Historians: Eliminating affirmative action in admissions may be difficult

In writing the majority opinion supporting the U-M Law School's admissions policies, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor said race-conscious admissions programs should be limited in time and that universities should consider sunset provisions and periodic review to see if there is a need for such practices.

"We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today," O'Connor wrote in the decision handed down June 23.

Two experts who have studied affirmative action during its history, Terrence McDonald, LSA dean, and Maris Vinovskis, the Bentley Professor of History, agree that the goal will be difficult to reach without major changes in society, but they disagree somewhat on exactly how affirmative action will be needed in the future.

McDonald says being able to consider race as a factor in admissions is important in assembling a diverse class, and is likely to be just as critical in the future.

"The Supreme Court validated the view of higher education, corporate and military leaders that a racially diverse student body in higher education is in the national interest," he said. "It's unclear to me that this need will decline significantly in the next 25 years."

McDonald says studies have shown the educational benefits of diversity for students of color and white students in colleges and universities. "University students value these benefits, and corporate and military leaders want to select their executives and officers from among students who have experienced them," he says. "Due to the ongoing segregation of our nation's elementary and secondary schools, colleges and universities represent the only level of the educational system in which these benefits of diversity can be broadly realized at this time.

"The sad fact is that current boundaries of K-12 school districts map and, to some extent, reinforce various forms of social separation, including both racial and socioeconomic," he says. "As long as residential racial segregation continues and local school districts are based on that segregation, racial diversity will not occur at that level of the educational system and the need for universities to provide this experience will continue."

Vinovskis, who advised the U.S. Department of Education in three presidential administrations, sees the current trend toward racial and ethnic segregation as one that will change. He believes that overall, the nation will become more diverse because of a continuing increase in the number of ethnic minorities and blended families from interracial marriages.

The U.S. Census Bureau reports major increases in most racial and ethnic minority groups, with Hispanics making the largest gain—about 60 percent—during the 1990s to become the largest identifiable ethnic minority group in the nation. Estimates are that Hispanic, African American, and other racial and ethnic groups will continue to grow at great rates, Vinovskis says.

"We will have a more diverse nation over the next 10-20 years than ever before," says Vinovskis, who recently wrote an essay on the failure of the Nation at Risk initiative, a program established 20 years ago to improve the country's schools. "And as high school populations become more diverse and there are more students who are going to go to college, [the University of] Michigan will take advantage of that."

McDonald says it isn't that clear cut. "It's true that the number of persons of color in the United States will be increasing through the first couple of decades of the 21st century. It's not clear how much that will lead to residential integration and the experience of diversity in elementary and secondary education," he says.

Vinovskis and McDonald agree that one form of segregation is certain to continue—the separation of economically disadvantaged persons from those with means.

"That is a very different problem," Vinovskis says. "Economic disadvantage is more closely tied to schools, and that is going to persist. We still are not doing enough to attract and assist economically disadvantaged students to our top-ranked colleges and universities. All of us who value diversity on our campuses should also work together to correct this serious short-coming.

"What I know we will have 25 years from now and 100 years from now is inequality of opportunity. There will always be a need for affirmative action for those who are disadvantaged. I just don't see that revolution that Sandra Day O'Connor was referring to."

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