Lydia Brodeur is a sophomore at Michigan State University. The State News - the "independent voice" of MSU - recently published a letter of hers:
I would like to applaud Jim Lala's column in the Tuesday edition of The State News ("Diversity doesn't promote better education, system flawed"). I have two younger brothers. One is white, related to me by blood, and the other is Guatemalan, related to me by adoption. Both were raised in the same house, by the same parents, taught the same morals and values, and both are exceptionally bright. They have always been treated equally.
However, when they try to get into college, my Guatemalan brother will have a leg-up over my white brother because his skin is brown. My white brother will be penalized because his skin is no special color, and my Guatemalan brother will not have the satisfaction of knowing he got himself to where he is with hard work and merit alone. He may very well doubt himself and feel like he doesn't deserve it.
My family worked hard at making sure my Guatemalan brother understood that his skin color didn't matter. However, it seems like higher education officials will be telling him otherwise when he's older.
My two little brothers have always and will always be equal in my eyes. Why shouldn't they be equal in your eyes, too?
The letter is short, sweet, and to the point, and probably didn't take Ms. Brodeur very long to write. But oh, what a reaction it's gotten.
Andrew Sullivan linked to the report on the State News Blues which congratulated Lydia for making her voice heard. The first comment is from the woman herself:
Thanks, Steve.
I'm glad I have your support, at least. Yesterday, my ISS professor (who will remain unnamed to protect the stupid) - who didn't know I happened to be in his batch of 200 kids in class that day - spent 10 minutes telling them what a prejudiced mind I had, and went into this spew about stuff that I couldn't even connect with my argument. He warped my letter in such a way that he could support his own argument. He openly insulted me in front of 200 people. Repeatedly. I was SO angry. *kicks something*
I mean, I respect the man's point of view and don't mind the fact that he disagrees, but did he have to rip apart a little letter on the op-ed page and then repeatedly insult the author in front of all his students?
I lost all the respect I had for him at that moment.
I'll be taking a DIFFERENT class for my ISS 300-level credit next semester. That guy gets none of MY money.
This would be bad even if ISS didn't stand for "Integrative Studies in the Social Sciences," where students are supposed to learn to think critically, integrate information, and expand their ideas. Obviously, her professor has not yet mastered the part about separating his personal biases from his critical thinking.
Lydia's mom got involved, and the professor has apologized. The list of comments to this post make for great reading. One commenter insists that, despite being reared in the same house, Lydia's Guatamalan brother has by definition suffered more discrimination in the US and thus deserves AA. This commenter never quite explains to the satisfaction of other commenters why MSU should assume a Guatamalan has suffered discrimination, or why extra help is due such a person. Nor does he explain why suffering discrimination should, in and of itself, make an applicant more attractive to colleges or more qualified to do the work if admitted. That commenter thought the others should discuss how much someone who was teased in school "should be 'upped' in the college admissions process to compensate for the latent skin-color discrimination" in our society and was disappointed that Lydia didn't address this in her letter.
The other commenters, unsurprisingly, disagree:
If Nils assumes that race will definitely factor in the brothers' life in a negative, racist way (which IS the penitent, hand-wringing, deep-thinking socialist perspective) then so might their weight, height, and any number of other factors that shouldn't, but may, come into play when a boss chooses dinner guests or whatever other situation the brothers may encounter in their lives. Hypothetically, if the caucasian brother is obese, the Guatemalan brother athletic, and the boss is a fitness fanatic, might not weight discrimation come into play? What if the boss thinks tall people are better to have in negotiations and the Guatemalan brother is significantly taller? Should MSU give the Guatemalan brother 200 points on his SAT for being dark skinned, then minus 50 for being tall, and the white brother get 160 for being white but overweight? They may even encounter a boss who dislikes caucasian men from Michigan! What then? This is the slippery slope of affirmative action. And it's why it should not be the role of a publicly funded institution of higher learning to attempt to pre-guage the level of future discrimation that will be met by a particular applicant becuase of his appearance. The only real answer is to assess people on the content of their character, but the MSU policy and the policy on which its admissions department would assess the merits of Lydia's brothers does not seem to be a shining example of this.
Other comments address double standards in a more general fashion; this post by Heather almost curled my hair:
Here's an irony for you: The College Board awards Merit Finalist Awards to American students with the highest scores. It also has a separate award for an Hispanic-American student with the highest scores. Both of these awards were handed out at my daughter's school here in Madrid. It is a private American school with perhaps 40% Spanish students, 30% other nationality and 30% American. My daughter won the regular award. An American girl with an Hispanic last name won the Hispanic award. The standard for the Hispanic award is much lower than for the regular award. None of the Spanish kids are entitled to be included, since they are not American citizens. These kids are doing a difficult curriculum in a second language. How do you think it makes them feel, that the Hispanic standard is so much lower? Many of the Spanish kids had very high scores. Affirmative action is a slap in the face to intelligent people of all races and, in this case, even makes America look condescending.
Emphasis mine. Giving Merit Finalist Awards by ethnic group, with different standards by ethnic group, seems to be a very racist action. How could the message be any more clear that non-white students are not expected to compete with white students on an equal basis?
The National Merit website doesn't mention the awards by race. The page for the National Merit Award Scholarship program doesn't mention race at all, but there is a separate program, the National Achievement Scholarship program is open only to Black American high school students. Unlike students of all other races, black students have the option of competing both for this and for the National Merit Scholarships as well (although, if they win both, they can accept only one).
However, no mention of the standards is made on either website, so while the idea of having separate competitions is slightly disturbing, there's no indication on here that black students are winning awards with lower qualifications than other students, and I have no way of verifying if the comment quoted above is true or not. One can only hope that black students do choose to compete in both competitions, and that the competition for the blacks-only award is as tough as for the other award. Otherwise, what's there to stop them from assuming that they aren't qualified to compete for awards unless they're only for blacks?
Regardless, Lydia's letter should not have provoked such close-minded and insulting statements from her professor. Perhaps he'll learn to "expand" his thinking more in the future.
Posted by kswygert at February 19, 2004 02:38 PM