On Affirmative Action: Harvard, the Supreme court, and MLK Jr.

[my personal opinion only]

A Spectre Is still Haunting America.

It’s color/gender/… ignorance, in a system of extreme capitalism and structurally unequal barriers.

We live in two worlds.

One is the ideal world.

One is the world of reality.

1.

MLK Jr. described the ideal world, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

In this world, we are color blind.

It’s an ideal world.

There is also the world of reality.

In this world, each person has some privileges and some barriers. And it’s a full spectrum.

Some have more privileges than others.

For example, I have a college educated father, while most of my cousins don’t.

Another example – a few year ago my phone rang in a store and I walked out to pick up the call. My young daughter walked out of the store with an unpaid merchandise in her hand but no one stopped her. That’s one of her privileges as an young Asian teen in this country where people just generally assumed she is kind.

This is not true for every teen.

?

Some have more barriers than others.

For example, there are some teens whose parents need to give them “the talk” of how they should behave when pulled over by a police. ?

This is not true for every teen.

Another example – In a traditional US university tenure process, the number of publications is an important factor. If one happens to have taken two maternity leaves during the first 6 years or so and as a result has fewer publications, that’s an additional barrier they have in getting the tenure.

In this world of reality, if any person can have a privilege score between 0 and 100, some may get 30 points, some may get 80 points.

In this world of reality, if any person can have a barrier score between 0 and 100, some may get 30 points, some may get 80 points.

A person with a score of 80 privilege points and 30 barrier points, is destined to have a very different life path from someone who has 30 privilege points and 80 barrier points.

Not to say barriers are not possible to overcome, but it does require a lot more effort, and sometimes, a lot of luck.

2.

So there are really three possibilities of how we navigate between the ideal world and the reality world.

The first level is, living in the world of reality, and pretend living in the ideal world.

One can choose to ignore all the structural barriers, and say “I am just color blind” or “I am gender blind”.

This, I am afraid, is not color blind, but color ignorant; not gender blind, but gender ignorant.

The second level is, living in the world of reality, and acknowledging we are living in the reality world.

One can then choose to do something about it.

How to do it, of course there is no perfect answer. Some may even do it pretty badly even with the good intentions.

But to me, this is one level above the first level.

The third level is, the reality world is becoming quite close to the ideal world.

In this world, we can and should be color blind, gender blind, etc.

I don’t know when this will happen, but most indications are, it has not arrived yet.

I like to think, Harvard has been living at the second level for a number of years.

Did they do a perfect job? Like anything else there is probably always room for improvement, or even major improvement.

Did they have the right intentions? I think absolutely yes.

What the supreme court did, is to pull Harvard to the first level.

Forcing them to pretend to live in the ideal world, when in fact the world of reality is still quite a distance from the ideal world.

3.

So what next? Is this the end of the world?

To the contrary, I think it’s not.

For two reasons.

First, I think this is actually the perfect moment when the universities can get a bit more sophisticated in how exactly they evaluate students holistically and to create a “more fair” system.

It will never be 100% fair, but can be “more fair”.

By acknowledging that each applicant is an individual with their unique circumstances.

To assess fairly their achievements, as well as their capacity.

How do you evaluate a white boy in a remote rural village in Iowa with no AP class even available in his high school?

How do you evaluate a black girl who is helping looking after two younger siblings while the parents are doing a minimum pay job?

How do you evaluate an Asian boy who doesn’t really fit the “model minority” stereotype but in fact helping his parents in their little pho shop?

Finally, how do you evaluate a girl of any color, who despite (rather than because of) the success of her billionaire parents, are overcoming all that family pressure and making it on her own and showing a lot of potential?

What they have achieved is one matter, how they have shown their capacity is another matter.

Both are important of course, but also distinct.

How can Harvard evaluate these kids and identifying those who has the most potential to impact the society in the future?

Second, I think we may have focused too much on Harvard unnecessarily.

Yes Harvard is important, and it does have the ability to transform lives.

But there are also many other ways that can transform lives, and with much lower cost.

For example, How do we ensure every kid can have the basic need met so that they can access study opportunities?

How do we ensure all kids have decent access to the internet?

When the extreme capitalists say a rural USPS is not making money and need to be closed, have we thought how the people there access postal service, schools, and medical care etc?

Have the country really done enough to build up the basic infrastructure in every community?

I believe these are a lot more fundamental, than fighting over a few hundred seats in a freshman class per year in Harvard.

And, these are morally the right thing to do anyway.

If we can do these, then I’m quite hopeful that one day in the future, everyone will actually have a “barrier” score going towards single digit in a 0-100 scale.

That will be the time when the reality world becomes quite close to the ideal world.

And that will be the moment to declare a color blind / gender blind society.