Affirmative Action

To the Editors of The Crimson:

I was pleased to read Peter Ferrara's essay in yesterday's Crimson and surprised that you were objective enough to print it. There are many of us in the Harvard community who feel that affirmative action is an unjust, racist and sexist practice and I would like to thank Mr. Ferrara for speaking out on our behalf. It is all too easy to let oneself be intimidated by the moralistic self-righteousness of minority-group spokesmen who angrily contend that affirmative action is the only way to end supposed biases in school admission and hiring policies. Clearly, affirmative action is a blatant form of racism, no less reprehensible than that practiced by right-wing extremists such as the Ku Klux Klan. It is just as despicable, unfair, and undesirable. Of course, it is hardly surprising that those who benefit from it and those who would fail to succeed without such favoritism would attempt to conceal its true racist and sexist nature in some sort of warmed-over polemic. Yet such justification is not valid. Racism is racism, no matter who it favors and no matter what name it is given. You can call it "Affirmative Action" or "Aryan Heritage." One cannot logically or morally claim that it is illegitimate for a person's race or sex to adversely affect his evaluation by an employer or admissions committee while trying to justify a practice in which these very attributes are used to give the individual an advantage over other candidates. Affirmative action is racism, plain and simple. It intensifies ethnic and sexual differences, creates tensions, and presents an image of the individuals it favors as pathetic and inadequate candidates in need of government help to get jobs and obtain positions in schools. None of these results is desirable and all are detrimental to minority and majority alike. Let's end affirmative racism and start working toward a system of evaluation where everyone is treated fairly on the basis of his abilities alone. Howard C. Williams '76

POSTSCRIPT: In case any of your readers have not seen Affirmative Racism in action, I enclose this quote from the 1975-76 edition of the booklet entitled "Medical School Admissions Requirements," page 302 (on the University of Washington School of Medicine): "Future classes are expected to consist only of Washington, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming residents as well as American Indians, black Americans, and Chicano students regardless of residence."