to grasp. In this, I am of course referring to the Supreme Court's recent ruling in a lawsuit against the University of Michigan challenging its use of race in the admissions process.
In a way, the Michigan lawsuit itself was emblematic of our me-first decade: ask not what you can do for your country, but what everyone else can and should do for you.
The collegiate application process can be a heart-wrenching and torturous ordeal, and by all accounts it was for the plaintiffs. They had good grades and good recommendations and felt that they deserved a spot in the freshman class and law school respectively. When they didn't get it, there was no hesitation as to where to lay the blame.
While it is difficult not to feel bad for them, it is difficult to condone their actions, especially since the lawsuit was largely the brain-child of Michigan philosophy professor and longtime agitator Carl Cohen, along with some State GOP legislators. The plaintiffs essentially answered a want ad that might as well have read: "Wanted: aggrieved students denied admission, searching for anyone to blame for such an injustice except own self."
I believe that the role of affirmative action is a complex issue worth debating and studying. However, I do not think it should have been brought to the forefront of our attention in this manner. Affirmative action has always been an important issue; it is not suddenly more so because four white kids didn't get their way.
In this debate, it has yet to be made clear to me why affirmative action is so deplorable, while its other incarnations, known as "legacy admits" or the benefits given to athletes are simply business as usual. Under Michigan's system, applicants falling into either category received the same twenty points that minority applicants got. And yet, astonishingly, no lawsuits against those policies have been filed, at least not to my knowledge. As Elmer Smith of the Daily News has written: "Still, those are widely accepted preferences that nobody has a problem with. Because the problem is not preferences, it is who gets them."
I'm not saying that athletes shouldn't get those benefits. Athletics play an important role in collegiate life, and athletic achievement should be recognized and rewarded. The same goes for the kid who gets in because his parents donated a library. Everyone can enjoy the benefits of that one. It's all part of having a diverse campus. I just don't understand why that diversity should end with the athletes and the legacies.
This is why I don't think that the court's decision was wishy-washy, if you believe one side, or that it wrongfully upheld an outdated and racist practice, if you believe the other. Whether you believe that assigning a bonus based only on race is crucial or criminal is a matter of opinion. But the importance of every manner of diversity in all facets of college life is a fact.
This is not just to improve "classroom discussion," as it is often put; it is also a question of access: the path from elite universities to elite professional positions is a well-documented one, and I think opening the doors to those positions to people who might not normally receive the opportunity to prove their personal worth is a noble endeavor.
Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the Supreme Court's verdict is the thirty-some page dissenting opinion, written by Justice Clarence Thomas and largely devoid of any footnoting, sources, or precedent beyond his own life story. That Thomas could oppose so strongly the process by which he rose to his current position is confusing, to say the least. But the ranks of self-hating conservatives, curiously enough, have always thrived (former New Republic editor Andrew Sullivan also comes to mind). In the end though, the notion that we are supposed to pity Thomas for the terrible things that affirmative action did to his life is laughable.
The day may come when college campuses become home to athletes, sons and daughters of alumni and minorities naturally. But that day is not today, and until that day, our current practices serve the common good of students and this nation just fine.
