A One-Way Conversation On Race At Duke

Reader Fred Ray sends word of this article about a panel discussion on race and affirmative at Duke where only one side was represented. I guess having opposing views might have confused the students, or maybe the faculty. Anyway, here are some excerpts:

John L. Jackson, Ass’t Prof. of Cultural Anthropology

… there is something about the bold and unabashedly explicit history of racial aggression and oppression in the U.S. that I would argue mandates a kind of equally explicit upfront and an unembarrassed attempt at redress.

Dennis Shields, Assoc. Dean of Admissions, Duke Law School

I think this is a battle between two different groups. There are those who would argue that the parceling out of opportunity is the major role of selective institutions versus those who believe the mission of higher education is something broader than just the parceling out of these limited opportunities.

You always hear about hundreds of well-qualified candidates who were passed over. But if every white person who didn’t get into a university was precluded because a black person or a person of color was provided a seat, then UNC would be all black. We only need to visit those campuses, to walk the halls of our selective law schools to see that they are predominantly white.

The opponents of affirmative action have made much hay out of making it seem as if thousands and thousands and thousands of people are disadvantaged. That’s just not true. To the extent that affirmative action does disadvantage some candidates, it is a very small number of people.

That last was not an excerpt; it was Dean Shields’ entire statement. He believes discrimination on the basis of race is acceptable so long as there aren’t too many victims. Dean Shields, incidentally, was former dean of admissions at the University of Michigan law school and is a defendant in the pending case. Perhaps he can explain to the Supremes how many victims is too many.

Leigh Raiford, Postdoctoral Fellow

The question of how I as a black woman have benefited from affirmative action is a bit misleading and narrow. It assumes that affirmative action only benefits African-Americans as opposed to Latinos, Asians, white women or people with disabilities. It also presupposes that affirmative action is a zero- sum game in which, if a person of color or a woman or a disabled person is admitted to an institution of higher learning, they necessarily took the place of a white man.

Deborah Thomas, Ass’t Prof. of Cultural Anthropology

Across the board, my students say they benefit from the diversity in the classroom. For a number of students, this is the first time they are confronted with students who are not like them. They learn as much from that as they do from us — their professors. [No doubt – jsr]

Everyone wants to believe they got where they got because they deserve it, because of their own merits. But the truth is more complicated than that. Not just for minority students, but across the board. These are the issues that make affirmative action such a hot topic.

Ben Vinson III, Postdoctoral Fellow for Faculty Diversity, UNC

Affirmative action is about dreams — and it’s about fulfilling dreams — not just for minorities, but for the entire nation. Affirmative action offers opportunities to raise everyone up onto a single playing field. [Hmm. The forklift still needs a little work.]

Leslie Winner, General Counsel, UNC System

When I think about this I always end up thinking about what the former CEO of First Union Corp. told me when we were getting ready for the trial in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school case. From his vantage point, if he couldn’t get people coming into his corporation who could work with, lead, be led by and serve customers of different ethnic backgrounds than their own, they would be worthless to him. And they had to learn it before they got there. He said he could teach them how to use a computer, but he couldn’t teach them how to be good people. [Does this mean that companies without diverse clients may discriminate against diverse job applicants? On this logic, would a company serving Arab and Muslim clients, say an oil company doing business only in Saudi Arabia, be justified in refusing to hire Jews? – jsr]

I am particularly nervous about this notion that we should be able to (create diversity) in a race-neutral way. In part I think it is essentially dishonest. You can’t live in this state and believe that race is not a factor in our lives.

I am particularly nervous, too, but what makes me nervous is general counsels of large enterprises who believe in race, and by extension, religous, un-neutrality.