By Greg Moses
In the Spring of 2003, two months before the
Supreme Court announced its Grutter decision, US Secretary of Education Rod Paige was in Florida,
denouncing affirmative action in college admissions as “un-American.”
And only a week
after the Texas A&M University Regents announced their decision to bypass affirmative action in college
admissions, Secretary Paige was in Texas, not far from College Station, urging his audiences to stay
the course in educational reform. In a series of speeches delivered in Florida, Texas, and in front
of national conferences in Washington, DC, Secretary Paige has enunciated a hard-charging vision of
educational reform that adheres to so-called race-neutral strategies deployed under Governors Jeb and
George Bush. But he also employs images of racialized experience when he seeks to communicate the
persistence of racism and the strengths that have won great achievements in the face of racist
assaults.
“And I’ll just tell you that President Bush and I are of one mind on this,”
said the Secretary in Florida, shortly after he was introduced to a “Race Neutral Conference” by
Governor Jeb Bush, on April 28,
2003.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2003/04/04282003.html
“I have known
President Bush a long time and I can tell you that this is a man who believes that education is a civil
right, just like the right to vote or to be treated equally. He believes it’s the duty of our nation
to educate every child well, not just some of them.”
With fierce persistence, Secretary
Paige steers his remarks toward the President and his leadership, often repeating the proud claim that
within days of taking office, the President got started on the educational reform known as, “No Child
Left Behind.”
“Both he and I are committed to greater diversity and greater
opportunity for all Americans from all backgrounds and all walks of life,” said Paige at the Florida
conference. ”But we believe that we can–and we must–achieve these goals without resorting to methods
that divide, that perpetuate stereotypes, and that pit one group of Americans against another.”
Affirmative action in college admissions, argued the Secretary, is a cause of such
divisiveness.
“Think about it,” argued the Secretary. “If our goal is harmony and
diversity, then why would we use methods that are divisive, unfair and impossible to square with our
Constitution? The Michigan system unfairly rewards or penalizes prospective students based solely on
their race.”
In his references to “the Michigan system,” the Secretary makes no
distinction between the two cases being deliberated by the Supreme Court. Indeed, the Michigan
undergraduate point system was ruled unconstitutional. But in the case of Grutter and the Michigan Law
School, the Supreme Court’s majority decision, authored by Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, ruled that it
was indeed possible to square the Constitution with affirmative action in college
admissions.
“This [affirmative action in college admissions] is not only wrong; it’s
un-American,” declared the Secretary prior to the Supreme Court’s findings. “It is not right to fight
discrimination with discrimination. And that is what the Michigan system promotes.”
The
context of the Secretary’s accusations, his pre-emptive declarations, and the way he compares Texas and
Florida, help us to formulate possible reasons why, politically, the George Bush campus in Texas was so
quick to run around the Grutter ruling, back into the framework of “right” and “American” race-neutral
college admissions.
I call the Texas A&M University campus at College Station the George
Bush campus, because that is where the presidential library for the first President Bush is located,
and that is where the Dean of the George Bush School, a former assistant to President Bush and former
director of the CIA, was promoted to University President.
“If we are truly committed
to greater opportunity and diversity on our nation’s campuses, then we have the responsibility and the
obligation to be proactive,” said the Secretary last Spring. “And in this effort, we have a great ally
in President Bush.”
As it turns out, President Bush had pushed from very early in his
administration to get the Department of Education onto the race-neutral track of civil rights. Says
the Secretary of the President:
“At his insistence, the Department of Education took a
hard look at the potential for race-neutral admissions approaches to increase the number of minorities
on America’s college campuses….But the upshot is this: colleges don’t have to fall back on admissions
quotas and double standards to achieve racial diversity. Promising alternatives not only exist, they
are working.”
Secretary Paige argued that “percentage plans” in Texas, Florida, and
California, “are proving that you can achieve broad racial and economic diversity through such race-
neutral means as: guaranteeing admissions to top students from all high schools–wealthy and poor; and
considering a broad range of factors in admissions, including a student’s potential, life experiences
and economic obstacles.”
“The early data is heartening,” continued the Secretary. “It
suggests that many university doors have now opened to rural and low-income students who never before
had a prayer of attending those schools. Where once students from a small number of high schools held
the monopoly on elite colleges, students from low-income and low-performing schools are now winning
admission.”
But we should not ignore Secretary Paige’s careful use of the words “early
data.” The conclusion of the report, prepared by the Office for Civil Rights says plainly that, “No
single race-neutral program is a panacea. What is needed now is more research and discussion about the
varieties of race-neutral programs that might be employed in different settings.” When compared with
the widely-tested methods of affirmative action, the race-neutral movement has not yet produced a
convincing case for a wholesale policy
shift.
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/edlite-
raceneutralreport.html#_Toc32306620
Last December, with Texas A&M’s rejection of
affirmative action still fresh in the news, Secretary Paige was back in Texas, talking up the coming
revolution in education.
Speaking at Sam Houston State University, not very far down the
road from College Station, Texas, Secretary Paige delivered a fine “seize the moment” speech, fitting
for a winter commencement. He talked about dreamers who acted without hesitation. He talked about Sam
Houston and Mother Theresa, back to
back.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2003/12/12132003.html
Two days
later, the Secretary was speaking before the Greater Houston Partnership, an organization widely
credited with the city’s educational reforms. The Houston Independent School District had led the
nation for fourth-grade test scores among African American children. And Secretary Page told his
audience that it was the example of Houston that the President had in mind when he set out to build a
national policy for education.
In the words of Secretary Paige, the President’s reforms
in education are very much bound up with a concept of civil rights. He bluntly told his Texas audience
that educational challenges today are signs of persisting racism.
“I know, as someone
who grew up in rural Mississippi, that this situation is unjust and a latent vestige of racism. I know
that 50 years after Brown v Board of Education, we still have battles to fight before an equal
education is availab
le to all,” the Secretary told his Houston
audience.
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2003/12/12152003.h
tml
“And I
know this is a battle that we must win. No Child Left Behind is the logical next step in fostering
racial equality and equal opportunity. As Thurgood Marshall said in his oral argument before the
Supreme Court in the Brown case, ‘There is no way you can repay lost school years.’ I agree…no way!!!
There isn’t a form of compensation that makes up for lost time and for lost opportunities.”
The Secretary gave quite a pep talk to the Houston audience. He encouraged them to
continue the reforms they had started, “in the 1970s,” and he told them not to be deterred by the fact
that Houston education had become the target of a politically-charged debate.
Secretary
Paige makes a good point when he argues that political agendas often drive the analysis and
interpretation of facts. In the case of the President’s educational strategy, an agenda of race-
neutral civil rights is hard at work.
But here is the puzzle to consider. Why is the
Secretary himself so ambivalent about the value of race-neutral language? For example, when he is
speaking before the National Council of Negro Women (on the same day that the Texas A&M Regents
announced their race-neutral policy), Secretary Paige uses race-laden language with
exhuberance:
“There is a long, proud tradition of education in the African American
community. We have produced some of the greatest educators in history. Frederick Douglass and his
Sabbath Schools. W.E.B. DuBois and the “talented tenth.” Benjamin Elijah Mays opening his office door
to young Martin Luther King, Jr. Maya Angelou sharing thoughts about Langston Hughes. Wynton Marseilles
conducting master classes, and endlessly talking about John Coltrane and Louis Armstrong.”
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2003/12/12052003.html
Or speaking more
personally to the audience of black women, Secretary Paige recounted the example of his mother: “My
mother, who was a teacher, used to sternly tell me that there was no more powerful force on earth than
black women. She said that if you wanted to see physics in action, just turn African American women
lose on a problem. And then don’t get in the way!!! If they want change, it will happen!!!
“I noticed she always said that with my father in the room,” remarked the Secretary.
“And he nodded wisely…what else could he do?…she was right!!!”
In this speech, the
use of racialized language points to strength, power, and greatness.
In a January speech
to the American Enterprise Institute, however, Secretary Paige makes reference to a William Raspberry
column. For Raspberry, when black college students declare their support for affirmative action for
the rest of their lives or longer, they are declaring themselves inferior: “The implication is, that we
are permanently damaged goods, and in permanent need of special concessions.”
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/2004/01/01072004.html
To be sure, Paige
and Raspberry point to one of the conundrums of civil rights enforcement. In a land where well-
documented racism persists, there is a danger that common-sense references to race are also laden with
popular conceptions of inferiority. But a college student’s support of affirmative action need not be
based on presumptions of self-inferiority. Just as Paige celebrates the strength of black women, when
he is speaking to black women, affirmative action may be seen as a way of insisting that such strength
be brought to the table.
Texas Civil Rights Review 