I am an Italian-American student here at Georgetown. Yet according to the Georgetown application form I filled out, I am caucasian. Wait a second though?Italy is nowhere near the Caucus Mountains. I have a friend who’s Armenian, so I guess she could be classified as Caucasian, but I will forever be in the dark as to why I was not allowed to state my ethnicity more clearly on the application forms. Not that my ethnicity should matter anyway: I am a person, not a race. Well, unfortunately, it does. By asking us to state our ethnicity, the application forms actually act to separate people of different races by treating the responses differently. Isn’t that racism? Is that the reason why I hear some Georgetown students grumble about other races and how they have an unfair advantage? In the ‘60s, Martin Luther King said that we must treat all races equally.
Affirmative action, however often it is actually used, forms a symbolic divide between ethnic groups in America today. When the standards are lowered for one group of people, others inevitably become resentful. I never saw this hostility between students during my application process, largely because Long Islanders feel they are cheated more by geography than affirmative action. Yet, I know students, both here and elsewhere, who feel that affirmative action may have prevented them from getting into the school of their choice. Such feelings build prejudice which in turn fuels new racist attitudes. In short, affirmative action may now be causing racist resentment rather than healing it.
The purpose of affirmative action in the ‘70s was to desegregate the country after a history of slavery, a century of Jim Crow laws and a decade of violent civil unrest. This was not long after George Wallace won more than 10 percent of the popular vote for the presidency on the platform of keeping the South segregated. The system of affirmative action and quotas was critical in breaking down the walls of segregation in colleges across the nation. But now, in the year 2001, institutional racism has been eradicated from most colleges. In fact, according to a recent Time Magazine article, colleges are fighting the courts to allow racial quotas and preferences. Institutions realize that diversity is indeed an asset which must be utilized.
So why is affirmative action still here? Some advocates claim that it helps maintain diversity. Others claim that talented minorities from less affluent socioeconomic backgrounds need a chance to be recognized. But so do non-minority students from poor areas. Yet few politicians will dare stand up for this reality. Most colleges, including Georgetown, still adhere to some form of affirmative action. At best, this is foolish. At worst, it is counterproductive, hurting the very people it was meant to advance.
Frequently overlooked is that the lack of racial diversity in colleges can be attributed to certain historical and socioeconomic factors rather than racism. Due to past discrimination and racism, many minorities do come from poorer, urban areas. Slavery robbed African-Americans of any hope for an education or the freedom to use it. Then, from the emancipation until the ‘60s, Jim Crow laws gave African-Americans little-to-no education and none of the benefits enjoyed by the white majority. It has been little more than a generation since the major civil rights bills were passed giving African-Americans equal rights. Hispanic-Americans have also faced historical difficulties in this country. Many fled persecution in Latin America and came to the United States with little knowledge of American culture or the English language. Thus, they were forced to seek jobs requiring unskilled labor; in other words, low-paying, urban jobs. However, as has been the case with other immigrant groups in the past, it often takes two or more generations before a family is able to escape poverty.
Students from these impoverished families typically do not get all of the opportunities others may have. This is a problem which needs to be addressed. Because they feel they do not have the financial resources, many qualified students pass up the opportunity to go to Georgetown and instead choose the cheapest school they can get into. In fact, this almost happened to my dad in 1968 when he applied to Dartmouth. Had he not received, at the last minute, a work-study opportunity, I would not be in the position I am in today.
Often, students do not realize the educational opportunity that they are passing up by not accepting a place at Georgetown. Even worse, they don’t realize that, despite the perceived preppie atmosphere, more than 60 percent of Georgetown students are on some form of financial aid. Because of this, many schools are even actively trying to encourage minorities to apply to their institutions.
Complicating the issue further is the 2000 Census figures, in which more than seven million Americans say that they belong to more than one race, with Hispanic-Americans constituting the largest minority group. This destroys the older notion of a black-and-white America. Some African-Americans are immigrants from Africa or the Caribbean, who have fled war and turmoil, and are unconnected to our troubled past. With a larger percentage of upper- and middle-class jobs occupied by African-Americans, race is no longer a clear indicator of economic well-being.
What we should have is an affirmative action plan which sets quotas for the number of economically disadvantaged applicants rather than racial quotas, with more financial aid to back it up. This would attempt to correct for the lack of opportunity for all poor students. The current system of affirmative action does not take into account economic need or talent?only race. Rather than attempting to correct perceived injustices, a need-based affirmative action system would allow more students who struggled to excel in poorer, run-down institutions to thrive at Georgetown. Those minorities who are poor because of past grievances would have a better chance of attending the institution of their choice; as will non-minorities who have suffered economic injustices. This system would also allow colleges eager to create a more racially diverse atmosphere to reach out to and accept more minorities without using racial quotas. In the end, financial-based affirmative action would reduce racial tensions, increase both racial and socioeconomic diversity, and promote a true equality, as King had hoped for 40 years ago.
And maybe then I could be actually called an Italian American.
