Swatting Away Those Pesky Facts on Affirmation Action : Wilson’s attack on UC policy seemed to key on politics, not good data

Gov. Pete Wilson, apparently having found the issue he hopes will catapult him into the White House, has prevailed in his war on affirmative action. At his urging, a majority of the University of California regents voted to end policies that take race and gender into account in admissions, hiring and contracting decisions. Wilson won--and California lost--through distortions and misrepresentations so complete that facts seemed segregated from the decision.

There is no evidence of rampant reverse discrimination. There is no enrollment of unqualified black and Latino students. Race, gender and ethnicity are far from the only factors taken into account. Yet the regents didn’t just tinker with fixes, they threw out an entire policy that is widely supported by the people living and working on UC campuses--administrators, faculty and students. The sweeping reversal makes no sense in terms of logic or education. But, unfortunately, it does makes political sense. The regents can count votes and read polls.

The primary perceived beneficiaries of UC’s affirmative action policy were African Americans and Latinos. The 14 regents who voted against affirmative action apparently didn’t think about the societal benefit of having more well-educated minority adults.

The argument, essentially, was reduced to anecdote--a white student with a high SAT score didn’t get admitted, a black student with a lower one did. In this new California where everyone seems to be a victim of some sort of discrimination, real or imaginary, no one could win. And no one did.

Ironically, the affirmative action gains that were shot down Thursday were modest. Black students barely make up 4% of the UC student population; now that figure is expected to drop to 3%. Latino enrollment is 13%; a decline to 11% is predicted. Who will get those seats? White students may pick up an additional 5%; Asian American enrollment is expected to surge to as high as 58% across the UC system. When that occurs, will those who fought so hard against affirmative action start to see a variety of factors--including race--as relevant?

Politics weighed heavily in the UC dispute. President Clinton, who wants to keep his Pennsylvania Avenue address, last week in a long-awaited speech committed to the principles of opening opportunities to those who have been disadvantaged by race or income. Of course, Clinton was appeasing his Democratic Party constituencies, but to his credit he defended--however belatedly--a policy that he knows can cause him big problems in his reelection bid next year.

After a review of federal programs that take race and gender into account, Clinton found that affirmative action--when properly executed--has been a plus for the nation. He acknowledged the potential for abuse but argued justly to mend, not end, the policy. Quotas, as he pointed out, already are illegal except in rare cases where they have been specifically mandated by the courts to remedy proven discrimination.

Clinton also cited statistics and other indicators to show that discrimination continues to result in unequal opportunity in the workplace and the colleges. At the highest levels of employment, women and minorities remain barely visible, a total of 5% combined. And yet America is told by some that there’s just no need anymore for affirmative action.

Before the UC regents voted, Gov. Wilson asked: “ . . . Are we going to treat all Californians equally and fairly? Or are we going to continue to divide Californians by race?” That is an appropriate question, but it didn’t go far enough. It wrongly implied that the UC policy created discrimination instead of what it really did, which was to respond to the pernicious and long-term effects of racial and ethnic discrimination, discrimination easily and depressingly documented by labor, housing and lending statistics.

But sorry: In this debate, who wanted to be bothered with pesky things like facts?