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Katha Pollitt and Andrew Sullivan

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If Not Affirmative Action, What?

By Katha Pollitt
Posted Wednesday, May 6, 1998, at 12:40 PM ET

Dear Andrew,

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The other day you referred to affirmative action as "reverse racial discrimination," which in my view characterizes it most inaccurately. Then, yesterday, you joshed about the Catholic all-male priesthood as the ultimate affirmative action program (as if men, of all people, had been the victim of discrimination for which the monopoly on ordination was a recompense!). Rather than rant and rave (I'm saving that for my column, due this morning) I'd like to know what your plan is for remedying racial discrimination in this country. In particular, I'm thinking of the story out at Berkeley, where affirmative action has been banned, and where only around 191 blacks, out of 8000-plus admittees, have been offered a place in next year's class, a huge drop (the Hispanic number was also small). In an interesting letter to the Washington Post earlier this week, Rene Redwood noted that "800 of the rejected African American and Latino applicants...had grade point averages of 4.0 and SAT scores of more than 1200. How can that be? Because a student can get a higher grade point average if he or she is fortunate enough to go to a high school that offers a full range of advanced placement courses, which poor urban school districts are less likely to do.

"We are not talking about differences of ability here. We are talking about students having had unequal opportunities to demonstrate that ability. Asking that disparate opportunity be taken into account is not a 'preference.'"

Redwood argues that "affirmative action is one tool for breaking the chain of unfairness." How do you propose to break that chain? If a good student can't get extra points because their school doesn't offer extra courses, why is it "discrimination" to take that into account?

Cheers,
Katha

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