Affirmative Action at UMich

Coming to this University I had no idea of how the idea or act of Affirmative Action worked. I didn't think it was a "thing" to be concerned about. I always thought that I made it here because I deserved to be here, and thought if you didn't get accepted you were just not good enough. Although I know that I do deserve to be here I couldn't help but wonder that during my three years at this university, why do I know almost every person in the black community? Michigan prides itself on how diverse of a campus it is, but in reality it really is not. It is not uncommon for me to walk in a classroom and be the only student of color. I have gotten used to it though and I still wonder why blacks and even other minorities are underrepresented at this university and what made me so special by getting into such a prestigious university.


I did not come from money, I knew of no faculty or staff at this school, my parents are not alumni, I grew up and went to school in predominately black neighborhoods, my ACT score was barely above a 20, I was not a star athlete, and I knew nothing of Michigan before junior year of high school. I count the whole process as being a blessing, but others are not as fortunate. 


Back in 1995 the University of Michigan denied admission to a white undergraduate applicant named Jennifer Gratz. Charging reverse discrimination, Gratz said, "I knew of people accepted to Ann Arbor who were less qualified, and my first reaction when I was rejected was, 'Let's sue.'" She sued because she believed that she was denied admission because of affirmative action. She believed she was discriminated against because she was a white woman and the university needed to fulfill a quota for African Americans even though they made up about 6% of the university population at that time. Eventually due to Gratz passion to eliminate affirmative action, she partly succeeded. In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that U-M could use affirmative action practices, but that U-M's system at the time considered race too heavily in an applicant's application. Prior to 2003, Michigan used a 150 point-based system when accepting applicants; 100 points needed to guarantee admission. The University gave underrepresented ethnic groups an automatic 20-point bonus towards their score. In 2006 Gratz teamed up with others to form Proposal 2, which if voted on would prohibit the use of affirmative action in universities. With 58% of the vote the proposal was passed and is now in appeal with the Supreme Court. 

Fast forward to 2013, Brooke Kimbrough, a black high school student applied to the University of Michigan and was declined admission although she had a high GPA, got a 23 on her ACT, and was a member of one of the most prestigious debate teams in the US. She teamed up with U-M's campus activist group BAMN and spoke on her outrage with the university for not having affirmative action in place. Gratz referred to her and Kimbrough being polar opposites; "She’s more interested in equal outcomes. I’m more interested in equal opportunities." BAMN continues to fight for the lift of the ban of affirmative action at this university, but of course it has not been an easy task. 

Affirmative action programs are meant to break down barriers, both visible and invisible, to level the playing field, and to make sure everyone is given an equal break. The same year that Kimbrough got her declined acceptance is the same year that I got my acceptance letter. I never thought of the students that dreamed of coming here and were declined admission. Former U-M President Mary Sue Coleman and admissions director Ted Spencer stated that with "the affirmative action ban in place the school cannot achieve a fully diverse student body."

Sources:

http://www.civilrights.org/resources/civilrights101/affirmaction.html

http://diversity.umich.edu/admissions/statements/liu.html

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/04/post_16.html

http://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/index.ssf/2014/04/report_detroit_student_agrees.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/18/university-of-michigan-affirmative-action-brooke-kimbrough_n_5174029.html

http://www.freep.com/article/20140417/NEWS06/304170113/Jennifer-Gratz-challenges-black-student-debate-over-U-M-admissions

Affirmative Action

As I walked to the library to work on this very blog post, I passed a Michigan Daily stand. Fittingly, the front cover of today's issue contains an article about Affirmative Action. "University defends affirmative action in amicus brief to SCOTUS," the title reads. I was proud to see the University of Michigan so proudly championing its support of affirmative action programs. My feeling that affirmative action is not only beneficial, but absolutely crucial, to the building of a genuinely equitable United States society is born of myriad articles, research papers, and personal accounts I have encountered throughout the past few years. However, above all, it is based in my lived experience here at the University of Michigan.

As a senior, I have now accumulated nearly four years of experience at this university. For a university that prides itself on diversity, I have been wildly unimpressed the representation and inclusivity I have witnessed on campus. For instance, there are ten total students of color in all of the classes I am taking this semester combined. Ten! I should not be able to count this number so easily or so quickly. Furthermore, I have had fewer than ten professors of color throughout my time here. Additionally, my experience is relatively atypical of a white student on campus because I have, in general, intentionally sought out diverse spaces on campus. But the fact that one has to seek them out so intentionally is, truthfully, disturbing. Honing in on just black representation: the University of Michigan is made up of only 4% black undergraduates, while the state of Michigan is 14% African American. We should all be angry.

For this blog post, I have chosen to focus on the most interesting and compelling articles I have encountered regarding affirmative action. One of the major points made in the ThinkProgress piece is that there are two forms of affirmative action: "hard" approaches and "soft" approaches. "Hard" approaches refer to direct affirmative action - setting quotas, point systems, and all around explicit preference to underrepresented racial identities in the college admission process. "Soft" approaches refer to indirect action intended to ultimately lead to increased representation. These approaches include strategies such as outreach with the intent to receive more applications from people of color, and increased levels of financial aid. The problem with these approaches, however, is that they tend to fail to aid the communities that they set out to benefit. One manifestation of this is that it tends to increase levels of high income black students and international students, allowing universities to boast high black enrollment without directly benefitting the low income American communities that affirmative action is primarily meant to benefit.

Many argue that affirmative action would be okay, if only it were race-blind. Many believe that affirmative action at universities leads to "reverse-racism," or a system of disadvantage for white applicants. When I hear this argument, I cannot help but consider the systems in which we have been raised that have allowed white people to feel that just because something is being specifically offered to someone else, it is being taken away from them. How many times we must be telling white American youth, both consciously and subconsciously, that everything and everywhere belongs to them. To see that an institution hopes to increase diversity and to hear in your mind that something is being taken away from you is indicative of a much larger societal issue. Yes, it increases the level of competitiveness for those white-designated spots, but why do we feel so entitled to those spots in the first place?

I found an interesting statistic within the Boston.com article that notes that the statistics show that states with bans on affirmative action have enrolled fewer Latin@ and black freshmen than institutions without such a ban. However, in most of these states, the enrollment of black and Latin@ students "rebounded after an initial drop, going on to exceed the levels before the ban" (Pohle, 2012). This growth, however, did not prove to match the growing number of black and Latin@ high school graduates over the same time span. These statistics could be interpreted as evidence that affirmative action bans do not prohibit universities from achieving high levels of underrepresented students. The truth, however, is that universities are highly unlikely to enroll a proportionate number of these identities without overt, concrete affirmative action policies.






Sources:

1) Quinlan, Casey. Why We Still Need Affirmative Action Policies In College Admissions.

http://thinkprogress.org/education/2015/07/01/3676124/still-need-affirmative-action-policies-college-admissions/

2) Pohle, Allison. Does Affirmative Action Still Have a Place in College Admissions Decisions?

http://www.boston.com/news/education/2015/11/03/does-affirmative-action-still-have-place-college-admissions-decisions/BkfBNl6I9WpYUUiY31oD0L/story.html

3) Wintner, Samantha. University defends affirmative action in amicus brief to SCOTUS.

https://www.michigandaily.com/section/news/university-submits-brief-supreme-court-affirmative-action

4) https://suburbanstats.org/population/how-many-people-live-in-michigan

The Racialization of "Terrorism"

        It seems like practically every week we hear about a new school shooting in the United States. In fact, they’re have been 144 school shootings since the tragedy at Sandy Hook in December of 2012. Adam Lanza, the WHITE male who murdered 26 people (20 of them children), was not labelled a terrorist. Dylan Roof, the WHITE male who murdered nine African Americans in a South Carolina church, was not labelled a terrorist. This label hasn’t fallen on the hundreds of white Americans who have committed similar acts to Roof and Lanza. However, it has practically become synonymous with Muslim people in American society. 

       Post 9/11, Islamophobia has become engrained in our society. Children born in the 21st century have been socialized by the thousands of negative images of Muslim people that circulate through American culture. Muslim people have been stamped as terrorists and African Americans who commit similar crimes are labelled as thugs. However, the first descriptor of a White shooter is mentally ill. This is damaging in so many different ways.

       First off, millions of Americans, including myself, suffer from mental health issues on a daily basis. However, it is taboo, and seen by many as a mark of disgrace. Labelling people like Roof and Lanza as mentally ill adds fuel to the flaming fire composed of stigma surrounding mental health in this country. Secondly, white terror is placed on “one hateful person.” White shooters are seen as mentally disturbed ‘lone wolves, while violence committed by Muslim and Black “terrorists” and “thugs” demands “response and action from all who share race or religion.”  In fact, it seems that the only time mental illness is discussed it is in relation with mass shootings, committed by WHITE males. 

      It is important to realize the historical significance of the Roof’s mass shooting at the first African Methodist Episcopal church in the South. In 1822, the Charleston church was burned to the ground by whites “fearful” of a slave revolt. Roof’s act of violence mirrors a history of white terrorism against “black institutions involved in promoting civil and human rights.” The church bombing in 1963 in Birmingham, Alabama is another perfect example. The targeting of Mosques is also incredibly present in the United States. Opponents of Mosques in the U.S. justify their objections citing “noise levels” and “traffic parking” as their concerns. However, this is clearly masking the racial hated and Islamophobia involved in the opposition. 

      The United States drone program comes to mind when thinking about who is and isn't seen as a terrorist. The drone program is particularly important to me because one of my good friends father is the Head of the Department of Homeland Security. When drone strikes are put into action, the justification behind it is that the people being attacked (Middle Easterners and Muslism) fit a “particular description or patter of behavior—not because they are known terrorists.” In the past six years, approximately 2500 people have been killed by US drone strikes. The government has done its best to keep the hundreds of air strikes, in the past decade, out of the spotlight. 

      The power and privilege involved in being a white American explains the label of “terrorist” falling on people of color. American culture is synonymous with white culture. This is important to realize because Islamophobia plagues the minds of white Americans, while right wing extremists account for a far larger percentage of attacks on American soil than Muslims or people of color.  On top of that, for every American killed by a Muslim extremist, there have been “4300 homicides from other threats.”

       Debates regarding terrorism in the US continues to focus on Muslims. However, it is evident that there needs to be a shift in focus. Right wing extremists and anti government extremists are the “leading source of ideological violence in America.” It is time for citizens of the United States to recognize the radical difference in terms used to describe Muslims and people of color who commit acts of violence, compared to white Americans who commit similar acts. White people continue to be ignorant to the facts of who is and isn't a terrorist. Terrorism has become a racialized term that has fallen on the religion of Islam and People of color. This ignorance continues to perpetuate Islamophobia and the stigma surrounding mental health in the United States. 

Links used:

(http://graphics.latimes.com/school-shootings-since-newtown/) 

http://www.wctv.tv/home/headlines/9-Killed-in-Shooting-at-South-Carolina-Church-308112031.html?ref=031       “One Hateful Person” was the way in which Charleston Mayor Joseph Riley described Dylan Roof.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/06/18/call-the-charleston-church-shooting-what-it-is-terrorism/

https://www.aclu.org/map/nationwide-anti-mosque-activity

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/why-we-shouldnt-call-dylann-roof-a-terrorist/

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/16/opinion/the-other-terror-threat.html