Educators Discuss Affirmative Action At K-School Forum

Because color-consciousness created an inequality among races during the past 200 years, some of the mechanisms necessary to correct this inequality--such as affirmative action--must be raceconscious, Denise Carty-Benia, a professor of law at Northeastern University, said last night.

Speaking at the Kennedy School Forum with panelists Derrick A. Bell Jr., professor of Law, and S. Allan Counter, associate professor of Biology, Carty-Benia added that because choices were made in the past to exclude minorities, choices must be made in the present to include these groups.

The argument that merit alone should determine college and graduate school admissions is invalid because "the standard of merit and the basis for the meritocracy are socio-economic tests," Bell said, noting that special admittance for athletes, alumni children and others has been accepted for years.

The white upper class has "kept poor white and poor Blacks at loggerheads" to oppose affirmative action and other programs that counteract racial discrimination.

"What I call the Klitgaard strategy is the quickest way to make a name for oneself by coming out against those who can't hit back," Counter said.