On: Diversity -- A compelling government interest

by: Joshua Howell

My first memory of college is being called a “nigger” on the way home from the grocery store. Appreciating the irony, I thought: “Welcome to the friendliest college in the nation. Enjoy your stay.”

Since then, my school has provided me with continual reminders that, “Yes, Josh, you’re black, and we aren’t.” There are the edgy jokes gone awry, the girls who won’t date you because of your race, and the request that I (invariably being the questioner’s only black friend) should explain why so many African Americans vote Democrat.

Most grating, though, is when some assert that because of the way I act, I am not black. Pants around your waste? Phillip Glass on your iPod? A vocabulary that extends beyond the ninth grade? You, sir, regardless of skin pigmentation, are white. Welcome to the club.

To be fair, it isn’t as if my collegiate experiences have been totally poor. There is little doubt that I’ve met wonderful friends who haven’t hesitated in assisting me through terrible times. Truthfully, I spend more time thinking about my GPA and girls (not necessarily in that order) than mulling over fears of Southern-fried Caucasians in pick-up trucks, cowboy boots and Confederate flag emblazoned trucker hats. I know too many of them personally to apply that crass stereotype.

Nevertheless, while the majority of my concerns are similar to those of other students, some aren’t, and the rest are heavily tinged by unwarranted reactions to my race.

No, jokes about “hanging niggers” are not funny. No, I do not understand why your parents won’t let you date black people. And African Americans vote for Democrats because… well, it’s complicated.

Inexorably, this brings us to Fisher v. University of Texas, and the revisitation of whether colleges can use “narrowly tailored” methods to ensure a “critical mass” of diversity -- whatever that means. Sentences in which the word “diversity” is the least ambiguous term are destined to be fraught with controversy.

And so it is here. Quota systems have been disallowed since 1978, when the Supreme Court said as much in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. Yet SCOTUS has also said, in Grutter v. Bollinger, that race may be used as a factor in admissions, so long as it isn’t a gratuitous determinant.

I agree with those rulings, and accept their unsavory implications: There is no denying that an occasional member of the racial majority will unfairly get swept into the crossfire. And it is true that there may be some in the racial minority who will get an unfair advantage.

But while it has been argued that, for these reasons, college admissions should only consider what benefit an applicant will receive from the school, such a mentality is over simplistic, and therefore flawed: Colleges should also consider what benefit a prospective student will be to their future companions.

It’s why there’s an application process in the first place. It’s why, in addition to making good grades, we also had to write those god awful essays about the books we read, our life experiences, and those who inspire us. It’s why they ask high school students about their religion, their economic status and, yes, their race.

For centuries, higher education was reserved for those well-endowed and socially privileged. But now colleges have realized that providing students access to the top educators and researches is insufficient. They’ve realized that students can benefit from a diverse body of peers as well -- whether we mean religiously diverse, economically diverse or racially diverse.

There is sloppiness, to be sure, and ramifications for that sloppiness. But diversification doesn’t just provide opportunities for historically underrepresented minorities. It doesn’t just ameliorate the pressures I feel to be a spokesperson for my race.  It also ensures that students have the ability to befriend and familiarize themselves with different people of different cultures. It assists them in learning that culture, which influences experience, is a complex thing. One culture may bleed into another while retaining much of its integrity; and even within a culture, there is much variation.

Some of us prefer suits to sagging pants, most have a vocabulary which extends beyond the ninth grade, and some (precious few, but some) will cross the political divide to vote for a Republican. 

There is knowledge to be gleaned from these distinct experiences and beliefs, not all of which can be conveyed in often reductive classrooms and media.

So let’s allow our colleges to get back to the business of educating, shall we?