Affirmative healing Affirmative healing
By A Boston Globe Editorial,
3/11/2003
SMALL-MINDED thinking smothers the national debate over affirmative action. To some, considering race in admissions seems like a handout to the unqualified. But history shows that when Americans look at race and education, they often do so to meet compelling national needs. One example is the education of black doctors. Black doctors predate the Civil War.
But it was after the war that educators, religious groups, and philanthropists focused on the country's compelling need for black doctors to care for black patients who usually couldn't get care from white doctors. So in 1868, three years after the end of the war, Howard University College of Medicine opened in Washington.
It admitted black and white students but served mostly blacks. Other schools followed, including Leonard Medical School, part of Shaw University in North Carolina. Leonard, which opened in the 1880s, was named after a Massachusetts resident, Judson Wade Leonard, who donated $5,000 to the school. Shaw officials say it was the country's first four-year medical school. Black doctors cared for patients in cities and rural areas.
They set up small hospitals, trained younger doctors, and cared for poor patients even during the Depression, sometimes accepting chickens as payment. Some doctors were innovators. In 1893, Daniel Hale Williams performed what was said to be the first open-heart surgery, on a patient who had been stabbed. Williams opened the chest and repaired the pericardium, the sac around the heart. Charles Drew, a graduate of Amherst College, devised a long-term means of storing blood. Before his breakthrough, blood could be stored only for a few days. Today's need for diverse doctors is still compelling. Medicine remains a science and an art, and part of the art is bringing cultural awareness to patient care and medical research.
The result: Everyone benefits, since a focus on minority health issues such as sickle cell anemia can lead to greater knowledge. Despite the need, the pool of minority applicants is small. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, in 2002 some 700 students from Massachusetts applied to medical schools, and 382 enrolled for the first year. Of the 382, only 22 were members of underrepresented minorities (African-Americans, Native Americans, and Hispanics).
Medical schools have responded to these numbers by choosing students who may or may not have the top grades but who have the capacity to succeed. On April 1, the Supreme Court will hear arguments about the use of affirmative action at the University of Michigan's college and law school. The justices should heed history's lessons.
A pluralistic society needs to educate all its members. This is already being done without violating the Constitution.
This story ran on page A10 of the Boston Globe on 3/11/2003.
© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.
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