UC Affirmative Action Needed to Balance Ledger

To the editors:

I would like to commend the Crimson staff for their editorial "Balance the Board" (Opinion, Feb. 17) and respond to the corresponding dissent.

The non-affirmative action policy currently in place in California is indeed unfair. Our society is still dominated by racism and classism, thus tilting the ledger in favor of those at the top--often towards white males. During the affirmative action era in California, it was far from "absurd" that race played a significant role in admissions. Instead, the Board of Regents was trying to create campuses which represented the diversity of California while recognizing the educational disadvantages inherent in a poor socio-economic background.

I agree that one solution is to fix California's system of public secondary school education, but the state should also fix its system of higher education by re-implementing affirmative action. In our uneven society, an admissions policy based solely "on merit" is not possible. An admissions policy which seeks to create a level playing field for all is a reasonable goal. Affirmative action is a means towards this end. EDWARD B. COLBY '02   Feb. 18, 1999

Applying Equal Standards To the editors:

The first sentence of your editorial, which states that the University of California Board of Regents "phased out affirmative action in 1997 after the passing of Proposition 209," is factually incorrect. The Regents voted to end affirmative action in 1995, two years before the passage of Prop. 209 and began to phase out affirmative action in the graduate schools the following year.

As for the call made by one UC student leader, Amanda Channing, for "not just ethnic diversity, but diversity of thought," cited approvingly by your editorial, it seems to me somewhat ironic and disingenuous. I applaud the statement itself--it's what conservatives have been saying for decades; but I suspect what Ms. Channing really wants is a Board of Regents characterized not by diversity of thought, but by uniformity of thought in agreement with her own.

Lastly, the idea that "if Davis appoints regents who are more diverse, then the debate over how to pursue a talented and diverse student body will be more balanced than fair" is, on the face of it, silly. Among the 16 appointed regents at the time of the decision against quotas, three were black, three Hispanic, and two Asian. Two of the "virulent conservatives" who pushed most strongly for the ban were Ward Connerly, an African-American, who argued that quotas were used as an excuse to avoid improving the quality of education in inner-city schools, and Tirso del Junco, M.D., a Hispanic.

In November 1994, when the regents were debating affirmative action policy at UCSF, Regent del Junco stated emphatically that in his thirty-five years of practice in East Los Angeles he had treated all emergency room patients equally, regardless of their race. He believed that the same standard fairness should apply to college applicants. Hear, hear.   KEVIN A. SHAPIRO '99   Feb. 17, 1999 The writer is the former editor of the Salient. True Advising Fosters Academic Community To the editors:

Rishi Ganti (Letters, Feb. 18) asks us to consider the economics faculty perspective when considering the undergraduate advising system. He rightly argues "it is extraordinarily difficult [for professors] to reconcile student demands with other faculty pressures." Media, government officials, corporations and foundations eagerly seek out the insight of economics faculty. Undergraduates are grateful to have access to such "stars" who are willing to help them develop study and research plans.

But alas, much of this attention-during junior and senior year-comes too late for many students. In the core economic theory and methodology courses in the first two years, students sit in large lecture halls. Applied econometrics, which teaches students crucial statistical research methods, consistently receives terrible CUE guide ratings. In spite of the presence of brilliant empirical researchers, the Department struggles to find an instructor for the course each year.

Additionally, if students want advice about their concentration, they see overburdened graduate students. The Department's rhetoric of deep faculty concern with the undergraduate experience seems to be at variance with its actions in the most fundamental elements of the concentration.

Students are not looking for advice from faculty about mundane concentration details, as Ganti repeatedly worries. They hunger for a sense of academic community and of engagement on the part of the faculty. If anything, graduate students and junior faculty--both of whom still have to "prove" themselves in academic circles--should join forces and demand that tenured faculty play a more active role in the lives of undergraduates.

It may mean one less magazine column, one less $3,000 honorarium for giving a speech to a business group and even one less journal article. In short, it would mean a slight shift in priorities. But surely it would also mean a more meaningful academic experience for many undergraduates. Wouldn't this be welfare-enhancing?   CARLO N. FORCIONE '99   Feb. 19, 1999