Affirmative Action
Hunger of memory is a 1982 autobiography about the education of Richard Rodriguez, who was an American immigrant. When he started school together with his sister and brother, he only knew 50 English words (Rodriguez, 35). Because of his lack of confidence, he was shy in class. He talked less, and after six months, a nun from his school visited his home and asked his parents to speak more English with the children. They agreed, but Rodriguez did not take their acceptance so well, he thought that they had finally forgotten their culture. He improved his English through the tutoring sessions, but he felt his family drifting away (Rodriguez, 54). Affirmative action aims to improve the educational and employment opportunities for women and other members of the minority. In the United States, it began as a government’s remedy to the efforts brought about by the discrimination of such groups (Ezersky, 67). It has programs and policies that give preference to women and the minority in school admissions, social benefits, and employment opportunities. Race, disability, age, gender, and ethnic origin form the basis for affirmative action. Richard explores the disadvantages and the benefits that come with being a minority and the anger it brought him. In the end, as one gains from being a minority, they also pay a cost, and one does not get the chance to decide the role they play; it is selected for them.
Skrentny, 35 states that a minority is a group forming the smallest group of a larger group in a nation or a specific area. Minority, to me, meant being part of a small group. Throughout the book, Rodriguez expresses his stand against affirmative action. He claims that he does not like it even though he was a beneficiary. He says that if he had a choice, he could not mark his ethnicity on the university’s admissions forms (Rodriguez, 87). These are the main takeaways for chapter five of Rodrigues’s book. This chapter exposes the difficulties he went through as a result of that name. He disregards affirmative action and cites his success as proof that the minority group can succeed without it. He turned down several job opportunities at the post-secondary schools claiming they only wanted to hire him because of his skin color (Rodriguez, 97). His take on affirmative action began the current critics of affirmative action in America. Back in college, he was among the minority students. At first, he was okay with people considering him a “minority student,” but it, later on, began to bother him. He felt that he had become a serious student and should not, therefore, be termed a “minority.”
Back in the late 1960s, the black activists pushed to overturn the racial boundaries in the American higher education system. Soon other minorities such as the Latinos joined them. The expansion of the movement made it represent the middle class, too (Ezersky, 37). As a successful Hispanic graduate with a promising career, the faculty members told him that he would begin working with “his people’ and that he would serve a role model to others of his race. By the late 1970s, the minorities in the country led the court to challenge affirmative action claiming it discriminates people backwardly (Ezersky, 42). The court outlawed quota laws, but it allowed the higher learning institutions to admit students on a race basis. Later on, in 1977, the court upheld the law demanding the government to give 10 percent of its tenders to qualified contactors from the minority groups.
Universities started to adopt affirmative action in the late 1960s to promote equal opportunities and racial diversity in universities. But as years went by, it lost its meaning. Now it is one of the most important social policies. It is now a regime of racial favor at most of the selective schools. The most aggressive positions are preserved for upper-middle-class minorities. I once read that Department of Justice plans to investigate an allegation by Asian-American organizations that Harvard University discriminates against them by considering other racial minorities.
It is indeed true that the Asian minorities are discriminated against, but affirmative action acts as an appropriate scapegoat for people seeking to pit the minorities against each other. According to Hirschman, Daniel& Ellen, 67, the number of whites enjoying the privilege preference outweighs the minorities aided by affirmative action. Giving more positions to students who are already advantaged displaces students from other backgrounds who are more deserving. Rumor has it that Jared Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has become the poster boy of such practices. Harvard University accepted his admission after receiving $ 2.5 million pledge from his father.
A recent study indicated that affirmative action leads to low grades among its beneficiaries. The study of the American law schools showed that 50 percent of black students (probably those admitted based on affirmative action) were among the bottom ten in the performance of the class (Hirschman, Daniel& Ellen, 50). The low numbers of minorities in the STEM field is a result of affirmative action. These small numbers are not because of the lack of talented minorities or a lack of interest. Studies indicate that minorities have an interest in pursuing careers in the STEM field as compared to their counterparts. But admitting a student with low SAT scores is the beginning of the disaster. Students need to apply in universities where their credentials march those of the fellow students. Doing this will help them end up in college, where they are likely to graduate in a field they want to pursue.
The most disturbing aspect of affirmative action is that it can compromise the significant achievement of members of the minority group. It is sometimes difficult to tell whether someone deserved a position they hold, or it was by fitting into the diversity matrix. The adoption of affirmative action has made it look like individuals from the minority group only do well because of the support they get from affirmative action. Take, for instance, the case of President Barack Obama; can we say that his success was as a result of the support he got from affirmative action? I think we all have an answer to this question. Most of us can affirm that Barack Obama deserved what he achieved in life. But for others, his presidency was motivated by the fact that he came from a minority group. For Rodriguez, this is not the case: he claims that his achievements had nothing to do with being a “minority.”
According to social scientists, the rationale is misleading at its best and inaccurate at its worst. They stand to claim that it promotes incompetence and mediocrity (Skrentny, 43). Some years back, Jesse Jackson, together with the Protestants at the Harvard law schools to demand a fair representation of the black women in the institution. Jackson terms the criteria for choosing the qualified students as “cultural anemia.” If his argument is right, then the black community can as well start their schools. Several universities give opportunities to people of the minority group even in cases where there was another candidate with superior qualifications.
I agree with Rodriguez; affirmative action is overused. Most people of the minority groups are admitted because of their skin color and not because of actual disadvantages in life if that makes sense. In his book, Rodriguez says that the Academy was prepared to do little for the minority students beyond admitting them (Rodriguez, 89). Most universities began accepting students who did not have the necessary tools to succeed in school, and thus the conspiracy of kindness became a conspiracy of uncaring. According to Gregory Rodriguez, a Times Columnist from Los Angeles, society needs to find new and less divisive ways of fighting inequality.
For all these years ever since its adoption, affirmative action has not succeeded in ending discrimination. In the past, Stanford discriminated students in its admission in favor of racial minorities. However, recently the university had to rethink these policies in response to the public debates against affirmative action (Ezersky, 54). We now understand why conceived as a way of fighting discrimination; racial preferences now promote it. Other than uniting the students on the campus, preference has divided most universities. For instance, as Hoover institution reports, affirmative action benefits people of minority groups. And because admissions are a zero-sum game, these preferences affect many Asians and poor whites who meet the admission requirements.
This fundamental unfairness of preferences is wanting. Instead of serving as a remedy, many of its supporters now claim it encourages diversity in learning institutions. But if it were the actual purpose of preferences, then it would be given on other basis and not a race. The underlying assumption that minorities can bring new ideas and perceptions is offensive not because it is not true but also because it suggests that minorities have a similar way of thinking. So what went wrong? We first have to accept that we cannot end racism by promoting it. The idea of having many programs that focus on a particular race betrays Martin Luther’s dream of having a society that is not differentiated based on color.
Finally, Hunger for Memory by Rodriguez came at a time when America was battling the issue of Affirmative action. Rodriguez sides with those arguing that affirmative action harms the people it claims to help. He claims that affirmative actions have flaws because it stands to benefit the blacks less victimized by racism and other forms of social oppression. He further acknowledges that affirmative action has a decisive move in teaching American that other forms of oppression touches all Americans (Rodriguez, 69). Some scholars suggest that affirmative action may contribute to hostility towards the minorities. Affirmative action poses harm to people benefiting from it. The Academic mismatch is known to perpetuate school dropouts and poor grades among students of the minority group who received racial preferences during their admissions (Skrentny, 68). Using race as a basis for entries and not the qualifications of the students is a major contributing factor to the low numbers of the disadvantaged in STEM fields. Skin color should not be a differentiating factor no, matter the sincerity of affirmative actions.
Works Cited
Ezersky, Gertrude. Racism and justice: The case for affirmative action. Cornell University Press, 2018.
Hirschman, Daniel, and Ellen Berrey. “The partial deinstitutionalization of affirmative action in US higher education, 1988 to 2014.” Sociological Science 4 (2017): 449-468.
Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of memory: The education of Richard Rodriguez: An autobiography. Bantam, 1983.
Skrentny, John David. The ironies of affirmative action: politics, culture, and justice in America. University of Chicago Press, 2018.