Characterizing a concept as a goal is a misleading way to approach a critique. At best, it tries to imply a teleological argument. (I’ll leave it to the reader to decide whether that is a play on words.) In actuality here, it subsumes the normative argument under its instrumental implementation. As I noted in my previous commentary, the real story is being lost within the prism of an abstract liberalism that refracts the spectrum of colors back into a singular light. So let’s look at that light.
What is the goal of affirmative action? That isn’t really made clear by its critics. Like most cases in these situations, it becomes an all-encompassing buzzword to connote some kind of progressive agenda that they believe infringes on civil liberties. What is made clear is that they don’t like what is alleged to be its methods, in the case before us, racial classifications. But is this really what’s it all about, Alfie? There lies the rub. Those advocates who are prosecuting affirmative action before the Court, and those who cheer them on, are arguing for a decision that allows the justifiable use of racial profiles to infiltrate the admissions game. But before we let loose the dialectic of enlightenment, let’s get the story straight.
What is at issue here in the current so-called affirmative action cases before the Supreme Court? The irony is that it has nothing to do with racial preferences, but everything to do with racial biases. What the Harvard case is actually about is the profiling that takes place within the admissions game. As Harvard Law professor Jeannie Suk Gersen has pointed out in her New Yorker blog piece (“The Supreme Court’s Troubled Treatment of Asian Americans,” November 6, 2022), “the practice of race-conscious admissions is not what has limited the number of Asian American students; it is instead the parts of the process in which Harvard claims not to think about race at all.” A huge factor in Harvard’s admission process is the personal rating assigned by admission’s officers, based on their own subjective judgments of the candidate’s personality and character. Supposedly, this allows them to override the system of checking boxes, look beyond quantitative measures, and use their own subjective evaluations of the candidates’ materials to determine their place in a Harvard class. It’s presumed that here is where preferential racial treatment is assigned. But apparently something else is at work. Admissions records showed that despite the high scores given Asian Americans in most of the categories of the admission process, including alumni interviews, “admissions officers, who normally did not meet with applicants, gave Asians the lowest personal ratings [in their character assessments] of any racial group.” So you have to ask yourself: what is going on? The problem with the case is not that Blacks and other underrepresented minorities are being given preferential treatment because of their race; it’s that admissions officers and administrators appear to be applying categorical judgments about Asian Americans. So is the problem racial categorization or racial profiling? Is the racism in the use of race or in the subjective application of character traits to various ethnic and racial groups? It appears the great social progress we’ve made in our society on matters of race hasn’t seeped into the minds of the people running Harvard’s admissions office. (This also begs the question, has anyone looked into the demographic and educational background of Harvard admissions officers?)
So the racism is not in the use of race, apparently; it’s in the subjective application of character traits to various ethnic and racial groups. What in my day we used to call a stereotype. Nevertheless, Students for Fair (Skin?) Admissions (SFFA) is asking the court to identify race as the problem with Harvard’s admission process. Why? What is the real agenda at play here? I will set aside for the time being why SFFA argues their more deserving candidates are losing out to less qualified candidates due to race-based plans, as opposed to, let’s say, candidates who can afford to pay an extra $100k to have access to the college dean, which allows their parents to sit on the “parents’ leadership council” and hang with senior management—oops, sorry!—I mean the administrative faculty. But since the Supreme Court has determined that money talks, that doesn’t appear to be a discriminatory factor. But money doesn’t talk; it swears. Therefore if, as the Justices believe, the universities are the “pipeline” to diverse leadership, then what are the plaintiffs really worried about? Is it being left out of the ruling class, or, Thomas Piketty notwithstanding, is this just a battle about getting the best return on investment? Either way, whether it’s about politics, education, or the marketplace, the attacks on affirmative action are about who gets to be part of the 1 percent. Not about justice and equity. Abstract Liberalism here is complicit to the extent that they abandon the concept for the sake of the pipeline. So much for the populist attack on elites and the New Class. The truth is written in the bathroom stalls, not the classroom walls.
If the Supreme Court abolishes race-conscious affirmative action, the race-neutral personal ratings system will not be affected. In fact, SFFA’s attorneys have argued that racial backgrounds and experiences—as opposed to race—could be a consideration for the admissions game. This, to me, appears to give free rein to the very process that has worked against their clients. Consequently, the plaintiffs wind up defending the very process that can hide bias of racial characterizations. Again, as Suk Gersen has pointed out, it will in all likelihood enhance the reliance on subjective determinations and considerations less transparent that could belie discrimination. In short, the excuse of diversity can be used to keep out groups they don’t want to be identified with their academic community, whether it’s Asian Americans or Hillbilly elegies (pace Jed Clampett). Herein lies the repressive tolerance of the critics: that ubiquitous equality is achieved not by subsuming historical injustice into the consciousness of a society, but by asserting a self-knowing righteousness of abstract principles that belie the reality of the case and sustain that very injustice by purging society of that consciousness and relegating rights to subjective wills. This is the new one-dimensional man: from the “imputed” consciousness of the class to the “imputed” consciousness of the individual.
It’s claimed that the United States has made great inroads on racial justice. But is Jim Crow really gone? Racial gerrymandering persists. The increasing demands put on registration and voting impacts voters of color the most. The high school to jail pipeline is more real for Blacks than the university pipeline to leadership. So, is affirmative action really the root of the current divisions within society? Did Dylan Roof shoot up an African Methodist Church because he didn’t get admitted to the school of his choice for being white? The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, the Pulse Night Club shooting, Ahmaud Arbery, the Buffalo shooting, the murder of an Indian immigrant in Kansas City by a “get out of my country” Navy vet, the increasing attacks on Asian Americans since COVID: are these all just the result of race-conscious policies? Maybe they’re just part of a long—very long—list of crazies, a bunch of bad apples, like the cops involved in the George Floyd killing. Maybe we just need better mental health plans, as the advocates for gun rights proclaim (though it shouldn’t be covered under Obamacare). Oh! But then there was that little incident at the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, not to mention the “Jews will not replace us” rally itself. You want to see gun control? Start arming Black folk. (When the Black Panthers showed up with shotguns on the steps of the State Capital in Sacramento, then Governor Reagan and the state legislature—with the full faith and credit of the NRA—didn’t hesitate to pass gun control laws, also giving cops more reason to go after the Panthers. But you say that was the past. Well, the NRA wasn’t exactly on the front lines with outrage when Philando Castile was shot reaching for his gun permit. As Killer Mike has pointed out: you start passing gun control, the first people they’ll go after are Blacks.)
Where does this leave us? Have we made great inroads into eliminating racial injustice, or are we a divided nation because of race consciousness precipitated by affirmative action? As much as I believe in dialectical thinking, this one I can’t reconcile. What does appear to be the case is that despite the supposed cultural and educational indoctrination that takes place in higher education, it appears to continue to pay lip service to its stated mission, while replicating the inequalities and injustices that it allegedly addresses. So wherein lies the emancipatory interest? Clearly it won’t be in the judgment of the current Court. Whichever way it decides, it will not impact the pipeline to oligarchy. But for those who see enlightenment in the defeat of affirmative action, be wary. As the Dobbs case appears to demonstrate, the Supreme Court makes history, but not as it chooses.
Addendum to the Article “Turning Marcuse on His Head”: In David Pan’s preface to the article above, he questions whether racial profiling is at issue here, stating that its more probable the rating system was disguising a racial quota. He then tries to put my claims in question when he quotes Suk Gersen in support of this claim. However it must be made clear that the quote he uses, namely, “…was the personal rating concealing an impermissible racial quota?,” is not a rhetorical question. It is actually a description of the argument being made by the plaintiff, SFFA, at the initial trial back in 2018. Suk Gerson’s pieces on this case for the New Yorker are written to expose it as one of racial bias, not racial preference. Furthermore, she subtlely criticizes Harvard for trying to turn this into an affirmative action case, denying the racial bias uncovered by its own internal audit, probably in hopes of rallying other institutions with similar vested interests around its case. See her piece, “Anti-Asian Bias, Not Affirmative Action, Is On Trial in the Harvard Case,” The New Yorker blog, October 11, 2018. Harvard’s attempts to defend this case on the grounds of affirmative action are a pretense to its own vested interests in how best to maintain its brand and its failure to adjudicate those seeking admissions to its hallowed halls of hollow learning. At the same SFFA is flying the banner of “race-blind” admissions when the social constitution of individuals within society have not been race-blind. Here again, what I call the historicity of difference is lost. There is no understanding of the instances of historical repression which have obviated those groups historically from social recognition. One cannot argue for a “race-blind” process, and tell everyone to take the same seat on the bus, when you start at the back of the bus. Florindo Volpacchio