> he's right essentially. If affirmative action programs are currently so
> small and affect so few people (and most in the middle class are
> completely unaware of this and think that there are massive numbers of
> 'undeserving' poor who are taking away their slots at the university), it
> seems that energy would best be spent trying to support a policy that
> would really equalize rich and poor and make up for the inherited effects
> of past racism.
AA is mainly important in two ways, although I will say that I know of no relibale social science studies on its effects. We had a conference oin the law and social science of Bakke here at Ohio State Law this year and heard most of the top people who are working on the topic, and no one reported solid work on that subject.
The first and most important area where AA is important is in employment, mainly of blue collar, service, and pibk collar workers. It's here thAt AA programs seem to have affected most minorities (I leave AA for women aside), which isn't surprising, because most minorities are working class, I mean disproportionately. And I think that research would show that AA has been responsible for a lot of job opportunities that wouldn't have otherwise been available and for a good chunk of the increase in the income of Blacks and other minorities.
The second area is the one you mention, access to higher education. Here the numbers are small, but the effects are significant. I daresay that without AA there would be virtually no Blacks and very few Hispanics admitted to the top universities and post-grap programs in law, medicine, and business. Their tests scores are just not good enough on average. I don't mean elite schools like Harvard and Princeton and Yale Law, but also seconsd rank schools like my own law alma, Ohio State. Insofar as this sort of education is crucial for attaining middle-class status, the impact of AA has been out of proportion to the numbers of people affected. This has been considerable, however: the Black middle class has grown from the top tenth to the top 2/5 or 1/3 of the Black population, and again I bet AA would be shown to be responmsible for a lot of this.
So, sure, AA is a stopgap. It's not a cure for institutional and other racism. But it's an important stopgap. Sure, a massive infusion of cash into the inner cities in terms of bringing up primary and secondary education to ruch suburban standards, federal financing of education, a huge jobs and training program, and other such things would be nice. We should fight for them. But outside the 5th Circuit and California, AA is something we _have_ right now, and we should fight to defend it.
--jks