Why Isn’t Eligibility Part of the Affirmative Action Debate?
By Dr. Jamillah Moore
Since the mid to late 1990s, the attack on the use of race in college admissions was chiefly waged via ballot initiations, legislation and court decisions. The tactics were unquestionably successful and brought about the elimination of affirmative action in California, Texas,
Mississippi, Florida, Washington state and Georgia. The 2003 U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the Grutter v. Bollinger and Gratz v. Bollinger cases, while sustaining affirmative action (and allowing some states to revisit recent decisions on the policy), have not eliminated the debate on the use of race in college admissions.
As the former consultant to the California State Senate Select Committee on College Admissions and Outreach, I found that the process of eligibility is the one element that remains absent from the affirmative action conversation.
When college officials admit students based on a set of criteria, and one of those is ethnicity, they are automatically criticized for unfair preference. Yet the first step in the admissions process is the step of eligibility. All students must be eligible to be considered for admission, meaning they must meet all of the quantitative university requirements before they can apply.
Eligibility is always left out of the equation in the affirmative action debate because critics assume that admissions decisions are made largely on the basis of race, which could mean that unqualified students of color are admitted over qualified Whites.
Eligibility and admission are two different things. A student may be eligible to apply, but that does not mean they will be automatically admitted. The difference between eligibility and admission is a set of criteria or “preferences” the university will employ in making their decisions on which students get in. The most commonly used are those of geographic location, family background and income level.
