A Quota, By Any Other Name...

Many have applauded last week’s federal appeals court ruling that upheld the legality of the University of Michigan’s Law School’s admissions policy, which seeks to admit a “critical mass” of minority students. They have failed, however, to see that the concept of a “critical mass” is effectively a quota system—it implies a minimum acceptable level of people, even if it is not specific.

Though diversity is an important educational goal, quotas can sacrifice quality for the sake of quantity; the need to meet an arbitrary level may lead to the acceptance of lower caliber students simply to satisfy a predetermined necessary quantity. Institutions of higher learning should be cognizant of diversity but should not seek to meet any preset percentages, no matter how vaguely they define what would be considered acceptable numbers.

Pursuing quotas in the form of a “critical mass” is a face-value solution to a problem that runs deeper than race. Although ethnic diversity is an important goal, socioeconomic diversity should be given more prominence in admissions decisions than it has been given in the past. In an age when economic stratification and the income gap are drastically increasing the rift between the haves and the have-nots, students’ access, or lack thereof, to educational resources is playing a greater role in determining their academic futures. Though there is often an overlap in the communities that ethnic and socioeconomic diversification aim to serve, considering only ethnic diversity is an incomplete answer to the problem of homogeneity in the academic community. Rather, administrators and admissions officers need to realize that both ethnicity and socioeconomic status serve pivotal roles in students’ experiences and henceforth the development of their personalities, thoughts and viewpoints.

Actualizing the dream of diversity begins with the incorporation of more effective and creative recruiting efforts throughout the higher educational process. Not only should academic institutions encourage a diverse group of students to apply, they should also reach out to change prospective students’ stereotypes of who attends particular colleges and graduate schools.

When admissions officers sort through the plethora of applications they receive annually, candidates should be judged on a “plus system,” similar to the one utilized by the Harvard admissions office and by the University of Michigan Law School. In this type of system, each individual’s merits are qualitatively evaluated, not scored on a numerical scale. Still, it is apparent that some institutions do not have the resources to pick through the deluge of applications in a detailed manner and so it is understandable that they use a point, rather than a plus, system.

While the University of Michigan Law School’s continued attentiveness to diversity is appreciated, the “critical mass” approach is a flawed response—simply a quota system by another name. Instead, the law school needs to broaden its view of a diverse academic community, encompassing the idea of both ethnic and socioeconomic diversity. Colleges and universities should diversify their definitions of diversity and their methods for reaching this essential goal.