Representatives from the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for Individual Rights and the Center for Equal Opportunity debated the pros and cons of affirmative action on Tuesday in ICC Auditorium. Panelists disagreed over the fairness of the use of racial preferences in the college admissions process.
Special Assistant to the University President for Affirmative Action Programs Rosemary Kilkenny, who is also Director of Affirmative Action Programs at Georgetown, said that the aim of affirmative action programs at Georgetown are to “cast a net as wide as possible … to achieve as diverse an applicant pool as possible.”
Kilkenny said that 28 percent of the Georgetown faculty is composed of females and 12 percent is composed of racial minorities.
Georgetown has affirmative action plans for both the undergraduate admissions process and employee hiring, according to Kilkenny. In admissions, race is considered for the purpose of ensuring a diverse environment, but is only one factor taken into account in the admissions process. The University does not employ a quota system.
Roger Clegg, vice president and general counsel at the Center for Equal Opportunity, said that the term “affirmative action” was first used by President John F. Kennedy in the sense of “aggressive anti-discrimination.”
Clegg said that another definition of affirmative action refers to casting a wider net to recruit a more diverse applicant pool. “It’s about aggressively recruiting where you haven’t before … making it clear that everybody can apply,” he said.
Clegg said that the only controversial factor in the affirmative action debate is the notion of preference based on racial background. “What we need to own up to is that we’re talking about discrimination,” Clegg said.
Curt Levey, a representative from the Center for Individual Rights, said that there are several problems surrounding the use of “the diversity factor” as an argument in support of affirmative action. These factors included the absence of a limit or scope placed on the duration and extent of racial preferences.
“Everyone agrees that remedying societal racism is a valuable thing … Is the real question, ‘Does diversity rise to the level of state interest?’” he said. “People use the word ‘diversity’ as a code word for racial representation … I don’t see people arguing for intellectual diversity,” Clegg said.
Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor Sherry Wilcher said that affirmative action policies are “remedial, proactive and preventive” and not about racial preferences.
“We are talking about eliminating preferences that some have enjoyed for the past one hundred years. It’s about eliminating privileges that some have enjoyed and giving them to everybody,” Wilcher said.
Clegg argued racial preferences are unfair because they tell individuals that they are denied entrance into an institution because of the color of their skin. “You create resentment when you have this type of discrimination,” Clegg said. “You compromise an academic mission and you create segregation,” he said.
Wilcher argued that it is important to remember the history of racial segregation in the United States. “We have a history of exclusion … that is undeniable,” Wilcher said. “I think we need to be clear that discrimination and exclusion are still very prevalent. Even if Colin Powell’s kid walks down the street in New York, he may still have a difficult time hailing a cab … We live in a society where race still matters,” she said.
“All we object to is racial preferences that state that Colin Powell’s kid is more disadvantaged than a poor kid from Appalachia,” Levey said.
ACLU member Kevin Sproles said that racial discrimination will always persist in American society. “Discrimination is something that we will never get rid of … Affirmative action is about free-mining and honing those discriminatory factors,” he said.
