October 5, 2012: Next Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court, in its second week of the new session, will hear arguments in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin.?As summarized on SCOTUSblog, which has published a symposium on this case:
?The petitioner in the case, Abigail Fisher, is a white student; in 2008, she was denied admission to the university?s flagship Austin campus.? She then filed a lawsuit, arguing that because minority students with less impressive academic credentials were admitted when she was not, she was the victim of unconstitutional racial discrimination.? After both lower courts ruled against her, she filed a petition for certiorari, which the Court granted earlier this year.???
Yesterday, in the New York Times, Princeton Univ. professor sociology, Thomas Espenshade wrote an opinion essay, "Moving Beyond Affirmative Action," in which he argued [emphases ours]
...If affirmative action is abolished, selective colleges and universities will face a stark choice. They can try to manufacture diversity by giving more weight in admissions to those factors that are sometimes close substitutes for race ? for example, having overcome disadvantage in a poor urban neighborhood. Or they can take a far bolder step: putting their endowments and influence behind a comprehensive effort to close the learning gap that starts at birth. Higher education has a responsibility for all of education. The job of those atop the academic pyramid is not over once they?ve enrolled a diverse freshman class.
We need more research into the impact of factors like diet and nutrition, the amount of time parents talk and read with their kids, exposure to electronic screen time, sleep routines and the way stress outside the home affects family life. But we already know that an expansion of early-childhood education is urgently needed, along with programs, like peer-to-peer mentoring, that help low-income families support their children?s learning. The first few years of life are the most critical ones, when parental investments and early-childhood interventions have a higher payoff than at later ages, particularly for disadvantaged children. Economists have estimated that the net taxpayer benefit from converting a high school dropout to a high school graduate is $127,000....
However the court decides the Fisher case, affirmative action?s days appear numbered....
The above paragraphs are an excerpt from Espenshade's essay; we recommend following the link to the Times and reading the piece in its entirety.?
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