Affirmative Action Had Real Merit
Conservative social engineering, no less than the liberal brand, can have unintended consequences. In the case of the reversal of affirmative action, imposed five years ago by the University of California regents, the paradox is that this audacious experiment has spurred a lively and long-overdue debate on the meaning and measurement of “merit.”
Conventional definitions of merit--typically formulas based on a combination of grades and scores on standardized tests--are doubly flawed. Not only do such formulas tend to exclude minorities, but they also fail to predict with much accuracy success either in college or on the job, the very things that they promised when they were first devised.
As for the merits of reversing affirmative action, the experiment has failed. Having promised to provide a student body that reflects the diversity of the nation’s largest state, the new regime has depressed minority enrollments to their lowest levels in more than 25 years. With the anti-affirmative action movement having spread to Texas and Washington state and with the court poised to hear a landmark case involving admissions at the University of Michigan, the numbers from California warrant careful scrutiny.
The impact of the elimination of affirmative action has been greatest at the system’s most distinguished law schools: Boalt Hall at UC Berkeley and UCLA. In 1997, the first year the new policy was in effect, the number of African Americans at Boalt plummeted from 20 to one, and Mexican American enrollments dropped from 22 to six. By 1999, minority enrollments had bounced back slightly, but were still at a lower level than they had been 30 years earlier, when blacks and Mexican Americans comprised less than 20% of California’s population, compared with almost 40% today.
At UCLA’s law school, where a serious attempt was made to preserve racial and ethnic diversity by embarking on a vigorous program of economically based affirmative action, the results initially looked more promising, with minority enrollments initially declining, but not nearly as precipitously as at Boalt. Yet after three years, it has become apparent that economically based affirmative action is no substitute for explicitly taking race into account. In the fall of 1999, only two black students enrolled at UCLA’s law school in an entering class of 286.
Meanwhile, UC’s medical schools became so alarmed about the decline in minority enrollments that they formed a special task force to address the problem. As recently as 1992, before legal challenges led to a weakening of affirmative action at UC’s medical schools, more than 20% of entrants were members of underrepresented minorities; by 1999, the proportion had been cut to 11%.
There also has been a precipitous decline in minority undergraduates at UCLA and at the flagship Berkeley campus, where black and Mexican American enrollments have been reduced to their lowest levels in more than 25 years. Some less selective UC campuses, such as Riverside and Santa Cruz, however, have seen an increase in minority enrollments. Yet despite this much-publicized “cascade effect,” the overall percentage of black and Mexican American freshmen at UC’s eight undergraduate campuses has dropped from more than 12% in 1995 to roughly 9% in 1998 and 1999, a decline of 25%.
The message from California is clear: An attempt to attain a diverse student body without affirmative action has failed. Should the court in the Michigan case ignore this sobering evidence and go so far as to reverse the landmark Bakke decision of 1978, the nation’s leading public and private universities will see fewer black and brown students than at any time since the Nixon administration.
The ultimate effect of the conservative assault on affirmative action may, however, turn out to be one that dismays its architects: the redefining of merit. We now know how well affirmative action worked. Recent studies of medical school students have shown that those admitted under affirmative action graduated at virtually the same rate as their regularly admitted counterparts, performed equally well in residency training and were substantially more likely to practice in underserved communities. Research at the undergraduate level has demonstrated that blacks in highly selective colleges have significantly lower dropout rates than their peers who attended less-selective institutions, a finding that directly contradicts one of the key claims made by foes of affirmative action.
A more flexible definition of merit, reflecting a deepening skepticism about old formulas, is in the making. New indicators of merit are being constructed. In Texas, high school students in the top 10% of their class are admitted to the flagship Austin campus of the University of Texas regardless of test scores. In California, the weight of the Law School Aptitude Test has declined at Boalt Hall as emphasis on disadvantage and community service has increased. For such measures, ironically, we can thank the conservatives who dismantled affirmative action.
