By Varan Satchithanandan ’12, Commentary Editor

It is a near universal view that racism is immoral. Ask any member of the NA community if he or she is in favor of discrimination based on race and they would certainly rebuke you. But this is what affirmative action, as practised today, has become.  Affirmative action was conceived as a means to redress discrimination of the past, but instead has ended up propagating it in a new form.

Affirmative action today takes the form of imposing an assortment of racial criteria in education, public offices and businesses. This premise is in itself laden with inaccuracy. It assumes that the color of a person’s skin defines that person completely. Assuming that all people of the same race live under the same conditions is inherently prejudiced. In reality, affirmative action perpetuates exactly what it seeks to ameliorate. Take the world of academics for example: Admissions are a zero-sum game, so when racially based selection criteria are applied, poor members of one race may be rejected in favor of wealthy members of another who are not as qualified. A study on Stanford University admission has found that the SAT disparity between African-Americans and Caucasians was some 171 points. Is this really going to lead us towards Martin Luther King’s dream of a color-blind community, based purely on merit?

Admission based on socio-economic status is a method far superior to affirmative action, as it accomplishes what it seeks to do, without the implicit discrimination. Newark Academy’s policy contains elements of this approach. Mr. Taylor provided the example of two excellent violinists, one from Millburn and  the other from Newark. The Newark student will be admitted because he or she excelled with fewer resources. Primarily, NA admissions focuses on “socioeconomic and geographic factors” when evaluating students. However, there is still an affirmative action policy at NA. Mr. Taylor mentioned that “race can give you a leg up”. He further went on to say that “race can be valuable on its own [since it’s] indicative of a unique cultural background.”

This claim, however, is widely used outside of NA, without regard to the nuances that Mr. Taylor brought out in his interview. To simply assume that race is indicative of culture, especially in a country like America, is incorrect. Two members of the same race, one who grew up in Short Hills and one in Compton have neither the same ‘culture’ nor the same experience. The idea that each race has a collective background is wrong and is damaging the basic value of meritocracy on which we as Americans place great stock.

To be sure, it is important to create a diverse student body. However, this can easily be accomplished by admitting based on socio-economic status, by looking for merit across a wide spectrum of applicants, and supporting those in need with financial assistance, as we do at NA. While kids may be born with socio-economic disadvantages, they should be able to change their circumstances through access to excellent education. That access should still be based on merit, including an assessment of how much more effort a person from a disadvantaged background has put in to get to the same level  of achievement as others whose financial circumstances have been easier. Admission should not be based solely on the basis of color or gender. Otherwise we will continue to treat the symptoms rather than the disease of past discrimination.