May 29, 2000
Faculty and staff team up to produce new book on affirmative action in record time
By Jennifer McNulty
The most gratifying feedback Faye Crosby has received on her new book, Sex, Race,
& Merit: Debating Affirmative Action in Education and Employment, came from
an undergraduate who was a strong advocate of affirmative action--until she read
the section of the book that presents arguments against such policies.
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| Faye Crosby, above, and Cheryl VanDeVeer Photos: UCSC Photo Services (Crosby) and Jennifer McNulty (VanDeVeer) |
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It may seem odd that Crosby, a well-known proponent of affirmative action who has debated affirmative action foe Ward Connerly, would be happy to hear that the book made a pro-affirmative action student question her own beliefs, but Crosby and VanDeVeer were glad to have propelled someone to think more deeply about the issue than they had before. "If the book educates people and makes them reflect on the merits of both sides of the issue, we have accomplished our goal," said Crosby.
Sex, Race, & Merit: Debating Affirmative Action in Education and Employment (Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2000) brings together a rich array of material, including newspaper articles and essays by leading scholars on both sides of this divisive national issue, to trace the history of affirmative action. The book also features excerpts from primary sources, including key legal cases, California's Proposition 209, and legislative documents that first established affirmative action policy in 1965.
The inspiration for the book came from last year's campus teach-in on affirmative action that was sponsored by the Affirmative Action Task Force of the Academic Senate. Crosby and VanDeVeer met at campus planning meetings for the teach-in, and the idea for the book was born.
"I took Faye up on her idea of publishing a book, and we turned the project around in less than a year, which is a phenomenal feat for an academic press," said VanDeVeer. "We all felt a sense of urgency about getting this information out to the public."
The unique faculty-staff collaboration was enhanced by the participation of psychology graduate students Sirinda Sincharoen and Pablo Mejia. "It was this diversity of talents and high-energy levels that made the book possible," said VanDeVeer, who has worked on campus since 1974. "It was very rewarding to me personally, because I've been acknowledged in a number of books over the years, but this is the first time my name has been on the cover. Faye insisted on that. I didn't know what a nice change that would be."
The collaboration reflects a core campus value, said Crosby, who joined UCSC in 1998. "On a more hierarchical campus, Cheryl's work would have been hidden work," she said. "This type of collaboration is part of what makes UCSC such a vibrant intellectual community."
Indeed, the editorial collaboration illustrates one of the benefits of affirmative action presented in the book, which is the pooling together of different perspectives made possible by diversity, said Crosby.
Since its inception, affirmative action has been a controversial policy, and passions run high on all sides. Sex, Race, & Merit is designed to enhance intelligent discussion of the issues, presenting all sides of the controversy and working to separate fact from fiction.
For starters, the editors present this definition of affirmative action:
- Affirmative action occurs whenever an organization goes out of its way to make sure that there is no discrimination against people of color, against white women, against people with disabilities, or against veterans.
Part of the passion that has engulfed affirmative action stems from the proactive component of the definition, said Crosby. "It's the notion that you need to go out of your way to create justice that makes people nervous," she said. "Affirmative action is an acknowledgment that the world is less fair than we think and hope in our hearts and minds."
That's also why business has been less resistant to affirmative action than academia, asserted Crosby. "People in business know things can go wrong and that you have to be very practical to reach your goals," she said. "They're more aware of that gap between reality and goals. Academics deal so much in the realm of ideas that we sometimes lose sight of the mismatch between ideas and reality."
The most powerful arguments against affirmative action, in Crosby's view, are that it contributes to "race politics" and that it is too easy to corrupt the implementation of affirmative action policies. "Affirmative action makes race so salient that it becomes hard for individuals to get beyond their awareness of each other's race," she said. "It also sounds good in theory, but without proper implementation, it can result in a diluted workforce or student body. When misused, you don't get the best person for the job, or the best student for your college."
Compelling arguments in favor of affirmative action are that it enhances the merits of any group by producing a broader pool of talented applicants. "When Yale University decided to admit women, the president said, 'Look, the test scores of our male applicants are dropping. We can either continue to accept lower-quality male students, or we can expand the pool to include women, and thereby get men with higher scores,'" described Crosby. "When you expand the pool, you get better a better quality of applicants."
Affirmative action also shifts the focus from individuals to teams, and when the goals of an organization are more clear, diverse teams are always better, said Crosby. "Affirmative action is a shortcut to diversity, and we know from research that diversified teams can outperform others," she said. "Imagine two baseball teams that share the same goal of winning. If one team has only good pitchers, they may share the same goal, but they'll never get there."
Successful affirmative action programs require institutional commitment and resources, noted Crosby, who has concluded that part of the controversy surrounding affirmative action is rooted in our country's democratic values.
"At the core of every democracy is tension between the rights of the individual and the rights of the collective. When do we say the collective good outweighs individual rights?" said Crosby. "In some ways, affirmative action is geared toward ensuring the minimum collective good, and it requires us to regulate our society to achieve that goal. Affirmative action challenges unbridled individualism, and that strikes at bedrock issues of how we structure our society."
The strength of Sex, Race, & Merit lies in its dispassionate presentation of the complexities that surround affirmative action, accomplished despite the editors' up-front support of affirmative action. "If people are going to argue about this, let's argue on the basis of information rather than misinformation," said Crosby.
