Affirmative action still necessary, report says

By CHRISTINE WALKER Education Writer

Black, Latino and American Indian students continue to need affirmative action to help them earn college degrees in a world where odds often are stacked against them, said researchers at a conference at Stanford University on Friday.

They hailed a new report they say debunks misconceptions about affirmative action. The findings comes as Florida faces becoming the next battleground for a political and social movement against affirmative action.

About two years of research went into the report, Compelling Interest: Examining the Evidence on Racial Dynamics in Higher Education, which concludes that test scores are not the sole measure of merit. Other contentions: unequal opportunity persists among the races, diversity programs benefit more than students of color, and fairness can not be achieved without addressing race.

"Americans are mistaken if they believe color-blindness will achieve true racial equality," said Kenji Hakuta, one of the report's authors and co-chair of the Panel on Racial Dynamics in Colleges and Universities.

Colleges and universities that practice affirmative action consider race in admissions decisions. Supporters call it an effort to remedy past discrimination and level the playing field, while opponents say its preferential treatment or reverse discrimination.

"There is very firm grounding that these policies stand on," said attorney John Payton, who is defending the University of Michigan against challenges to its affirmative action policies.

Payton was one of several panelists attending a press teleconference at Stanford University Law School in California on Friday.

The study compiles much of the social-science evidence that has been around for a while, said Theresa Kay-Bustillos, vice president for legal programs at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund.

Researchers found that although many white and Asian students are impoverished, children who live in and attend schools in concentrated pockets of poverty are almost always black, Latino and Native American.

And schools populated almost entirely by low-income children tend to have less money and fewer supplies, poorly skilled teachers, fewer college preparation courses and other negative conditions that affect learning when compared to schools with students of varying income levels.

Low-income and minority children in the United States have significantly poorer access to quality educations, researchers wrote.

Statistics in Broward and Palm Beach counties seem to bear them out. Black, Latino and Native-American high school graduates here are less prepared for higher education than their white and Asian peers, according to statistics from the state Department of Education.

About 4,564 members of Broward County's high school class of 1997 sought degrees at Florida public community colleges and state universities in 1997-98. Of the 4,333 tested for readiness in math, reading and writing, only 2,728 were sufficiently prepared in all three areas; 74 percent of white students and 75 percent of Asian students scored well across the board.

African Americans were the least prepared -- 42.8 percent -- with 51 and 50 percent respectively of Latinos and Native Americans being ready.

In Palm Beach County, 75 percent of whites and 74 percent of Asians displayed readiness in reading, writing and math. Eight Native Americans, or 62 percent, were prepared, as were 59 percent of Latinos and 40 percent of African Americans.

"Past inequalities have not been eradicated," said William Trent of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, "neither African Americans nor Latinos have achieved parity despite the progress that has been made."

Shana Levin of Claremont McKenna College said that while most whites support the idea of racial equality, "when it comes to actually implementing policies, we see a backing away from these ideas of racial equality."

But a black man has been a leading opponent of affirmative action.

California businessman Ward Connerly led the anti-affirmative action campaign that resulted in the passage of Proposition 209 in California that banned affirmative action in college admissions, hiring and government contracts. He has vowed to strike next in Florida.

The authors of the report said they believe it contains data strong enough to make non-believers re-examine the need for affirmative action.

The best researchers were selected for the panel, Hakuta said, and created "an edifice of evidence that cannot be overlooked."
     
   Christine Walker can be reached at cwalker@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4550.

Copyright © 1999 by The Florida Sun-Sentinel