Success with outreach,
not racial preferences Success with outreach,
not racial preferences
Tue, Feb. 11, 2003
By E. THOMAS McCLANAHAN
The Kansas City Star
A column by The Hartford Courant's David Medina, printed Monday in The Star, used a misleading argument that has been repeated so often it cries out for rebuttal. This is the notion that Secretary of State Colin Powell benefited from affirmative action in the Army, therefore all affirmative action policies are valid. Former President Clinton fell back on this dodge a few years ago, when he challenged a critic to say whether the "affirmative action program that produced Colin Powell" should be abolished. What's going on here is a classic apples-and-oranges comparison.
Medina's main point was that Powell should resign from the Bush administration because the president and his top advisers "come across more and more like madmen bent on world domination ...." Only a "masochist or fool" would remain under such conditions, he said. That's clearly over the top, but Medina then offered President Bush's stand in two University of Michigan lawsuits as one more reason for Powell to leave.
The administration opposes Michigan's race-based admissions policies, while Powell supports them. Powell, says Medina, is a "living monument" to affirmative action. Not so fast. The Army's version of affirmative action differs dramatically from the blatant racial preference practiced at Michigan. Certainly, the Army's promotion policy isn't color-blind. It takes steps to ensure a broadly based pool of applicants for a given rank. But it isn't a quota system.
The service has integrationist goals, but it doesn't impose timetables. It is committed to nondiscrimination, but it refuses to lower standards. It won't fudge requirements merely to meet a numerical objective. After all, the Army's main purpose isn't promoting members of favored racial groups. It's main job is combat readiness. In other words, the Army's policy operates more like an outreach program than an exercise in racial preference. So how did Powell benefit?
He earned his general's star after Clifford Alexander, the first black secretary of the Army, objected when a list of candidates for general failed to include any African-Americans and women. A list reflecting a broadened applicant pool was compiled. The list included Powell, and he was among those promoted. Compare that with Michigan's policy of awarding "bonus points" to favored-group applicants to create a "critical mass" of diversity.
To me, its bonus-point system is so skewed that membership in these groups -- American Indian, black and Hispanic -- is worth more than a perfect SAT score. That's a policy designed to create a racial result at the expense of the school's admission standards. So let's compare. When the Army promotes people, the message is: You made the grade. When Michigan accepts applicants in favored groups, the school sows doubts. The policy assumes the inability of applicants to meet the requirements. Michigan's policy is an example of what Bush has termed "the soft bigotry of low expectations."
It should surprise no one that race relations in the Army are better than on the nation's campuses, even allowing for the differences between academic and military life. Many minority students are tormented by skepticism about their abilities. Many whites no doubt view all minority students as quota beneficiaries. Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley Butler looked at the Army's approach several years ago in a book, All That We Can Be.
They found that one key was avoiding the diversity mind-set, which sees a racial goal as an end in itself rather than as one facet of an institution's larger purpose. Diversity programs, they concluded, "stigmatize applicants by raising doubts about their true qualifications." The authors' advice: Eliminate "the paradigm of black failure" by refusing to lower standards to meet racial goals, while taking steps to broaden the pool of candidates. Don't lower the bar; help minority applicant groups clear the bar. If that's how affirmative action worked in both civilian and military institutions, it would be a lot less controversial.
© 2003 Kansas City Star and wire service sources.
News and Announcements | AAD Home Page