Maybe Race Had Nothing To Do With It Maybe Race Had Nothing To Do With It
Gina Greenlee
March 4 2003
During his medical training, the brother of a friend had difficulty finding a residency program because he was close to 40 years old. Bagging his dream of becoming a physician was not an option. He applied overseas and relocated himself, his wife and two children to the Dominican Republic, where he completed his residency. I met him after he returned to New York, where he heads an infectious disease practice and is an attending physician at a Manhattan hospital.
The bonus: His entire family became fluent in Spanish. This man - who is white - is a living lesson for the plaintiffs in the upcoming University of Michigan race discrimination hearing. On April 1, attorneys for the plaintiffs - Barbara Grutter, Jennifer Gratz and Patrick Hamacher - will argue before the U.S. Supreme Court that the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor rejected their clients' admission applications because they are white. But when I scratch the surface of skin color in this discrimination lawsuit, I see motives revealed in other characteristics the plaintiffs have in common.
A Feb. 23 New York Times article reported that Grutter "thought her high grades and respectable test scores combined with her life experience would make her a shoo-in." The article also stated, "All three plaintiffs acknowledge that they had been relatively confident they would be admitted to Michigan and had done little to line up comparable backup choices." Some might call that confidence. But whether I call it entitlement or delusion, the result is the same: poor planning.
Jennifer Gratz, who graduated with a math degree from the University of Michigan in Dearborn, told the Times that after her rejection from Ann Arbor, "she lost so much confidence in herself that she gave up her intention to become a doctor, even before she had enrolled as a college freshman." If Gratz is that easily discouraged, perhaps she lacked all along the perseverance required to endure rigorous decade-plus medical training. Certainly, her denial of the possibility of rejection foreclosed other options that might have propelled her dream forward.
Grutter told the Times that she applied solely to Ann Arbor because she needed to study close to home to tend her family and so has not pursued her law degree elsewhere, which brings me full circle to my friend's brother, the physician. "Commitment," writes Mike Hernacki in his book"The Ultimate Secret to Getting Absolutely Everything You Want," "is a feeling of confidence that you'll continue to pursue what you want, no matter what happens. It's not a promise or an obligation. Rather, it's a firm belief that what you want is so desirable and so important to you that, in the end, it will be worth doing whatever you must do to get it."
It is reasonable for Grutter to consider her family in her choice of law school. But if she restricted her options and then became unhappy with the outcome, what she needed to do was assume responsibility for her choice, not file a lawsuit that will help to further cripple race relations in America. Admissions packages include applicant essays for good purpose.
This is every potential student's opportunity to illumine the human behind the numbers, awards and organizational affiliations. For all of their touted credentials - grades, test scores and activities - the plaintiffs seem to lack key character traits and values that college admission boards also factor into a student's potential for academic success.
When evaluated on qualitative success alongside applicants with equal scholastic achievement, perhaps the plaintiffs did not make that grade. Hamacher, who obtained a four-year degree from Michigan State and who is enrolled in graduate school, told the Times, "I just felt a wrong had occurred. I was never able to choose." It is Hamacher who is wrong.
Like his co-plaintiffs, he did choose, and then abdicated accountability when
he didn't like the results. Regardless of the lawsuit's outcome, not even the
nation's highest court can remedy that.
Gina Greenlee writes a twice-monthly column for The Courant.
She is a free-lance writer who lives in Hartford. To leave her a comment, please call 860-241-3841.
Or e-mail her at gdg70@hotmail.com. Copyright 2003, Hartford Courant This broad support underscores the importance of affirmative action to the nation's welfare.
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