* Richard Tapia on AA
Topics: AA
01 Nov 1994
From: "DG Ervan Darnell"
For those of you who don't know him, Richard Tapia is a professor in the
Computational and Applied Mathematics Department (CAAM) at Rice. I have had
occasion to serve on some committees with him. His intelligence,
commitment, and sincerity are not to be doubted. However, his big crusade
has for some number of years been to get more minorities into Rice at the
graduate level. I have even heard the CAAM department referred to as the
"Mexican ghetto".
Just recently, he wrote a piece for the "Sallyport" (the Rice alumni
magazine) on the state of "civil rights". He said:
Today a significant part of the majority society associates
affirmative action with lowering of standards, quota systems, and
reverse discrimination. Promoting the participation of
traditonally underrepresented groups in education and the job
market is viewed as decreasing opportunities for the majority
community. It is sad that the handling of affirmative action has
led to increased fragmentation of college populations along racial
and ethnic lines and more racism than was exhibited on college
campuses twenty-five years ago. In this sense we have moved
backward.
All perfectly true. The rest of his analysis is that the implementation
isn't quite right and that we have not tried hard enough. That's exactly
backward. He can see the ill effects of AA clearly enough, but cannot see
the rest of the puzzle which is that it must be that way. AA does not
create racism as an incident to bad implementation. It is intrinsic in the
approach, an approach that says you get the goodies based on race and not
talent, an approach that says the pie is fixed and what someone else loses
you win rather that what you do is your own creation taken from no one else.
Such an approach is only a prescription for more racism, even worse, it's
racism that starts to cross the boundary from the irrational to the rational.
On a related note, the faculty and staff recently got a letter from Malcom
Gillis (president of Rice) that said:
In actions and decisions relarted to admission, educational programs,
and employement, it is essential that we do not discriminate against
any individual on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, sexual
orientation, national or ethnic origin, age, disability, or veteran
status
We need to redouble our efforts to recruit and retain members of those
groups that are underrepresented in our campus community.[...]
A contradiction on the face of it, not even spread across separate pages.
Home