Reader Responses to The Case for Diversity

The recent legal developments on the issue of affirmative action admissions to colleges and universities (“The Case for Diversity,” From the President, Jan/Feb 2019) took another big step to its probably inevitable hearing and decision by the Supreme Court. On November 12, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, upheld a ruling by the District Court in Boston that said that Harvard’s admissions process did not violate civil rights laws and that “race-based” admissions have helped the University (and by inference, others like Harvard) achieve an objective to create a diversified student body. Affirmative action has been a bedrock admissions policy for many elite public and private colleges and graduate schools for nearly five decades. The Supreme Court, in 1978, in California v. Bakke first enunciated this concept and in the majority opinion, Justice Lewis Powell extolled the benefits of a diverse university community and said such diversity was a legitimate goal for these institutions. In 2016, that opinion was reaffirmed in Fisher v. the University of Texas. 

In Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, the official case currently being argued, it is possible that a more conservative Supreme Court might alter or overturn affirmative action admissions. Indeed, as a recent article in the New York Times noted, if, as it is sometimes believed, that the Court follows the people and the mood of the country, the time may be ripe for ending this long-standing policy. Citing a 2019 survey by Pew Research, the Times reported that 73 percent of Americans said that race or ethnicity should not be a factor in college admissions.

Brown, like Harvard and most highly competitive colleges and universities, adheres to the diversity theory embodied in affirmative action. In fact, we might have been at the forefront of this concept well before Bakke. As a newly minted freshman in the early 60s and months, if not years before the Civil Rights movement gathered steam, I was made aware of Brown’s unique “Tom Sawyer” admissions program. Borrowing a page from Mark Twain’s classic tale of this entrepreneurial if uneducated hero, Brown sought to diversify its student body by admitting young men (Pembroke College had a separate admissions staff then and operated on a separate regimen) who might not have had the highest SAT or GPAs, but who demonstrated characteristics not dissimilar to Tom’s: puck and ambition. In brief, someone who was destined to go far beyond his present circumstances.

We never knew who were the Tom Sawyers in our class, but most thought “I was the one.” Whatever, it really didn’t matter; what did matter then and now was Brown was building a class and a university that saw, as Justice Powell did, the “value of diversity.” That is one of the hallmarks of Brown and I take succor in knowing that however the Harvard case is adjudicated, we will find a way embrace diversity as a touchstone.

I was glad to read your note to the school on diversity. When I was a senior at Brown, I was asked to be a student representative on the Minority Faculty Hiring Committee. It was an honor and new kind of learning experience to listen to faculty discuss hiring policies, especially since I am Caucasian. I heard that Brown was actively concerned about the alarming rate of Hispanic student attrition. As it turned out, Brown’s only Hispanic dean had been lured away by another university the year before, in 1986. The leadership was connecting the dots between diverse faculty and diverse student populations. I’m glad for my exposure to issues around diversity while a student at Brown, and I’m a lifelong believer in affirmative action as a result. We are still very far from “equal opportunity” over here in architecture [my field] and we won’t get there without policies and actions from above. Please, keep on it!

Neglect of merit jumps out in the onesided Paxson case. The original concept of affirmative action was that the applicants would be of equal academic ability, but in the analysis, race could then be used as a factor. Apparently in Paxson’s world, “diversity” excludes many on the basis of race, ethnic origin, and political thought. For your best chance of admission, don’t be Asian, white, male, or politically conservative. 

Brown should pick the best academically qualified students rather than denying many on the distinct basis of race because they are not “underrepresented minorities.” Brown has morphed into a school for “underrepresented minorities,” women and very compliant and/or subservient men. Diversity of thought and political persuasion perhaps is the real diversity now lacking at Brown.

Reading President Paxson’s sanctimonious “The Case for Diversity” reminded me once again how out of touch the University is. Perhaps she is unaware that Brown obtained its drawing power by loading up on Jewish students after the formation of the Ivy League in 1958. Our board scores skyrocketed and applications increased commensurately, as we crawled out of the “Armpit of the Ivy League.” The discrimination being practiced against Asians is no different than that against the Jews. 

On another subject, I cannot fail to mention my disgust at the opening letter President Paxson wrote on her ascension to her exalted post: Brown will be dedicated to making the world a better place. To which I would ask, a better place according to whose vision? Brown would do much better to teach her students to love their fellow man (without enabling dependency) and teach them critical thinking skills instead of wholeheartedly embracing utopian dreams.

President Paxson’s defense of diversity is to be commended for its honest confirmation of the discriminatory admission practices that are necessary to enroll a racially diverse class. Instead of requiring that all applicants meet the same rigorous standards, Brown’s “holistic admissions process” varies those standards based on an applicant’s race. Paxson acknowledges as much by admitting that race-blind admissions would have a detrimental impact on achieving diversity goals. She makes no mention of the many higher-achieving, higher-scoring, better-qualified candidates who are turned away solely on the basis of their skin color. Hopefully, the courts will soon prohibit this injustice.

With regard to President Paxson’s commentary,  we need more uniformity, not diversity. There has never been in history a nation like ours that has survived long. Diversity was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Roman Empire, when the legions got staffed with barbarians who had no real reason to be loyal to Rome. John Stuart Mill said something to the effect that peoples of different cultures, speaking different tongues, are not a recipe for a democratic institution. Biologists tell us that there is really no such thing as race; if not, why are we still using this as a criteria for admission to institutions of higher learning? Grades should be the only criteria for admission. I happen to be one Brown grad that was not tainted by your liberal bull.

President Paxson’s defense of diversity falls short of proving that ethnic preferences in evaluating applicants justifies the social cost (“The Case for Diversity,” From the President, January/February 2019). Any time criteria other than merit are used, it deepens the divisions among the many competing ethnic groups in our country. The road to a color-blind society must not pass through the toxic swamp of ethnic preferences. With Brown’s rich applicant pool, setting a minimum standard on grades and scores and having a lottery would avoid all hints of prejudice or discrimination.