Just over four months after the Center for Equal Opportunity claimed UW-Madison’s admission policies unfairly advantage African Americans and Latinos, UW philosophy professor Dan Hausman told hundreds of members of the UW community affirmative action creates “equal opportunity” for African Americans.
The statistics the Center for Equal Opportunity used to support its argument against undergraduate admissions policies at UW-Madison are weak, Hausman said.
According to the CEO, UW-Madison admitted just over 300 African American undergraduate students in 2007.
Of those 300 students, Hausman argued, many would have likely been admitted without preferential admissions at UW-Madison and the actual number of Caucasian students who apply to UW-Madison as undergraduates who do not receive an admission offer because of preferential admissions for African Americans is quite small.
While some opponents of the current admissions policy say it discriminates against whites similarly to how whites discriminated against African Americans, Hausman said affirmative action is in no way comparable to Jim Crow Laws and the overall discrimination African Americans have faced in the nation’s past.
“[Preferential admissions are] not a matter of exclusion, denigration, hatred,” Hausman said. “That’s what made Jim Crow so obviously unacceptable.”
One of the main arguments for preferential admissions is also imperfect, Hausman said.
Making up for past injustices would be nearly impossible, according to Hausman.
“As soon as we go down the path of emphasizing reparation, I think we’re inevitably into finger pointing,” Hausman said. “I don’t think finger pointing is a useful way of addressing our problems.”
According to Hausman, preferential admissions do create “equal opportunity” for African American students.
Because of their socioeconomic status, Hausman said many African Americans who apply to UW-Madison have not had the same educational opportunities prior to admission as other students, so using holistic standards for their admission gives them the chance to attend schools they otherwise might not be able to.
“One thing I really worry about is that if we were to get rid of the only thing we’ve got, symbolically what that says is white Americans are basically turning their back on the problems,” Hausman said.
