Tuesday Talk*: Be Classist, Not Racist?

I remember very well the discussion among a small group of fencing parents whose kids trained with my son. It was back when our children were applying to college. They were all top students with top grades and scores, and each was a top nationally ranked fencer. I complained about how colleges had no interest in my son, a white Jewish boy from Long Island.

The other parents laughed. What about their children, Asian kids with perfect SAT scores who played all-state cello and won national science prizes? They didn’t stand a chance.**

Even then, we were painfully aware that despite all our efforts to give our children the best chance of success by getting them into elite colleges, all their accomplishments, all the effort they put into study, there was nothing they could do to overcome the one burden that had nothing to do with them. Their race. The Asian parents were right, their kids suffered discrimination worse than mine and there wasn’t a damn thing they could do about it.

At Persuasion, Ravi Gupta writes about how he, as an Asian student, faced discrimination by pointing out what every Asian student and parent knew only too well.

This case, despite its cynical origins, has merely given Asian-Americans proof of something we’ve long known to be true: The very policy that was established to even the racial scales in higher education has systematically punished us for our race.

But as Gupta went on to found and lead a charter school in Nashville, with a student body that was mostly black, he faced a quandary.

But of course, it isn’t just about us Asian-Americans. In my late twenties and early thirties, I founded and led a charter school in north Nashville that served mostly black students hailing from a neighborhood with the highest incarceration rate in the country. I love my former students, and if they can get an edge in admissions at the expense of people who grew up middle-class like me, I’d gladly make that trade. But for us to create a legitimate system that can both withstand legal scrutiny and garner political legitimacy, we have to be more honest with the people we are asking to sacrifice for the greater good. And we have to use admissions preferences to help the truly disadvantaged.

Would Gupta have been willing to sacrifice his education, his children’s education, for the sake of the education of the students at his charter school?

That’s why I support a system that favors students from economically disadvantaged backgrounds over a system based on race. Given that black children are much more likely to experience poverty than white students, such a system would disproportionately help many of the students who would have benefitted under the old system. But it would do so without giving preference to students who don’t need the boost, or by pitting different disadvantaged ethnic groups against each other.

Assuming that Gupta’s children wouldn’t fall into the category of students experiencing poverty, while contending that black children are more likely to do so, is the new system really any different than the old system? Is economic disadvantage a proxy for race, as Gupta simultaneously argues it is and isn’t?

After June, race-conscious measures will likely be off the table, which means that policies I support, like those based on class, will likely rise in prominence. Those policies are allowed to be more heavy-handed and explicit, as neither the Civil Rights Act nor the Fourteenth Amendment prohibits discrimination on the basis of wealth. Liberals will claim this shift will be a step back for marginalized populations, but I’m inclined to believe the new reality could be more progressive and considerably more popular. At the very least, soon enough, our most storied institutions will no longer be allowed to blatantly discriminate against Asian-Americans. And for that, we should all be grateful.

It’s certainly possible that discrimination on the basis of class might avoid the constitutional infirmities of discrimination on the basis of race, but are we just changing the head on the corpse? If Asian families can dedicate themselves to educational achievement, why not black families? Hispanic families? Whether you’re discriminated against because of Asian ancestry or because your family worked too hard to succeed, is it nonetheless invidious discrimination? What of the incentives to work harder, to value education more, to sacrifice for the future?

Is Gupta right that discrimination based on class is more legitimate than discrimination based on race, or is the former just a proxy for the latter?

*Tuesday Talk rules apply.

**As it turned out, fencing was key to our children’s getting into top colleges. While our kids were overwhelmingly qualified educationally, the kids who achieved national prominence had the added benefit of their success in sports and were recruited by top schools to fence. The students who weren’t in the top tier of fencing, however, were not recruited and did not end up at elite universities.

20 thoughts on “Tuesday Talk*: Be Classist, Not Racist?

  1. Quinn Martindale

    Yes, for two reasons. First, money can buy improvement on admission metrics that don’t correspond to ability or potential. If I pay for a college essay mentor or for a consultant to help my daughter “found” a non-profit, she will have a better application without any direct increase in her chance of being a better student. Rich kids are also more likely to already be performing at the limits of their potential. To use a sports analogy, if two kids are running exactly the same speed, a coach wants the kid with worse form because they can improve more easily.

    Second, it benefits both the schools and students as a whole. Cladd discrimination sends the message that you can’t buy your way into elite schools. If the iveys went back to being upper class finishing schools, a degree would move towards being a mere indication of familial wealth. In addition, college alumni networks are better when they’re not all rich kids. Because rich people are more homogeneous than white or asian people, class discrimination results in a more diverse network than racial discrimination. A wider network of alumni allows colleges to better identify and recruit the most promising students and graduates to find better opportunities.

    1. David

      Rationalizing policy based on outliers is foolish and false. While the wealthy may have advantages, the middle class can’t throw money at the problem whether with consultants or buying admission. So yet again, the majority should suffer?

      Asians were the targets of significant racial discrimination, but managed to do exceptionally well through hard work and valuing education. Others could do the same. If they don’t, if that the fault of Asians? Is that the fault of the middle class? Why do people like you think black people are so incapable of succeeding without you being their white saviors?

  2. Keith Kaplan

    The notion Quinn raises about potential is one that often gets overlooked in the conversation because affirmative action programs could also be seen as making up for past wrongs. But while those issues (potential / reparation) correlate to a high degree in some, they don’t travel together uniformly for all.

    So my first question is: why are we doing this?

    If the issue is outlet one of potential and giving that potential a chance — then class vs race won’t matter as much to the end goal (it certainly raises questions as to how to assess who has potential, but I will hold a pin in that for another Tuesday).

    If it’s about reparation, the conversation gets very strange, as not everyone was harmed the same way and a “one size fits all” fix based on race (or even one that just considers it as a factor) doesn’t hit the mark either.

  3. Mike V.

    Admitting a lower scoring student to check the box of admitting someone due to race or economic status can be a recipe for disaster unless there is some remedial or support structure to help them academically. They might be better served by the community college/state U route to a degree, if a degree is in their best interest at all. Skilled trades now pay better than many degrees with a greater possibility of business ownership.

    Maybe becoming a certified welder or HVAC technician or getting an AS/BS in Computer Science is a better route to success than a Masters in Ethnic Studies.

  4. B. McLeod

    I think there’s an old saying about how good fencers make good neighbors, so of course the colleges want to make sure they have some good fencers in the dorms.

    As far as using a classist system as a proxy for race, that has basically been the federal design on the government contracting side of affirmative action since the Clinton Administration. Disadvantaged Business Entities have been elaborately defined so that race is a component, but it is not impossible for contractors to qualify based on generational poverty or other non racial factors. Still, the new system functions a lot like the former racial set aside system, because it was intended to. Such an alternate system will not end competitive disadvantages except possibly for some racially unfavored students who can prove they are disadvantaged.

    What it all comes down to is no change at all for the ultra wealthy or legacy folks, but systemic disadvantage for middle class students so other students can be elevated from poverty. Most schools will continue to operate the new system with the understanding that black students uniquely need to be elevated from poverty, because it will be commonly understood that the classist standards are a proxy for the racial ones. I think such a change is unlikely to solve anything beyond dressing the racial politics in new clothes.

  5. rxc

    My first question is how do you define “class”? This is the key, and is much more difficult to assess than race.

    All four of my grandparents and my mother were immigrants. Two of my grandparents could not read or write their names, in any language. My mother had only an 8th grade education, and started working as a hairdresser when she was 15 years old, to support her family. My two grandfathers were manual laborers.What class were these people?

    My father was a ne’er do well until the 10th grade, when something clicked, and he went on to get a masters degree in Chemistry and work for the government. What is his class?

    My mother worked like a demon, and probably made more money than my father, who stopped working and raised his children while his wife worked. They built their own house, paid cash for everything, and pushed their children extremely hard to get educated. My mother built a second house after my father died, again with her own earned cash. She rented out the first house. What class were they?

    I have two sisters. I am an engineer/former government bureaucrat, one of my sisters was a musician and the other is a doctor. What class do we fit into?

    Until the proponents of this idea can explain what they mean by “class”, this idea is another academic fantasy.

    1. Quinn Martindale

      Is it really that hard to differentiate between your grandparent’s class and your class? Your grandparents were lower class, your parents were likely middle class, and your sister the doctor is likely upper class.

      1. Rxc

        Why? What changed? Is it all about cash in hand? Why? Am I “privileged”? Why? When did it happen?

        There is no logic to this characterization. It is high school social sc I ence.

        1. Quinn Martindale

          It’s all about money, education, and occupation (socioeconomic status in social science), but, for college admissions, it’s probably best to just look at income and assets, which are being considered for financial aid anyway. Any high schooler could point out the differences between the rich and poor schools in your town.

      2. Hunting Guy

        We all know people that are classified as “high class” that are really low class. Some of the Kennedy family and Trump come to mind.

  6. Curtis

    I do not believe there is great difference in talent between an Ivy grad and the top public universities. Perhaps the Ivy grad is better on average but there is a huge overlap between the two groups. IMO, the Ivies want to perpetuate a system where their grads and their children remain elite.

    Society needs to find a better comparison system in the real world rather relying on school pedigree which just a proxy for questionable admission processes from years gone by. I would prefer to work with an engineer from Georgia Tech, Purdue or Michigan than from an Ivy. They have the skills without the pretension.

    It’s funny living in the hinterlands and reading about the obsession with getting an “elite” education and then complaining about student debt. We yokels want the best bang for our buck.

  7. Ayoy

    No need to discriminate based on race or class. Much of the knowledge contained within these institutions could be made available to all via the internet at very little cost.

    1. B. McLeod

      Yes, the knowledge could, but that would not support the community of academics who live of the universities. Neither would the Internet solution provide the stamp of social accreditation for which society looks to university-conferred degrees.

  8. phv3773

    It’s a problem of supply and demand; too many applicants and not enough seats. The concepts of fair and equitable are too weak to lead to a satisfactory solution. It’s just a question of whose ox to gore.

    And it’s not about the education. The undergraduate curriculum is just about the same at Ohio State or R. P. I. The attraction is the people you meet: highly organized, highly motivated success-seekers.

  9. Tristan DeCoster

    I would like to throw in one factor not discussed. The idea of legacy. The power of having a parent who was already a graduate of the university is just as or more powerful than any affirmative action. If we are to change the system to control for class, is the legacy system allowed? To quote an article from an Ivy League prep site:

    Why Being a Legacy Applicant Matters

    Of course, you have no control over whether you are a legacy applicant, but if one of your parents attended a top college, your chances of being admitted there are significantly higher—about twice as much as other applicants.

    While a 20 to 40% chance of being admitted is far better than a 10 to 20% chance, not all legacy applicants are admitted. In fact, roughly two-thirds of legacy applicants are rejected, so legacy status does not guarantee admission to the best schools. Still, it can make a significant difference in the admissions process.

  10. Bryan Burroughs

    Maybe this is incredibly naive, but it seems pointless to try and make up for a broken system at the end of it by giving bonus points out to a couple poor suckers who bore the brunt of its failures. There’s no particular reason that poor kids are falling behind, other than their shitty schools that are failing them. Giving bonus points to the top 5 kids in a class of 1000 is great, except the other 995 kids are still screwed. How is that helping? Fix their schools (easier said than done) so they are able to do more than drool on a damn desk and then you don’t have to fake it 13 years later. Of course, that would actually require doing something meaningful, instead of pandering, feel-good measures which garner votes from the people you’ve screwed over.

  11. Richard Parker

    From some limited experience with Stanford students, it appeared to be a lot harder to get into Stanford than to stay in Stanford.

    (These were non-STEM students.)

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