GALLAUDET UNIVERSITY

" . . . Fernandes, however, has said some people do not consider her "deaf enough" to be president -- a notion some students have rejected. Fernandes was born deaf but grew up speaking and did not learn American Sign Language, the preferred method of communication at Gallaudet, until she was 23. . ."

Another very interesting issue that is really at the heart of "equality." Specifically, are the protesting students really saying that the president of the school must be deaf [enough]? If so, then it would be a form of discrimination, right? Or are the students saying, everything else being equal, the president should be deaf enough (or legally hearing impaired)? Or are the students saying the search was incomplete.

Very interesting anyways.

It is understandable that you would want someone that is truly “empathetic” to the hearing impaired. Logically, someone that is legally hearing impaired should be truly empathetic. But how about a child of deaf parents? Empathetic enough? How about a parent of a deaf child?

I guess the next question would be "are there positions that could be filled by the non-hearing impaired? How about a professor?" How about the board of directors that appointed the current president?

Or should we review the applicant’s qualifications based on the particular job description? For example, if part of the president’s responsibilities include fund raising (for the other resources of the school), then wouldn’t it be important that the president have particular “connections” to the private sector?

Bottom line, I think to state that the president "must" be legally deaf is discriminatory; even if such a person is the probable choice.

Question: “Must” the president of an all girl school be a woman? “Must” the president of a predominately African American school, such as Howard, be African American? “Must” the president of an all boy school be a man? How about the president of an all boy school that is predominately White American? I think that in all scenarios the answer must be No; even if the probable, practical result is yes. These differences should not define us, but should add to the character of our qualifications, our perspectives. There is value in our experiences. We just need to ask the right questions.

[Given that this value is often subjective the word "fairness" gets thrown around; and things get real confusing real fast! You be the judge on another school issue, but one involving race and complicated by our history.]

Here is a "very broad example" of a situation here in CA that was addressed by the SC after I graduated from law school:

Suppose you are an admission committee that is reviewing an African American's application to law school, and want to add value to the applicant's score based on his or her race. What if the SC says no; then what do you do?

Why not put value on this person’s surroundings (such as family income) versus this person’s race? For example, given that the poverty rate of African Americans is three times that of White Americans, if more value was somehow given for the lower the family income, then couldn’t the committee get to a statistically similar outcome? Couldn’t it get to the same place of equal opportunity for the school? Maybe not as soon as it would like? [I just confused myself with my own example!]

One might argue that, given our history, an African American probably brings an "unique," but more subjective perspective (compared to a White American?) to modern events that the student body could draw from to make the overall learning experience better. So how do you capture this with numbers? [Even though it is this "unique" (bad?) experience that we are trying to remove as a society, right? Question: By valuing this "unique" experience, does it ultimately make it harder to eliminate it; and therefore, racism? Confusing! Seems like a chicken and egg question, problem?]

Everything else being equal, wouldn’t a 3.5 GPA of an applicant of a single parent with a family income $15,000 be more impressive than an applicant with two parents that are filthy rich? Even assuming a fair structure could be created, do schools really only want impressive by the "numbers" kids, or is there value in a variety that is more subjective, open? [Does this sounds like a stupid question? I am very confused now! Maybe it is because the two categories cannot fully be separated to create a system that is considered "fair" by all; there are just too many variables.] Again, more interesting questions.

Ultimately, if there is value in subjective variety, then on an individual basis one would have to accept that some more impressive by the "numbers" kids would not get accepted while some less impressive by the numbers kids would. Or do we just say screw the value in variety and attempt to build an admission process that looks for the most impressive by the numbers kids, period? [Now I am really really confused! There are just too many variables to create a "by the numbers" system that actually helps the very poor.]

Hard questions! But in order to correct past wrongs with African Americans it might be necessary to ask such questions; to initially value subjective variety and then move to a more numeric structure once the economic gap has been closed some more? However, given that Latinos, Asians, etc., are "generally" put in a similar classification as African Americans these days, even this type of transition structure would have [or seems to be having as put in place in CA] little impact on the economic plight of certain very poor African Americans. This does seem to complicate the issue more. Again, who decides where the lines get drawn?

In CA the UC's policies have had a devastating impact on African American admissions for some reason(s); I believe their actual enrollment (as a percentage) has been reduced by around 26 percent over the last 8 years. Not good.

For example, in CA the UCs generally include illegal immigrants (of all races) in its "half quasi variety” and "half impressive numbers" structure in a way that allows them to compete directly with poor African Americans. Note that excluding illegal immigrants from the UC’s “resident” admissions pool would probably increase the enrollment of African Americans at the UCs; but it might not be a material amount. It is just hard to tell. Of course if you increase the enrollment by 300 at UCLA then that would be an increase of 100 percent. So maybe it would be material?

This change moreover is very unlikely (unless a pending federal case requires it). From what one sees in the “media” even suggesting such a thing can get you labeled as a racist or someone that "hates" immigrants. [The funny thing is that reacting in such a manner, and labeling someone as a racist solely based on his or her “policies” when he or she is a White American seems racist. Think about it. What do you think? At minimum it is exactly the behavior our society is attempting to eliminate.]

Maybe the "UC's top 4 percent" has actually done more harm than good for African Americans? Something is wrong . . .

The irony of it is that in CA the group with the highest earned income (Asian) generally benefits the most from the UC’s admissions structure. In this way the UCs really seem to lack a structure that could benefit certain African Americans. Another very difficult topic.

Given the SC’s rulings in this area, and our society’s tendency to group many new immigrants with African Americans (with historical family ties) for many things, the answers to this topic seem very unclear to me.

It took my Irish relatives (at least those close blood relatives) a few hundred years to obtain one “masters” degree. In CA, the UCs focus on “historically underrepresented” (generally a group accepted at a significantly lower rate than the White American rate of 12.9%), seems to force this issue with modern immigrants by focusing more on the “percentages.” See the UC Regents’ web site. This is potentially at the expense of what I would consider “historically” underrepresented (i.e., many, most African Americans and all Native Americans).

Again this is a very difficult subject and none of the answers (or questions) seem clear to me; but I do think it is valuable to discuss this stuff.

So what do I think on this school admissions issue? I think that it is strange to have 4 million plus immigrants come into CA over a period of two decades or so and consider such new immigrants no matter status as “historically underrepresented” for UC admission purposes. This doesn’t make sense to me and seems to be notionally unfair to very poor families that have been in the USA for many "multiple" decades. After all the “American dream” is supposed to take time and lots of hard work.

It is almost as if the UCs are saying that new immigrants should be getting into college at the same rate as established families. This seems counterintuitive.