2-2005;
10-2006

Lies and Misinformation Used to Attack Affirmative Action

 What they say…

The truth…
 
The rightwingers say they are for a "meritocracy" and that eliminating affirmative action will help achieve that aim.
 		    
The actual effect of this proposal would be to exclude the majority of fully qualified black, Latina/o and Native American students from admission to the University of Michigan and other colleges and university in our state. That is not "meritocracy". It would resegregate the University of Michigan. In the Grutter v. Bollinger trial, all sides conceded that all the minority students admitted into the University of Michigan Law School were fully qualified. Even the anti-affirmative action lawyers who sued the University of Michigan in the name of Jennifer Gratz and Barbara Grutter conceded that these fully qualified minority students would be barred without affirmative action admissions programs. Without affirmative action, institutional inequality stifles merit.
 
  The rightwingers promoting the initiative to outlaw all affirmative action for women and minorities say that they are for equality.   Outlawing affirmative action programs will increase inequality - between women and men and between the races. Treat people equally from day one and you will not need anti-discrimination remedies like affirmative action. Patterns of discrimination operate unchecked in the absence of active policies like affirmative action. Affirmative action is a step toward fairness and a step in the direction of judging people on the basis of "merit" by offsetting the unfair disadvantage that comes with not being white and male in our society.

Racism is a reality. Sexism is a reality. As long as racism and sexism exist, we will need active policies like affirmative action to offset the damage they do.
 
  The rightwingers say that everyone should be treated the same.
 		   We must start with reality. Both bias and unearned privilege exist today; pretending that this is not true and outlawing the policies designed to offset that problem would simply exacerbate an already very bad problem. Race would be a much greater factor in college admissions and in our society as a whole if affirmative action were outlawed.
 
  "My [white] friend didn't get into University of Michigan because of affirmative action."   Black students are still dramatically underrepresented at the University of Michigan even with affirmative action in place. Black students are less than 6% of the U of M student body, while the college-aged population of Michigan is almost 20% black. We have not yet achieved equal opportunity in American education. We must move forward; this petition will take us backward toward segregation.
 
  "I support affirmative action just not 'racial preferences'".   That's a lie. The same ballot language in Ward Connerly's California Proposition 209, which passed in 1996, outlawed all affirmative action - including outreach programs! "Racial preferences" is just the racists' term for the programs that offset the real preference this society shows white people and men every day.
 
  "I support socio-economic affirmative action not race-based affirmative action."
 		   Counterposing race-based affirmative action with socioeconomic affirmative action is just the racists' way of sounding less elitist. Poor and working class white people, both men and women, have benefited from affirmative action policies. The affirmative action program that Jennifer Gratz forced the University of Michigan to abandon included socioeconomic affirmative action. After the ban on affirmative action in California in 1996, the mean family income of the student body at UC Berkeley increased, demonstrating that only wealthier students were being admitted.
 
  "The real problem is K-12 education."
 		   K-12 education in America is segregated and unequal. Resegregating higher education will make that much worse and will move our whole society backward toward more segregation and more marginalization of minorities. The same rightwing forces attempting to ban affirmative action in higher education are attempting to ban all desegregation programs in K-12 schools. People attempting to justify their campaign to outlaw integration programs for higher education by talking about the inequality in K-12 play the part of arsonists lecturing the fire department. With people like this hypocrisy knows no limits.
 
  "Affirmative Action has created a stigma of inferiority for its beneficiaries."
 		   The stigma of inferiority comes from the discrimination, prejudice and inequality that necessitate affirmative action, not from affirmative action itself. Before affirmative action existed, there was much more stigma than there is now. The stigma comes from the racist misconception that black, Latina/o and Native American people are inferior to white people.