I am writing in response to Jamie Lynn Perna's Feb. 19 column "Affirmative Action Has Overstayed its Welcome." Affirmative action, contrary to Perna's erroneous information, was not created as "compensation for slavery," but to mitigate the negative effects of discrimination. In this respect it has been a tremendous success. Since 1965, black enrollment in colleges has increased from 4.9 percent to 11.3 percent, nearing their proportion in American society. Though slavery did end "over one hundred years ago," overt state-sponsored discrimination continued well into the 1960s.
Perna is fooling herself if she believes that racial discrimination no longer exists, or that she has not benefited from its effects. A recent study by the University of Chicago and MIT revealed that job applications with white-sounding names were 50 percent more likely to get callbacks than similar applications with black-sounding names. The Harvard Civil Rights Project recently reported that high schools are resegregating, approaching levels of inequity not seen since the 1960s. This is only the tip of the iceberg; racism still exists.
In an ideal world, we wouldn't need affirmative action. But in the real world, the childhood and educational experiences of whites and blacks are profoundly different. A white applicant with a 3.5 GPA is impressive, but a black applicant with the same grades achieved that distinction in spite of the effects of societal discrimination, and that deserves to be recognized. Perhaps someday we will no longer need affirmative action, but that day is clearly not upon us.
Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki
