And Justice for All (Page 5)

Then again, thanks to Crosby, I've gotten the distinct sense that such tests are part of the problem: She cites--and has conducted--study after study in which people are asked whether they approve of Company X, which gives "slight preferences for qualified women and ethnic minorities," or Company Y, which gives "strong preferences to qualified women and ethnic minorities, even if we must turn away better qualified or more highly skilled non-minority applicants." And guess what? In study after study, people approve of Company X's policies but not Company Y's--without being told that, as a matter of fact, Company Y's policies are illegal in the United States. On the one hand, this result suggests that more people would support affirmative action if they knew what it does and does not entail; on the other hand, it suggests that these very tests may be muddying rather than clarifying the issue. Perhaps it is no wonder that so many Americans believe affirmative action involves precisely the kind of racial quotas and set-asides that have been struck down by courts time and again; to gauge by studies like these, professional psychologists and sociologists have managed to spread disinformation about affirmative action as effectively as a whole think tank full of Sowells.

As Anderson points out at the close of The Pursuit of Fairness, the nation's demographics will render affirmative action increasingly troublesome in the next quarter-century, not only because the sons and daughters of the new African-American professional class are now entering colleges and workplaces but also because integration and immigration have produced something like a melting pot or a glorious mosaic or a dead metaphor of hybrid hyphenated identities. This outcome has further complicated a system that, as Nathan Glazer (who recently recast himself as a supporter of affirmative action) has remarked, already grants affirmative action status to people from Argentina and Spain but not Brazil or Portugal, and considers everyone from the Middle East to be white.

But our confusions are not simply demographic. As Scott Jaschik reported last summer in the Boston Globe, "The University of Michigan released enrollment figures for next fall showing that the number of black students in its freshman class would be declining by as much as 13 percent. That same day, Texas A&M University--a school that refuses to consider race or ethnicity in admissions--announced its own numbers for the fall. Enrollment would be going up--dramatically--for all minority groups, including a whopping 57 percent increase for black students." Apparently, Michigan's response to Gratz v. Bollinger produced a more complex application process that contributed to an overall 18 percent drop in applications; meanwhile, Texas A&M, an all-white school until 1963, announced earlier this year that it would abolish "legacy" admissions and began recruiting low-income students from urban areas. Clearly, Texas A&M sent somebody the right signal about race and justice, while Michigan is left to explore the imponderables of unintended consequences. And if the history of affirmative action is any guide, all we will be able to predict about the experiment is that both its intended and unintended results will surprise us--and compel us to think again, and yet again, about how best to foster justice for all.

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