No. 10 November 10, 1998

Given the recent acclaim and fervor surrounding the latest pro-affirmative action book, some of our nation’s most influential educators need to be reminded that one should not judge a book by its cover. The Shape of the River: Long-Term Consequences of Considering Race in College and University Admissions (Princeton University Press, 1998) by William G. Bowen and Derek Bok, former presidents of Princeton and Harvard Universities, provides data on black students in a variety of areas including marital status, educational attainment, earnings, and occupation.

While Bowen and Bok make an important contribution to academic and intellectual discourse, their case more closely resembles Swiss cheese than a steel trap. Their data and arguments do not prove their major tenet: that racial preferences in admissions are effective. For starters, the authors define diversity too narrowly.

Black plus black equals diversity. Their data rely exclusively on white and black students at the exclusion of all other groups. Even the authors’ own anecdotes, which are peppered throughout the book, show that diversity does not break down into simple racial divisions. Their examples include diversity based on geography and religious nationality, yet the book excludes any analysis for these groups.

No control group. Bowen and Bok examine the top 10 percent of black college entrants and credit race-sensitive admissions with the establishment and growth of the black middle-class. But the authors fail to include a control group for this study, a glaring omission but easy to understand given their premise.

Some of these same black students would have been admitted to elite schools without racial preferences. Others would likely have attended less competitive institutions but still would have become part of middle-class America. That is because the top 10 percent of any group possesses a strong work ethic, natural ability, ambition, and discipline, qualities necessary for success but which affirmative-action policies cannot provide.

Higher dropout rates. The authors compare black dropout rates at a broad range of schools to the rates at the most exclusive colleges, where they argue that black graduation rates are higher. But when one compares black graduation rates at the most selective schools to whites at the same schools, blacks fare much worse. For example, the black dropout rate at the most selective schools is three times the white dropout rate at those same schools, according to the authors’ own data. Furthermore, the authors fail to examine how racial preferences affect those black students admitted by racial preference but who fail to graduate. Did they face the awful prospect of repaying a student loan without a college degree?

Black middle-class without preferences. The authors assume that the black middle class is largely the result of an ivy-league education and that black students would not achieve the same success if they had attended less selective schools. However, their own data show that there may be a general trend, but certainly not a direct correlation, between school selectivity and income. Furthermore, the vast majority of the American black middle-class did not gain entry because of an exclusive education. According to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the most dramatic gains in black income occurred well before racial preferences were established.

Blacks earned entry into the middle-class through hard work. The black middle class is composed of individuals from a wide array of professions and jobs, most of whom lack a degree from a prestigious university. While there is no doubt that more blacks should participate in higher education and attend elite institutions, the authors respond to the problem by essentially re-defining the mission of the university to justify affirmative action.

Band-aid approach. According to the authors, the three missions of the university are to:

(1) identify individuals with high potential;
(2) permit students to benefit educationally from diversity on campus; and
(3) address long-term societal needs.

The authors are not only setting a dangerous precedent but instead of a real solution offer only affirmative action policies that perpetuate both racial preferences and the demeaning stereotype of blacks as a group unable to succeed without special help. Rather than this "band-aid" approach, the authors should help students prepare for college by promoting educational choice for poor children and removing regulatory barriers that hinder entrepreneurship in the nation’s inner-cities.

The original civil rights movement gained broad support because it was based on the premise that all Americans should be treated equally under the law. Today, however, institutions of higher education have perverted this principle to treat individuals unequally in order to obtain the pre-determined outcomes their limited concept of diversity demands.

Now that voters in California and Washington state have passed measures end to racial preferences, it is time for educators and all Americans to do the heavy lifting. It’s time to end affirmative action policies based on race and gender, and to address the real solutions to opportunity in this nation.

* Naomi Lopez is director of the Pacific Research Institute’s Center for Enterprise and Opportunity.

For additional information, contact Naomi Lopez at (415) 989-0833.