Tapu Misa: Affirmative action no more than commonsense fairness

A father writing to the Weekend Herald's ethics columnist posed the thorny question. His daughter had applied to law school and found that the minimum requirement for her as a Pakeha was an A Bursary, whereas Maori and Pacific Island students needed only a B Bursary.

He asked if this was ethical or legal, clearly feeling that it was neither.

The explanation, I thought, was a good one, but I doubt that it would have soothed his feelings had his daughter missed out.

A friend tells me that among her university-age peers there is seething resentment at what they consider to be special treatment for Maori and Pacific students. This is our own version of affirmative action, an issue that's stirring considerable debate in the United States.

I'm a fan, of course, since I wouldn't be here dispensing my particular perspective if it hadn't been for a kind of affirmative action. Blame it on the vision of a particular veteran Pakeha journalist, who thought it was important that our mainstream media be a little more reflective of our society. It still isn't, of course, but that's another story.

I know plenty of other beneficiaries in the legal and medical professions who wouldn't be where they are today without the special admissions schemes. Most of them tend to feel an obligation to put something back into the community. Like Dr Jonathan Koea, who got into medical school on the Maori and Polynesian admissions scheme. He gave up a job in New York to come home to lead the fight against liver cancer.

Of course, the "one rule for all" proponents would probably argue that such schemes constitute special privileges and are past their use-by date. (Like the Maori seats, which, let's face it, were created less as a favour to Maoridom than as a way to limit their influence at a time they were the majority.)

But the evidence of the yawning economic gap between brown and white in this country suggests that it will be a while before we can talk about having achieved equal access to our higher learning institutions.

There are still those who truly believe, though, that the level playing field really exists and that all anyone has to do to succeed is work hard.

Never mind what advantages might have been conferred by family wealth, connections and expensive private schools - George W. Bush, for instance.

In April, when the US Supreme Court considers two challenges to the University of Michigan's affirmative action admissions policy, Bush's Administration will argue against affirmative action based on race.

Of course, it hasn't escaped the notice of many commentators that Bush is himself the beneficiary of special educational preferences.

The New York Times reports that the expensive private school in Andover, Massachusetts, where George W. spent his high school years, accepted him mostly because it wanted Texans so as to diversify its student body, and had given him extra points for being the son of an alumnus.

A few years later, when Bush gained entry into Yale despite having SAT test scores far below the median, it wasn't because of his Texan drawl and inimitable way with words. The clincher was what is referred to as the legacy factor. Yale is the Bush clan's alma mater, and grandpa was on the board.

Affirmative action has been under threat since 1996, when the first of several lower court decisions made it harder for some universities to factor in race as part of getting a diverse student body.

In California, blacks and Latinos disappeared from California's elite public universities, sparking fears even among conservatives that the country's top colleges would again become the exclusive preserve of whites. Since these were the very institutions that conferred wealth and power, many saw the failure to integrate as a threat to democracy.

Some universities have had to find creative ways of diversifying, without mentioning race. Houston's Rice University gets around possible legal challenges by carefully avoiding terms such as black, Latino, and even minority when considering applicants.

The admissions committee instead asks applicants about their cultural traditions, whether they speak English as a second language, and looks for students who have overcome difficult personal circumstances.

Still, as Bush marshals his forces to invade Iraq, he might reflect that the Army is the most integrated outfit in the US, a model of affirmative action. Some 12 per cent of its officers are black, a far cry from the outfit which once consigned blacks to support jobs, mostly because they were seen by the top brass as lacking the courage or intelligence to lead.

Clifford Alexander, the Secretary of the Army during Jimmy Carter's presidency, put the Army's promotion systems under the microscope after noticing that no black colonels had been promoted, although many had achieved that rank and served with distinction.

He discovered that many blacks were held back because they had been given lesser assignments and had been negatively evaluated by racially prejudiced superiors.

But Alexander rejects the loaded affirmative action tag, preferring to call the Army's overhaul commonsense fairness. Maybe we should, too.