The Primary Source controversy seems to have died down a little. Perhaps the sky is no longer falling on Tufts. Perhaps it's time we started compiling a list of "lessons learned" in time for the next End of the World. Here's a start.
Tufts certainly hasn't been alone in facing controversial issues. Boston College had a fall semester beset by a string of actual crimes over race and homosexuality. Incidents happened at Columbia, Duke, Union College and a substantial amount of other colleges over the past years. Just last month, Princeton had its own version of the Christmas carol when it printed an op-ed column in its annual spoof issue targeting an Asian student who had previously sued the university for discrimination.
Tufts is not alone, and we're actually doing a lot better than many rivals. Only Harvard seems to be free of incidents, but that's because they're smarter than us.
Why does Professor McDonald, in a recent letter published in the Daily, call the Primary Source carol a hate crime? A hate crime is getting beaten up on the street because of your skin color. A hate crime is being murdered because you are gay.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a hate crime is "a crime, usually violent, motivated by hatred or intolerance of another social group." Frivolous banding about of phrases that are supposed to have a precise meaning doesn't just demean the issue, it also demeans real hate crimes, real racism and the real circumstances of living in fear that make Tufts the paradise that it comparatively is.
The one thing I was waiting for throughout the outrage was a coherent rebuttal of the Source's weak argument. Instead, over a month passes, and The Primary Source is once again left in an advantageous position, as it devoted its Jan. 24 edition to arguments (real ones this time) against affirmative action.
Why have we not made compelling arguments for affirmative action in the meantime? If we really support affirmative action, we should be willing to devote at least a few minutes of our time to picking apart the Source's assertions.
For example, the Primary Source's newest argument against affirmative action is flawed, implying correlations between affirmative action and black students having lower graduation and bar passage rates.
David Denby, a Tufts professor of philosophy, once taught me that cum hoc ergo propter hoc is a logical fallacy: association doesn't equal cause. For example, the Source's statistics don't tell us whether black students with perfect grades and no need for affirmative action have the same likelihood of graduating as their non-black counterparts.
They also don't control for parental background. Think of the dim-witted members of the Rolex crowd you know who attend Tufts on the Daddy's big bucks and who will still graduate. Can we really use simplified test statistics alone to make a definite case for or against affirmative action? Worst of all, the Source relies on data compiled by UCLA's Richard Sander; data which was discredited in 2005 by Daniel E. Ho in the Yale Law Review. Does the Source not know how to use LexisNexis?
On the other hand, of course affirmative action is racist. How else can we describe a policy that requires favoring people of one race over the other, all other things being equal? Personally, I don't have a problem with ambiguity. It's easy to talk about equal opportunities when you're middle class and white, and you don't know what a glass ceiling is.
Urban black teenagers face challenges beyond the typical Tufts student's comprehension. At the same time, the extent to which even colleges like Tufts now require a perfect r?©sum?© for acceptance makes attendance nigh-impossible for anyone who didn't grow up in ideal conditions. Read Ron Suskind's "A Hope in the Unseen" for a compelling demonstration of why we need measures to level the playing field.
The book tells Cedric Jennings' story: an overachiever with a near-perfect GPA who defies a bad urban school and a dangerous neighborhood, but who also does badly on his SATs. He is admitted to Brown through affirmative action and eventually thrives there. The book taught me three things. First, SATs are not a definite measure of talent. Second, Cedric initially struggles at Brown because of factors unrelated to his intelligence. Third, affirmative action put him where he deserved to be.
I do believe the argument for affirmative action deserves a far more compelling and detailed treatment than space permits me here. Let me just reinforce that the aforementioned social factors obviously play a huge role in threatening the success of America's gifted minority youth.
The Primary Source's reliance on statistics to argue against affirmative action is flawed. Once we've moved beyond test scores, are they next going to say we should deny black applicants entry because "your social background makes you less likely to graduate?"
Affirmative action is not a yes or no matter. Does a rich black child have an entitlement to preferential treatment when an impoverished white one from West Virginia does not? Should affirmative action be about poverty, rather than race? Answers to those questions are far more nuanced and interesting than simple, polarizing statements. Can Tufts deliver these answers? I doubt it. Outrage breeds a lot of things, but valuable discourse isn't one of them.
Isn't it time, then, that Tufts created a forum where non-extremists can debate and exchange views? We need a new moderate political magazine that brings together pragmatists from all ends of the spectrum - our McCains, our Obamas.
In a discussion, we are supposed to be willing to embrace other people's compelling arguments. Let's learn how to debate again without simply slinging feces at each other. Let's use that platform to learn how to create consensus and work together to find viable, real-world solutions to the issues that confound us. What better time for such a new publication than the run-up to the 2008 elections?
