An Interesting Perspective From the BSU At Eastern Michigan U.

10 January 2003

Crystal McMillian, president of the Black Student Union at Eastern Michigan University, said that if

the Supreme Court rules against the policy [of racial preferences], minorities might have to find other ways to level the playing field.

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  1. Xrlq January 10, 2003 at 12:07 pm | | Reply

    “We need to understand that white women, not blacks, benefit the most from affirmative action.”

    I don’t believe that for a minute. When Boalt stopped considering race and sex in admissions, non-Asian minority admissions dropped significantly, but the ratio of women to men did not. I’ve long regarded the “affirmative action for women and minorities” mantra as little more than political salesmanship: con enough women into believing that they are benefitting from AA, and bingo, there’s your majority.

    I haven’t followed Grutter v. Bollinger very closely, but to the best of my knowledge, it concerns only race-based preferences, not sex-based ones. Thus, I’d be surprised if Grutter set any clear precedent on the constitutionality of sex-based affirmative action, one way or the other.

  2. Tim Davis January 10, 2003 at 3:22 pm | | Reply

    Affirmative action certainly hasn’t been limited to undergraduate and graduate admissions. Federal contracting preferences and set-asides are open to white women and everyone else who isn’t a white male. The affirmative action/diversity programs employed by most Fortune 500 corporations since the mid-1970’s have included white women. I won’t even begin to discuss the collegiate Title IX quota scheme for women. So women are benefiting from AA, just not admissions AA. I agree that neither Bollinger case addresses sex-based affirmative discrimination.

    Still, as the lack of attention to gender-based preferences shows, Americans don’t object to preferences in general. The lack of outrage over the $12 billion and growing Indian gaming set-aside boondoggle demonstrates that we don’t much object to racial preferences for certain groups either. No, we only seem to object when the blacks are involved.

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