KSG Dean Argues For Affirmative Action

More than 150 people packed a Kennedy School of Government (KSG) auditorium last night in a show of support for affirmative action in education, which is threatened by an impending Supreme Court case.

KSG Dean Joseph S. Nye gave a strong endorsement of affirmative action, and Professor of Law Christopher F. Edley Jr. ’78 presented the Constitutional case for maintaining it during the hour-long program.

Students packed Wiener Auditorium to capacity yesterday for the event, which was organized by KSG students Wayne H. Ho and Akiba E. Smith-Francis ’00.

Edley, a founding co-director of the Civil Rights Project at Harvard, argued that affirmative action is not to remedy past wrongs.

Instead, he said, diversity improves the educational experience of students, a claim that parallels Harvard’s central argument in favor of using race as a factor in admissions.

Organizers said the event’s goal was to raise awareness about affirmative action leading up to a rally in Washington April 1, the day of a pivotal Supreme Court hearing.

As of last night, nearly 60 KSG students planned to attend the rally, according to Ho.

Nye said that affirmative action “matters tremendously to our university and our school. There is an enormous amount that students at the Kennedy School learn from diversity.”

Edley noted that there is widespread confusion about affirmative action. To clarify, he defined it as “the use of race, ethnicity, gender, disability status, whatever the characteristic, as a factor in the decision making about people and resources.”

Edley also discussed one of the two affirmative action cases in front of the nation’s highest court—Grutter v. Bollinger.

The cases challenge the use of race in the admissions policy of the University of Michigan Law School.

Edley said that a major issue in the Grutter case is whether diversity can be a compelling interest that can be permitted under equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment.

Edley criticized the Bush Administration’s position on the case.

“The administration attacks the Michigan program for being a quota. I think the technical term for that is a lie,” he said.

Edley said that people have a tendency to favor others who are like them, and that affirmative action works against this tendency.