By Dennis Shin '96
For its fourth annual Civil Rights Symposium, the Cornell Political Forum offered a panel of university faculty members and administrators debating the heated question, "Do We Still Need Affirmative Action?"
Joycelyn Hart, associate vice president for human resources, moderated the event on April 24 in Room D of Goldwin Smith Hall. She began by reminding the panel and the audience of the university's position in support of affirmative action -- a commitment reasserted in a policy statement by President Hunter Rawlings in the fall, soon after he took office.
"In analyzing how the system adapts to increasingly demographically diverse populations," Hart said, "we have stressed inclusiveness, not exclusion."
The first panelist to speak, Ronald Ehrenberg, the Irving M. Ives Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and vice president for academic programs, planning and budgeting, drew mainly from his personal experiences and his background as a Jew to demonstrate the continued need for affirmative action programs.
He noted that over the past 50 years, Jews in the United States have made considerable advances in overcoming discrimination in educational institutions. Six out of eight Ivy League universities in recent years have had Jewish presidents, Ehrenberg said, implying that the same achievements could be attained by other minority groups.
Robert L. Harris, associate professor of Africana studies, also drew on personal experience in describing himself as a beneficiary of affirmative action -- but he added that the experience of being an African American has been distinct from that of other minority groups.
"My parents could not change their name" to hide their ethnic identities, Harris said. "They could score the highest test scores, they could speak perfect English and it did not make a difference."
Harris cited statistics that demonstrate continued underrepresentation of African Americans in the nation's top professions. He attributed this partly to the use of such "false predictors" of success as the GRE, LSAT and MCAT exams.
"In this country, we had 350 years of exclusion," Harris added. "How can we expect to overcome that in less than one generation?"
Jeremy Rabkin, associate professor of government, opened by saying, although he represented the minority view on the panel, he believed he represented the majority of American people in being opposed to affirmative action.
Referring to the recent Hopwood case in which a rejected white applicant won a suit against the University of Texas Law School for reverse discrimination, Rabkin said that the courts are "catching up" to unfair affirmative action programs that demonstrate "explicit racial preferences."
"Cases in which totally different standards are applied to minority applicants from those applied to whites are typical, not the exception," Rabkin argued.
As a result, Rabkin said, the system fosters a "shameless cynicism" that emphasizes group differences rather than individual merit.
Peter Stein, dean of faculty and professor of physics and nuclear studies, began by saying he agreed with the essence of Rabkin's argument. However, in the particular case of Cornell's admissions process, he explained, the university is in the business of grabbing its "market share" of tomorrow's future leaders, so it needs a broad and diverse training ground.
"I think we're a lot better off with [affirmative action] than without it in this particular context," Stein concluded.
Mary Webber '58, who directs the Center for Religion, Ethics and Social Policy (CRESP), urged the audience to look at the past in order to understand the present.
"We need to only look at American history to see how these inequities have been produced," she said. "I come from the belief that every created being is of equal value ... so why does a white student have more of a right to a space at Cornell?"
In general, the panelists, with the exception of Rabkin, favored the continued practice of affirmative action, at least in some cases. Stein and Ehrenberg, however, also expressed reservations and at times supported, in principle, Rabkin's view.
Noting that the speakers recognized valid points on both sides of the debate, Brian Finch '96, president of events for the Cornell Political Forum, said: "There's more common ground than people realize on this issue, so I think good things come from discussions like this."