Fixing the Race Gap in 25 Years or Less

Moreover, educational parity may be linked to bigger, more complex economic factors. Most beneficiaries of affirmative action are middle-income. According to a study by Anthony Carnevale, vice president of the Educational Testing Service, 74 percent of students at the 146 most prestigious colleges a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inThe New York times
Main Author STEVEN A. HOLMES and GREG WINTER
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published New York, N.Y New York Times Company 29.06.2003
EditionLate Edition (East Coast)
Subjects
Affirmative action
O Connor, Sandra Day
Race relations
School finance
Socioeconomic factors
Supreme Court decisions
United States
US
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Summary:Moreover, educational parity may be linked to bigger, more complex economic factors. Most beneficiaries of affirmative action are middle-income. According to a study by Anthony Carnevale, vice president of the Educational Testing Service, 74 percent of students at the 146 most prestigious colleges and universities -- where competition for admissions is most intense and where affirmative action is practiced -- come from families in the top 25 percent of the nation's socioeconomic scale (as measured by income, educational attainment and occupations of the parents). Only 3 percent of the students at these highly selective schools come from the bottom 25 percent of the socioeconomic scale. As Lani Guinier, a law professor at Harvard University, puts it, ''affirmative action is less an escalator up than it is a bridge across.'' Both sides on the affirmative action issue agree on the need to close the education gap, but not much else. Some supporters of affirmative action hope that Justice [Sandra Day O'Connor]'s 25-year time frame will protect affirmative action while the country makes headway in closing that rift. In the end, the debate has not changed. Opponents of affirmative action will continue to say that such programs keep the country from focusing on what needs to be done -- namely, helping minority students meet higher standards. The supporters of race preferences counter that the country cannot end affirmative action without first fixing the education system. All agree that unless a commitment is made -- by society and minority families themselves -- the old arguments will still be around in 25 years.
ISSN:0362-4331