In a meritocracy, those who display the greatest ability become the ruling elite. Is this not the basis of the American dream - the belief that talent and hard work can raise you to the highest echelons of society?
When each of us were applying to college, we all probably heard the same speech 20 times: "Our students come from all 50 states, from countries all around the world, etc." We may have even begun to take those speeches for granted. But such statements are essential to the identity of elite institutions in our country. They promote their diversity because it is an important American value and one that they lacked for so long.
Since the 1960s, affirmative action has been used to correct institutional racism, and it has worked incredibly well. But some say affirmative action has done its job and run its course. This is the argument presented by lawyers representing Abigail Fisher against the University of Texas before the Supreme Court earlier this semester.
For our parent's generation, race-based affirmative action came close to accomplishing a meritocracy. But affirmative action, like meritocracy, faces a fundamental problem when instituted across generations. How do we disenfranchise the inferior children of the elite from their privileged status in order to make room for a new group of able leaders? Social mobility must go both ways.
This ideal is difficult to make a reality in the college admissions process. Most obviously, there are legacy cases. These are defended on the basis of a continuity of school spirit and economic support. More ambiguous are the significant numbers of students from elite private high schools to elite colleges and universities. The Herald reported on admissions patterns from college preparatory schools in 2011. The high numbers of acceptances are generally attributed to extraordinary numbers of overall applications from these schools.
Elites are the most likely to invest - or overinvest - in their children. Students who attend private schools, can afford tutoring for standardized testing and have the leisure to become involved in extracurricular activities will enter the process with competitive applications. Students without access to such privileges do not stand equally in the admission process. This is where affirmative action can help make the process more fair and meritocratic.
The current affirmative action policy based largely on race is not a meritocratic system. But the result of a race-based policy - a diverse student body - is an end worth fighting for. Brown students benefit from a more diverse student body. Exposure to different types of people with infinitely varied personal experiences is the hallmark of any good education. A meritocratic admission process will continue to produce diverse student bodies.
President Obama has said that his children should not receive preference in the college admissions process because of the color of their skin, when arguably they have faced none of the obstacles and challenges many African Americans have traditionally, and still do, face in obtaining an education.
Unchanged, affirmative action may cause more harm than good. In the controversial "47 percent" video leaked of Mitt Romney at a campaign fundraiser, the presidential nominee jokes that if he were Latino, he'd have an easier time winning the presidency. This is similar to the caustic attitude that is forming around affirmative action, propagating the myth that somehow life in America is easier if you are a minority.
An education is the most important tool this country can provide its citizens. Employment for the uneducated is few and far between in this country and disappearing fast. We know the stakes are high when it comes to college admissions. As Brown students with access to some of the best educational resources in the world, we should be the most employable, happiest and best citizens of the United States. This should not be a status handed to anyone, whether by inheritance or by a race-based discretionary program.
To ensure a system of fairness, affirmative action should focus on economic and social disadvantage. Colleges and universities should seek and encourage candidates who demonstrate ability and potential across the board and place those candidates as best they can on an equal playing field. Would such a policy make Brown more uniform? Probably not. But it would provide greater access to its resources.
And that is precisely what college admissions is - a playing field. And while it should be fair, it is still a competition. There will be some who are better at the game and some who are worse. The system should be modified so those who come out on top are those who demonstrate greatest ability, not those who had the most help in putting an application together. To accept a meritocratic America is to provide equal opportunity, but not an equality of persons. To provide the possibility of joining the ranks of the ruling elite to as many as possible alternatively requires Americans to accept the possibility that they or their child may not become part of this elite. Some will lose the game. The goal of affirmative action should be to ensure that an offer of admission is never a guarantee and that rejection is never an injustice.
Claire Gianotti '13 can be reached at claire_gianotti@brown.edu.
