Richard Atkinson, president of the University of California System, offers yet another less than persuasive case for racial preferences in an OpEd in today’s Washington Post.
Atkinson’s OpEd is entitled “Diversity: Not There Yet.” Resisting (well, not quite) the temptation to apply Gertrude Stein’s well known description of Oakland — “There’s no there there,” Atkinson’s “there” appears to be nothing short of proportional racial and ethnic representation that mirrors the percentages in high school graduating classes. His problem is that he wants enrollment in the California system — not just the whole system, but also the flagship, highly selective campuses of Berkeley and UCLA — to be based on traditional notions of merit and at the same time closely track the demographic diversity of the state. Indeed, the implication of Atkinson’s argument is that student enrollment should closely track state demographics at every campus at every level, from city colleges through the state college system, through the university system including Berkeley and UCLA.
The only solution to this desire for proportional diversity at every level combined with the a stated commitment to merit at the top that Atkinson can see is a two-track admissions program based on a double standard, the inevitable result of “taking race into account.” (Well, perhaps that is not the only solution. Earlier, Atkinson also famously called for de-emphasizing or even replacing the SAT and placing greater emphasis on, of all things, achievement tests, leading to a widespread suspicion that at least part of his motive was adopting procedures that would allow Spanish-speaking Hispanic applicants to boost their scores by taking the Spanish test.)
Atkinson, in short, adds nothing to the debate. He merely asserts, again, that the demands of “diversity” take precedence over the priniciple of non-discrimination.
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