Affirmative Action forum held at MU

By Gwen Daniels

Published April 11, 2008

Some members of the MU community are speaking up about affirmative action.

Students and faculty filled Monsanto Auditorium to debate affirmative action and the Missouri Civil Rights Initiative, a proposed amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would eliminate race- and gender-based affirmative action programs and requirements at state universities.

The Missing Minority Campaign, a group of MU students opposed to MoCRI, coordinated the event. Neal Lyons and Tristan Taylor, representatives from By Any Means Necessary, a coalition opposing the initiative, helped facilitate the forum.

The forum included a question-and-answer session with BAMN representatives and an open discussion.

Lyons said affirmative action programs help unite this generation.

“To defend the desegregation of higher education, which is what affirmative action programs are, we have to build a new civil rights movement,” he said. “Our generation is not going to be sent backward 50 years, which is in effect what the ban of affirmative action intends to do. Our generation is not going to put up with this.”

If the MoCRI initiative passes, universities across the state, including MU, could not offer minority scholarships, among other programs. Instead, socio-economic affirmative action programs would target students at poverty-stricken inner city or rural schools.

But race transcends class, MoCRI opponents argued.

“There’s a myth by the people who attack affirmative action programs that removing consideration of race from the admissions process would make it race-blind, race-neutral, equal along racial lines,” Lyons said. “The admission process in the absence of affirmative action is in fact far more tainted by race.”

Lyons said college admission factors such as grade-point average and standardized test scores are structurally biased.

Standardized test questions also reflect an inherent slant toward white students, Lyons said.

“It has been shown there is a distinct racial bias in the standardized test,” he said. “Black students from all income levels, from the highest income whose parents earn hundreds of thousands of dollars a year to the lowest income, on average score lower on the SAT than the poorest white students.”

But if students deserve college admission, affirmative action should not be an issue, MoCRI supporters argued.

“Essentially, if there are that many qualified people, then the qualified people should be getting in anyway,” sophomore Michael Alexander said. “We don’t need little boxes on applications. Why do we need to check in a box what color our skin is if we’re qualified?”

Improving education for students at underprivileged schools should be the main concern, Alexander said.

“We need to work on the problem from kindergarten to 12th grade, so that way affirmative action is no longer necessary,” he said. “Essentially, fight the problem at the source.”

Alexander suggested “phasing out” affirmative action.

“It needs to eventually be where everyone gets the same education before college,” he said.

But Alexander’s proposal is a long-term plan, other forum participants said. Affirmative action programs give deserving but underprivileged minority students the opportunity to attend college.

Many students said they could not afford MU without minority scholarships such as the George C Brooks Scholarship, which awards $7,500 annually plus nonresident tuition waivers for out-of-state students to qualified minority students.

MU sophomore Brenna Thomas suggested an alternative to minority scholarships. Instead, universities could offer very specific scholarships that target minority students without eliminating underprivileged white students, she said.

Students will protest MoCRI at the Missing Minority Campaign rally, a march from Plaza 900 to Jesse Hall on Tuesday, April 15.