The Michael Eric Dyson Reader (18 page)

Cohen:
Yes. The history of race in our country is painful and terribly important in understanding what is going on. As constitutional scholars have remarked again and again, the great lessons of our history, the great lessons of the Supreme Court decisions in this matter, has been again and again that using race as a dividing line has been the source of misery and anger and hostility. And the great steps that have been taken in our country, in the adoption of the Fourteenth Amendment, in the adoption of the Civil Rights Act of ’64, and in the
Brown
case, was the elimination of the race line. What I am urging is that at the universities also, we eliminate the line that divides by race, and all history teaches us that eliminating that race will improve our society, and using that racial categorization will injure us and set back the cause of racial relations.

Dyson:
The substance of race in terms of its history would suggest [by analogy] that if we’ve denied tall people access to a certain kind of good, and all of a sudden we say we’re going to be equal, short and tall people can come into consideration, and yet we’ve produced privileges, [for example] where buildings are made for one [height category] of people, not the other—you’re going to have to adjust the size of your building to accommodate the people who now can get in! [Laughter] And I’m saying that American society has to accommodate the ways in which race has played a significantly detrimental factor in the distribution of a good like education. And I’m glad that Professor Cohen is willing to admit that racial preferences should go, because again, as a white man, he has historically been able to take advantage of the preferences afforded to white men in this society. The reality is that those racial preferences about which Professor Cohen has spoken have continued to accumulate around white men in predictable fashion. We live in the United States of Amnesia. The theme song is provided by Barbra Streisand: “What’s too painful to remember/ we simply choose to forget.” [Laughter] And we have to overcome that.

Cohen:
We
do
need to eliminate preference for whites as well as for blacks. And since you make reference to me personally, Professor Dyson, I rise to a point of personal privilege. I served for many years as chairman of the American Civil Liberties Union in Washtenaw County in Michigan, and then chairman of the Michigan ACLU, and then as a member of the National Board of the American Civil Liberties Union. And I have struggled all my life to eliminate preferences for whites. I have struggled against preferences for whites, because I have believed all my life that preference on the basis of skin color was wrong, whether it was whites or blacks or greens or blues. And the way to begin the transcending process is to stop doing it now.

Dyson:
[Professor Cohen’s statement evokes the memory of Dr. King’s argument with white liberalism.] What I’m suggesting to you is that Martin Luther King Jr. said one of his great problems was the way in which white liberals failed to understand the incredibly difficult process by which racism operates in American society. It’s not just the formal ways in which racial restrictions operate; it’s the informal collection of beliefs and sentiments and passions that continue to inform the citizenry, and that continue to pollute the population, vis-à-vis race. And I think that’s the thing we haven’t dealt with here.

Question:
Dr. Cohen, authors who are admittedly historians, and not philosophers, have said that every day is affirmative action for white men. And when you look at the preferential treatments that are accepted in this country—farm subsidies, legacies, old boy networks, and taxpayer benefits for homeowners—these benefits disproportionately benefit white people. So how can you take race out of the equation?

Cohen:
I think your question is fair, and I want to address it frankly. Ours is a country which is beset by racism, still. It really is. And the unfairness of racism in our country is very painful to one who reflects upon it, and one who tries, as I have tried, to combat it. But most respectfully I urge you to see you do not overcome that, or transcend it, by finding new ways to give preferences to other groups. You and I want the same thing. We want to eliminate preferences for groups by virtue of their skin color or their group. The way to do that is to cease to use categories of that kind.

Moderator:
It’s time for us to give our debaters a chance to share a final remark. First, Michael Eric Dyson.

Dyson:
There’s a compelling interest of the nation to continue to invest in programs that recognize racial diversity as a common good, a common good that is apparent, a common good that is worthy of support, and a common good that will reinforce the best virtues of American democracy. We live in a nation where the distribution of social goods like employment and education continues to be driven by racial preferences for
white majorities, who often unconsciously, and without awareness, benefit from those advantages. So I suggest that the compelling interests of the state, and especially of the higher educational institutions that we populate, and that we support, is that we will be able to engage in reasoned and reasonable dialogue about difference; come to an appreciation for the radical ethnic, racial, moral, civil, gendered, sexual orientation differences that constitute our nation at its best; and then appreciate the beauty and harmony that may result from that diversity. But without taking race into consideration, I’m afraid, given the history of this country, that that will not be achieved in our institutions of higher education.

Moderator:
And now a word from Carl Cohen.

Cohen:
The central issue before the Supreme Court of the United States in the Michigan admissions cases now on their desks is discrimination by race. Discrimination by race, by skin color, and by national origin is wrong. It’s a violation of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. And race preference is also a plain violation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which unambiguously forbids racial discrimination by institutions receiving federal financial assistance. But above all, race preference is morally wrong—always was morally wrong. And good motives do not make it right. We Americans, I think, reject now, and will reject forever more, every form,
every
form of discrimination by race. And the Michigan admissions cases,
Gratz
and
Grutter
, give our Supreme Court the opportunity to say this now crisply and forcefully. And I think they will.

Moderator:
University of Michigan Professor Carl Cohen and University of Pennsylvania Professor Michael Eric Dyson. Thank you both and thanks to our audience here at the Wistar Institute. . . . And before we say goodbye, I’d like to leave you with this closing thought from President Theodore Roosevelt: “Our aim is to recognize what Lincoln pointed out: The fact that there are some respects in which men are obviously not equal, but also insist that there should be an equality of selfrespect and of mutual respect, an equality of rights before the law, and at least an approximate equality in the conditions under which each man obtains the chance to show the stuff that is in him when compared to his fellows.” I’m Margot Adler, thanks for listening to
Justice Talking
.

WELL, THE SUPREME COURT GOT IT HALF RIGHT. It voted 5–4 to uphold the use of race in University of Michigan law school admissions, but rejected by a 6–3 margin the particular plan that Michigan was using to achieve diversity in its undergraduate admissions. But in this political climate of racial amnesia compounded by hostility to progressive and enlightened views of race, the Court’s split decision in the University of Michigan cases may be a greater victory than appears with the law school, and not as great a defeat as it seems at the undergraduate level.

The Court was right to uphold Michigan’s law school admissions process that seeks to enroll qualified minority students in the belief that diversity is a compelling
educational
interest. Diversity is an educationally compelling interest because it helps to destroy racial stereotypes; it erodes the ignorance upon which bias rests; it facilitates positive interracial experiences that establish lifelong patterns of such interaction; and it enriches classroom discussion and learning.

As history has amply proved, without strategic pressure and clearly expressed goals, there is little incentive for even educational institutions to act in their best
long-term interests when it comes to race. And since diversity is a critical means to maintain educational health, the interests of minority students dovetail nicely with the interests of higher education to create viable and visionary learning environments.

If this is the case, race-conscious remedies are an indispensable means to achieve such diversity. The advocates of the race-conscious remedy known as affirmative action—including the leaders of the University of Michigan—contend that considerable leeway in the use of race is necessary to implement the goals of racial justice. Hence, educational institutions must be free to employ a creative mix of programs and policies that bring them—and our society—closer to racial parity.

The opponents of affirmative action contend that such programs and policies are unjust. This conclusion results from a faulty premise: that the enemy of racial justice is racial consciousness, and not the wretched uses of race in the past—and sometimes, in the present. For affirmative action’s opponents, any sign of racial consciousness is wrong, even the awareness that our racial history is fatally flawed and stands in need of remedying through racially conscious methods.

Further, the opponents of affirmative action believe that all forms of racial consciousness are created equal, confusing democratic principle with constitutional practice. They assert that the race-conscious remedies of affirmative action grow from the same tree as lynching and Jim Crow law and housing segregation. Surely we possess sufficient ethical insight to carefully distinguish between racial injustice aimed at preventing minority progress and the conscientious efforts of good citizens to combat the legacy of bigotry in our educational and social institutions. Those who contend that there is no difference between the Ku Klux Klan and the NAACP because they both evoke black identity in their respective attempts to shape social policy and affect political change, are dead wrong. Fortunately, if by a slim margin, the Supreme Court rejected such arguments in siding with Michigan’s law school that it is a legitimate and laudable goal to assemble “a class that is both exceptionally academically qualified and broadly diverse.”

In the undergraduate case, Michigan has sustained a blow, but it is far from a fatal one. The Supreme Court ruled that awarding minority students points in the admissions process undercuts the Court’s precedent in the
Bakke
case of using race in a flexible and fair fashion, and not, in the words of Justice Sandra Day O’Connor—the swing vote in the law school case and the author of its majority opinion—in a way that is “nonindividualized [and] mechanical.”

But two things are overlooked by the Court. First, a fixed number of points were also given to applicants for other factors, including geography, athletics, and alumni connections. The Michigan undergraduate affirmative action admissions program only used race as
one
of several considerations. They also took into account—as do most other colleges and universities—grade point averages, standardized test scores, personal essays, musical talent, and teacher recommendations. Moreover, despite the evaluation of these criteria, the admissions process is far
from objective. A given admissions officer may place varying emphasis on one ingredient over the others. Also, each candidate for admission will be subject to a given admissions officer’s subjective evaluation of the student file. While wildly aberrant admissions decisions rooted in obviously unfair criteria are easily spotted, it is more likely that subtle gradations of judgment come into play. But it is precisely those gradations that often determine the success or failure of potential candidates for admission to colleges and universities.

Second, it is highly ironic that the Court should restrict Michigan’s use of points for minority status on the basis that such minorities—including blacks, Latinos, and Native Americans—are not viewed as individuals. We must not forget that the very basis of racial injustice is to stigmatize minority individuals in an unjust fashion by treating all of them, regardless of merit, talent, or achievement, in the same, unfair manner. It is both logically and morally confused to deny the legitimacy of recognizing the group status imposed on minority groups through racial prejudice, group bias, and social stigma. The only way in the present to counteract such prejudice, bias, and stigma is to take group identity and interests into account as we seek remedies for racial injustice’s virulent persistence. We must not fall prey to the notion that all forms of racial consciousness are identical.

Moreover, racial injustice is not simply a relic, but a living, breathing animal. One of the greatest hindrances to the realization of true equality for racial minorities is the dangerously persistent belief that unjust racial practices—and the equally noxious ideas and perceptions that feed them—have been completely eradicated. Nothing could be further from the truth. As Justice Ruth Ginsburg eloquently reminds us in her dissenting opinion: “We are not far distant from an overtly discriminatory past, and the effects of centuries of law-sanctioned inequality remain painfully evident in our communities and schools.” But this ruling is no reason for advocates of affirmative action to lose heart. It is true that Michigan’s method was rejected, but its mission remains constitutionally in place: to achieve a racially diverse student population.

While the victory in the Michigan case should further embolden affirmative action’s advocates to stand tall, its slim margin should goad us to work hard to provide constitutional guarantee to its existence, and to deepen the public’s awareness of the extremely useful benefits that racial diversity entails.