Constitutional Law,
Letters
Mar. 24, 2012
Affirmative action is a simplistic shortcut
A reader responds to "The future of diversity: Will affirmative action law become more conservative?"
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR COLUMN
Allowing conservative principles to infiltrate the admissions process for state-run graduate schools is a frightening prospect to Erwin Chemerinsky. ("The future of diversity: Will affirmative action law become more conservative?" March 13). Such diversity of thought should not be tolerated, let alone instituted by the U.S. Supreme Court as it appears they may do in Fisher v. University of Texas, recently granted certiorari. Nevertheless, diversity of skin color in the classroom is, as he sees it, a good thing, "it matters," and so he argues that academic colorblindness is, so to speak, short sighted. No doubt the professor is correct in noting that a good mix of races (tell me again how we define race?) occasionally livens up the discussion in his constitutional law classes. But when I taught legal writing a couple years ago, and last year when I taught evidence, nothing could possibly have mattered less to me and my students than the color of their skin. Apart from the students' intelligence and ability to articulate the issues, what mattered most was their values and life experiences. To presume that all people with black, or white, or brown skin share the same values and life experiences is a form of soft racism, a kinder and gentler racism that is surely well-intentioned, but is nonetheless morally and - more to the point - legally bankrupt. At best, using race as a shortcut to building a student body with diverse values and life experiences is simplistic and downright lazy. Assuming, as Chemerinsky says, that public law schools are now "taking only qualified students" (which was not true of the affirmative action program [LEOP] at Hastings when I attended in the late 1970s), let the admissions committee do the hard work of carefully selecting a qualified applicant who grew up in D.C. or the deep South, who's proven his or her ability to overcome economic and social obstacles to achieve academic success. Of course, it's easier to just pick a black kid from the beltway or Broward County. But you may end up with the child of Clarence Thomas or Allen West. We can't have that, now can we. PAUL K. HOFFMAN, COSTA MESA COOKSEY, TOOLEN, GAGE, DUFFY & WOOGSharon Liangn
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