“Racial Progress”: By the Numbers?

Writing in Slate, Chatterbox (Timothy Noah) acknowledges that “it’s terribly old-fashioned to assess racial progress by numerical means,” but admits that he “doesn’t really see how else to do it.”

His inability shows in the ensuing hand-wringing piece about what strikes him as lamentably low numbers of blacks in the freshmen classes at some Ivy League and similar schools. I would have no criticism if what he meant is that it’s too bad more blacks don’t qualify for admission to those schools, but that doesn’t seem to be his point at all. This seems to be simply another lament at the absence of racial preferences, or possibly a suggestion that the low numbers in some schools (black enrollment is rising at other prestigious schools) results from lingering discrimination.

Trying for a zinger, Chatterbox then writes:

Affirmative action critics often complain when colleges accept a higher proportion of black applicants than of all applicants; it’s taken as a sign that standards are being lowered. But why don’t they complain now that Berkeley and UCLA, the two most prestigious universities in the University of California system, accept a lower proportion of black applicants than of all applicants?

Eugene Volokh gives a characteristically incisive answer to what is in fact a rather silly question:

Well, the affirmative action critics I’ve heard (myself included) believe that universities should judge people without regard to race…. [T]hey argue that the process should be race-neutral, even if that means that (for instance) WASPs or blacks are “underrepresented” relative to their share of the population and Asians or Jews are “overrepresented.” That is the very essence of the anti-affirmative-action argument, and it seems to me that Chatterbox is not characterizing affirmative action opponents fairly.

Chatterbox, unlike critics of affirmative action, assumes that equality requires proportional representation, an assumption criticized at length here. I look forward, therefore, to his criticism of the Transportation Security Administrations’ proud announcement that, at least by Chatterbox’s standard, it discriminates against whites (link via an excellent post on Postwatch, which also reproduces the following excerpt):

As of Oct. 9, some 22 percent of TSA’s screeners are African-American, a number twice that of the current civilian work force population. While 8 percent of the American work force is Hispanic, TSA’s work force is already 11 percent Hispanic. Our numbers for hiring Native Americans reflect the labor force. Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders account for 4 percent of our screeners, compared with 2.8 percent of the civilian workforce. Although whites make up 77.9 percent of the workforce nationally, only 58 percent of TSA’s work force is white.

Suggestion for Chatterbox: take a break every now and then from measuring “racial progress” by counting the colors of Ivy League noses and pay some attention to the presence or absence, increase or decrease, of racial discrimination.

Say What? (5)

  1. mikeski October 22, 2002 at 11:51 am | | Reply

    John –

    Steven Den Beste posted similar observations about equality of results vs. equality of opportunity in August:

    http://denbeste.nu/cd_log_entries/2002/08/Equalityofopportunity.shtml

  2. John Rosenberg October 22, 2002 at 7:23 pm | | Reply

    Den Beste’s post is right on point, and I second the suggestion to go take a look at it.

  3. Ross N. October 22, 2002 at 10:03 pm | | Reply

    What bothers me about Noah’s column is the emphasis on percent minority in the freshman class rather than what percentage of minorities graduate. The strongest argument against racial preferences in education is the fact that it systematically mismatches students with colleges. If a student is in the top 95% of high school seniors, it is not a favor to send him to a school where everyone else is in the top 1%. That hypothetical student would be a straight-A college student at almost any college in the country, but he is encouraged to go to the place he is most likely to fail: a college geared to students in a higher percentile. The result is higher dropout rates, lower grades, switching to “softer/easier” subjects and other bad effects.

  4. John Rosenberg October 23, 2002 at 2:09 pm | | Reply

    Ross: I think your concern with graduation rates is well-placed. Stephan Thernstrom has published some fascinating work on how Prop 209 in Calif. has worked to equalize the graduation rates, which had been badly skewed when preferences were in effect. From my own point of view, however, the fact that preferences lead to lower graduation rates for the preferred, though predictable and bad, is not the worst thing about them. They violate a fundamental principle that all should be treated “without regard” to race etc., and so would be bad even if they didn’t lead to lower graduation rates.

Say What?