The temptation to twist logic for racist ends is almost irresistible. I encountered an almost humorous example a few months ago in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by a professor of religious studies and philosophy. Richard Amesbury’s claim is that criticism of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI) policies is racist. Which is bizarre, given that DEI is itself racist, since it means treating different races differently. Diversity means ensuring that group membership reflects the proportion of all races in the general population. Equity means that any rule of selection must yield equal outcomes for all groups, irrespective of qualification differences. Inclusion just seems to underline the first two. And merit doesn’t figure into the equation at all.
So, how can attempts to replace DEI with selection for merit be racist, as the professor argues? Well, he doesn’t tackle this point; instead, he impugns the motives of DEI critics: “The Trump administration’s assault on diversity reflects its vision of a racially tiered society.”
Amesbury seems to be saying two things and implying a third: (a) that a policy of colorblindness in college admissions will produce a racially unbalanced society; and (b) that this result is the intention of the Trump administration. Alleging malign motives is a tired tactic. Evidence is rarely provided; it is a sleazy rhetorical technique, not an argument. But this charge does reveal Amesbury’s correct assumption that colorblindness is quite likely to lead to unequal racial outcomes. Even more disagreeable to him is that the inequality of results, given equality of treatment, means that this inequality must reflect real individual differences. Inequality must be in individuals and not in their color-blind treatment. So the absurd illogic of Amesbury’s article is a consequence of his inability to accept the fact that individuals, and groups including racial groups, are not equal in their interests and abilities.
The muddled battle against colorblindness has continued in a series of New York Times articles, the latest being “The Excruciating Question Confronting Black College Applicants,” written by Yale Law School professor Justin Driver. What fresh crisis has so unsettled academia? The Supreme Court’s decision in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College (SFFA), which struck down affirmative action, was followed—according to Driver—by “the prevention of colleges from reviewing racial boxes on applications.” In other words, minority applicants can now reveal their race only through their personal essays.
How to signal their race is the “excruciating question.”
Driver argues that abandoning racial identification on college applications can produce harmful and unintended consequences, particularly for black applicants: “For striving Black high school seniors, the generalized essay anxiety [now] arrives in a particular, acute form: Should my personal statement address race?” They will feel compelled to write about racial trauma in their personal essays to signal their identity indirectly. He warns that:
- Essays become a proxy for race: Without the ability to check a box, students may feel pressured to disclose painful personal experiences to “prove” their racial identity.
- Performative suffering is incentivized: The admissions process may reward narratives of hardship over other forms of self-expression, distorting how students present themselves.
- Emotional toll and inequity: Students who choose not to write about trauma—or who lack such experiences—may be disadvantaged, creating a new kind of gatekeeping.
- Loss of clarity and fairness: Driver suggests that direct racial identification is more transparent and less psychologically burdensome than relying on coded storytelling.
[RELATED: Father and Son Challenge Four Universities Over Anti-Asian Admissions Discrimination]
But why will applicants feel pressure to disclose their race, given the Court’s decision that race should be irrelevant? The logic seems to go like this:
- Making admissions decisions on the basis of race is wrong, so no more affirmative action (SFFA).
- Therefore, the racial checkbox should be eliminated.
- However, savvy applicants are aware that race still matters to most admissions officials, and the Court has permitted race to be discussed in application essays (how could it not?).
- Therefore, applicants will now be under more pressure to refer to their race in their essays.
- This means that conservatives who oppose affirmative action because of its emphasis on race have now created a situation where race will be emphasized more than before. “[C]onservatives will soon be forced to recognize that the [Court’s] opinion is actually a glorious defeat.”
Professor Driver winds up favoring affirmative action because it supposedly leads to less racial emphasis than its absence, which is nonsense. The problem is that he ignores the moral and practical reasons for abolishing affirmative action: (a) It is racial discrimination, and (b) it stigmatizes minorities who, by virtue of admissions weighted by non-academic criteria, are likely to be less academically qualified, thus to perform less well, than non-minority students—unless courses are dumbed down, which is another problem. Hence, the pro-affirmative action argument is false, and any attempt to downplay race as a factor in admissions is justified.
What Driver’s article really tells us is that every effort needs to be made to eliminate covert racial discrimination in the admissions office. He is either unaware of such bias or, more likely, approves of it. This ambiguity may be the source of the entangled illogic of this New York Times article. No doubt we will hear much more along these lines until agitated academics recognize that all people, all racial groups, are not the same in every aspect—and that is not a problem.
Image by Alex Pios on Adobe; Asset ID# 1202584580
