The Chronicle of Higher Education
By Carson Byrd, Wornie Reed, and Ellington Graves
September 30, 2011
The election of Barack Obama seemed a harbinger of a postracial society, a powerful embodiment of a new, colorblind ethos, providing evidence that America had finally shed its racial baggage. For many people, the Obamas illustrated the argument that middle-class and affluent blacks had no need of race-based consideration and should be judged without regard to race.
That argument is not new, of course. The passage of legislation during and after the civil-rights era led to similar rhetoric, and recent decades have seen growing support for a class-based alternative to affirmative action in college admissions. We do not deny the injustice perpetuated by legacy admissions, nor do we dismiss the need for socioeconomic diversity in higher education. But conflating class and race will not solve the problem of racial inequality. Low socioeconomic status has not been the basis for systematic exclusion of students from higher education; race and ethnicity have.
Full Story: http://chronicle.com/article/Class-Based-Policies-Are-Not-a/129097/?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en (Subscription)
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