Michigan President Argues for “Diversity” In The Washington Post

The Washington Post, continuing its OpEd campaign for racial preferences (last defended there by Michael Kinsley, which I replied to here), has an OpEd today by Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan. It says about what you would expect it to say, and less. Let’s take a look, one claim at a time.

Now is not the time to turn back the clock on decades of progress in higher education. There is no effective substitute for the consideration of race as one of many factors in our admissions process.

I always like the “there is no effective substitute … for race as one of many factors!” argument. It somehow betrays an intent to deceive. It’s as though Patrick Henry had said, “Give me liberty as one of many options …!” The degree to which there is no substitute for race is the measure of the role race plays. This argument as much as admits that the other “factors” are in practice camouflage, that it’s really race-based admissions we’re talking about.

NOW is not the time “to turn back the clock”? I see. You don’t mind turning back the clock; you just don’t want to do it now. Next year will be fine. Or whenever Jesus returns — whichever comes first. (For more on turning back the clock, see my immediately preceding post, here.) Meanwhile:

The color of your skin determines so many important things about your life experience — where you live, where you work and with whom you work. Race still matters in our society. The ideal of colorblindness does not mean we can or should be blind to that reality.

I like that recognition of “the ideal of colorblindness” — functionally, which is to say legally or constitutionally, in Ms. Coleman’s hands it has all the bite and force of, say, Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men (and Women). This is rather like saying since murder is still rampant, morality is merely an “ideal” to which the state need not defer. But please, do not let Ms. Coleman’s lip service to that ideal — or my snideness in pointing out that it is only lip service — disguise the fact that she is calling on the Supreme Court to implement a radical change in one of the most fundamental, founding principles of our society. Indeed, the one thing in her OpEd with I am in complete agreement is her statement that

[t]his is a moment of great significance in our nation’s history. We stand at the threshold of a decision that will profoundly effect America’s higher education system and race relations in general.

How true. The Supremes must decide whether to scrap the principle according to which each person should be judged “without regard for race, creed, color, or national origin” in favor of a competing, incompatible multicultural principle that recognizes the state’s authority (and later, if past arguments are a clue, even obligation) to award benefits and burdens based on race or ethnicity. If they do so, if colorblind neutrality is replaced as an organizing principle by color conscious racial and ethnic social engineering, then that fundamental transformation will not long remain limited to higher education. If universities can discriminate in the name of diversity, then surely that right will extend to other institutions throughout the society. And insofar as the arguments for diversity are sincere, i.e., not euphemisms for racial quotas, they will also surely come to justify preferences based on religion as well. Separation of church and state will become one of those quaint, which is to say antiquated, “ideals” like the “without regard” principle of colorblindness.

Coleman presents the usual boilerplate about the importance of diversity in higher education — most of it, in my opinion, true but largely irrelevant: a Supreme Court decision holding that it is not compelling enough to warrant racial discrimination would not turn our campuses into wastelands of uniformity. Moreover, especially since graduate and professional admissions is involved in the Michigan cases along with undergraduate, the importance of diversity, even if real, is overstated. I doubt that it is crucial to the education of physicists (Jessie, where are you?), engineers (are there Hispanic bridges waiting to be built?), accountants, chemists, tax and corporate lawyers, etc., etc., etc. In this regard, however, Ms. Coleman does make some specific claims:

As a scientist, I have observed personally the enormous impact a growth in diversity has had on the sciences. Just think of what a difference it has made in our understanding of disease. Only as the ranks of leading scientists included more women did we focus on some of the serious health problems facing women, including heart disease and breast cancer. Only as the scientific leadership became more racially and ethnically diverse did we study differences in hypertension, diabetes and cancer survival rates across a diverse population.

I am somewhat skeptical of this claim, but willing to be convinced. To be convinced, I would need to see bibliographies demonstrating that these new discoveries in women’s health, hypertension, diabetes, etc., would not have occurred without the contributions of women and minority scientists. I doubt that was the case, just as I doubt that skin color is a valid or reasonable proxy for real diversity.

Returning, finally, to the central “now is not the time to turn back the clock on the absolutely indispensable race as one of many factors” argument, Coleman asserts:

Other methods do not allow us to recruit a diverse student body while maintaining our consistently high academic standards.

A ruling overturning Bakke could result in the immediate re-segregation of our nation’s top universities, both public and private…. We have only to look at the impact on flagship campuses in Texas and California to see the effects that such a change in policy would bring.

I don’t think the examples of Texas, California, (and Florida, which she doesn’t mention) support this apocalyptic, Chicken Little prediction of re-segregation (even Coleman says only “could” result), but the other, non-discriminatory methods of producing diversity have already been discussed here and elsewhere quite a bit.

What I would like to emphasize instead is that, as revealed by the above quote, the dilemma of Michigan and other selective universities is largely self-created. Even if the Supremes tell them they can’t use racial discrimination to promote diversity, nothing will prevent them from producing it by other means if they choose to. I’m not now referring to (or at least not only to) the Top X% plans already discussed, but something even simpler: they can sacrifice enough of their “consistently high academic standards” to produce the desired amount of diversity. Their preferred solution is in effect to judge minorities by a different, lower standard, but if the courts prohibit that they can lower the standards for everyone — and, if necessary, admit by lottery those who meet those standards — if diversity is as important as they now say. Selectivity, after all, is not a constitutional right of universities. I suspect, however, that the committment to merit is so wide and deep — I certainly hope it is — that not many selective institutions will choose to sacrifice their selectivity on the altar of diversity.

If racial preferences are prohibited and universities choose to continue relying on merit as measured by grades and test scores (compromised by whatever preferences they choose to extend that are not barred by law or the Constitution, such as to athletes, legacies, etc.), and merit continues to have a disparate impact on minorities, then universities can support — indeed, they should lead — efforts to insure that the ability to meet their standards is distributed throughout the society … without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.