For Women, for Minorities, for Us All, Preserve Affirmative Action : Society as a whole benefits when all its members have access to decent education and opportunities.

I graduated with highest honors from UC Berkeley and scored relatively well on my Graduate Record Exam. Because of finances--I could live at home--I had only one choice for graduate school, my alma mater. I planned to finance my education as a research assistant for a faculty member in my department. But though I had a graduate minority fellowship that provided for my tuition, I was denied a research assistantship. After a year of haggling with the Byzantine university bureaucracy to understand why, I filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. I never received my assistantship, but the EEOC investigation forced the department to recognize that opening their doors would require some adjustments.

Affirmative action programs have never been painless in higher education. But for women and underrepresented groups, affirmative action programs have widened opportunities in education. In my case, these programs not only opened the doors for my present career, but also exposed me to the endemic biases in academia with regard to women and people of color.

In the last 25 years, we have seen a plethora of affirmative action programs arise in the private and the public sector. Despite the current rhetoric, affirmative action is hardly a radical departure from a merit-based system. Rather, these programs reflect a rational and incremental approach to remedying past discrimination as well as ensuring equal opportunity. In the context of social policies that influence market outcomes, affirmative action is far less restrictive than our national labor laws, which place considerable constraints on individual rights and markets.

But a mythology has developed around affirmative action that tells of unqualified minorities and women entering jobs and universities to the detriment of qualified white males. In these stories, quotas abound and qualified minority applicants suffer due to their perceived inferior status as affirmative action entrants. But the evidence is quite different. For example, since the Supreme Court’s Bakke decision in 1978, quotas or set-asides have been illegal, though the decision upheld the notion that race could be viewed as a “plus” factor to foster student body diversity. The more recent Adarand decision (1995), which focused on federal contracts, strengthened the notion that affirmative action programs must be able to withstand strict scrutiny based on evidence of discrimination.

In higher education, affirmative action has played a critical role in increasing participation by women and other underrepresented groups. A recent study by the American Council of Education found that:

* In 1994, 44% of all college students were women and 46% of doctorates awarded to U.S. citizens went to women, up from 25% two decades earlier.

* From 1984 to 1994, minority enrollment in the nation’s colleges and universities increased by 63%.

* Between 1985 and 1993, bachelor’s degrees were up 36% among African Americans, 34% among American Indians, 75% among Latinos and nearly 103% among Asian Americans.

Opponents of affirmative action often ignore the real value added to society when diverse U.S. constituents are better educated. On the other hand, supporters of affirmative action must also be reminded that such programs are effective only on the margin and will never redistribute wealth or opportunity. At best, these programs recognize our painful legacy of racism and sexism by infusing the notion of individual merit with historical and present reality.

As the political battle over the California Civil Rights Initiative heats up during the next few months, we will witness the increased demonization of affirmative action programs as we have with welfare, Medicare and immigration. Most politicians and people in the media know that there is much to be gained by a reasoned debate over affirmative action. But as we all sink into visceral responses and populist rhetoric, we may lose more than affirmative action next November. We may lose control over our own destiny.