Color and Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning the War over College Affirmative Action

272 Pages·2007·0.79 MB·English

by  Peter G. Schmidt

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Color and Money
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Color and Money
How Rich White Kids Are Winning
the War over College Affirmative Action
Peter Schmidt
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COLORANDMONEY
Copyright © Peter Schmidt, 2007.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner
whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied
in critical articles or reviews.
First published in 2007 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS.
Companies and representatives throughout the world.
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan
division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a
registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries.
Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries.
ISBN–13: 978-1-4039-7601-7
ISBN–10: 1-4039-7601-5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schmidt, Peter, 1964 Jan. 20–
Color and money : how rich white kids are winning the war over college affirmative
action / Peter Schmidt.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 1-4039-7601-5
1. Affirmative action programs in education—United States. 2. Discrimination in
higher education—United States. 3. Universities and colleges—Admission. I. Title.
LC213.52.S35 2007
379.2'6—dc22
2007007039
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Letra Libre, Inc.
First edition: August 2007
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America.
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Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction: A Celebration of the Few 1
1. Skimming the Top: How Money Rises Above Merit 13
2. Crossing Eight Mile: How the Rich Deny Education to the Poor 39
3. Putting Out Fires: The Origins of College Affirmative Action 65
4. The Golden Pipeline: Profiting from Preferences 87
5. Collegiate Divisions: The Volatile Mix on Campuses 97
6. Assault from the Right: Affirmative Action Under Attack 111
7. By Any Means Necessary: Black Voices Fight to Be Heard 131
8. Breaching Walls: The Uprising of the Excluded 141
9. The Diversity Dodge: Fuzzy Research to the Rescue 161
10. Supreme Reckoning: The Changing Legal Landscape 173
11. The Worried White House: Bush Faces an American Dilemma 181
12. Voices from on High: The Establishment Speaks 193
13. Affirmative Action Affirmed:
The Supreme Court Grants a Reprieve 203
14. The Struggle Continues: Democracy Rears Its Head 211
Epilogue 223
Notes 227
Index 253
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Dedication
Back in 1971, my father, Jim Schmidt, lost his fledgling political career to
our nation’s long struggle with racism. I have only vague memories of that
time, having been just seven. I recall my father had been a city commissioner
in my hometown of Birmingham, Michigan, where he and my uncle owned
an appliance store. I can still see myself scrawling “Vote for Schmidt” on a
poster board to try to help his reelection campaign. I remember my parents
taking late-night phone calls and looking rattled afterward. My father lost
the election badly, quit politics, and never discussed what had transpired.
In June 2004 my father died after years of being pulled away by
Alzheimer’s disease. As I researched his obituary, I finally learned how he had
come to be rejected by so much of the community he loved. His downfall
had been supporting a proposal by a nonprofit group, A Better Chance, to
let a few bright black kids from nearby Detroit live in a group house in our
community and attend well-regarded Birmingham public schools. Those
calls to our home had been from people voicing hatred, fear, and rage.
My father certainly had his flaws. But, at one key juncture, he stood up
for something he believed in, knowing full well it would turn people against
him. I’ll always regret not knowing that about him while he was around.
Dad, if you are out there, this book is for you. Help me do the right
thing.
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Acknowledgments
I am deeply indebted to several people whose generosity made this book
possible.
My agent, Sara Crowe, had faith in this book at times when I had lost
it and never hesitated to stand by me and my work. She was a joy to work
with, and I can’t thank her or her literary agency, Harvey Klinger Inc.,
enough.
This book had an editor who actually gave it a careful editing—a rarity
in the publishing world these days. Amanda Johnson Moon at Palgrave
Macmillan took a dense, overgrown manuscript and gently but resolutely in-
structed me where to prune with shears and where to swing an ax. I cursed
her at times but now realize I am in her debt—as, my reader, are you. Also
deserving my appreciation are her assistants, Emily Leithauser and Aashti
Bhartia, as well as Palgrave Macmillan and St. Martin’s Press, Palgrave
Macmillan production manager Donna Cherry, and attorney Peter Karanjia
of Davis Wright Tremaine.
I had the luxury of being able to take a sabbatical to write Color and
Money because The Chronicle of Higher Education is a humane workplace,
and I was able to acquire the background necessary for this book because
The Chronicle stands out in its commitment to authoritative, in-depth re-
porting. Its chairman, Corbin Gwaltney, deserves credit for caring deeply
about his employees and championing journalism’s highest professional and
ethical standards. Among others there, Jeffrey Selingo, Phil Semas, and Bill
Horne gave me support from above. Sara Hebel, Karin Fischer, and Stephen
Burd shared their journalistic insights and helped pick up the slack while I
was away. Sarah Hardesty Bray offered me invaluable guidance on author-
ship. Joan Waynick and Dana Sobyra assisted my research. Bob McGrath
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viii Color and Money
kept snapping my book-jacket photo until I looked presentable. Robert
Boggs, Daphne Sterling, Faye Phillips, Becky Pendergast, Gene Stamper,
Marissa Lopez-Rivera, Jeff Young, and David Glenn helped in various ways,
but it’s their encouragement and friendship I valued most.
Speaking of friends, I could not have made my trek through the dark
woods of authorship without Bruce Kluger, Danny Postel, Jim McNeill, and
Welch Suggs, who helped guide me as a fellow writer. Volunteering as care-
ful readers were Patrick Filbin, Mary Weiss, Christen Stumbo Leonard,
Michael Hartman, and Alene Hokenstad and her father, Terry. This book
also has made me even more thankful than I was before for Ray Yau and
Anne McGuire, Peter Mosley, Michelle Carroll, Gayle Filbin, Hugo Flores,
John Finnigan, Michelle Leonard, Erik and Pam Wertz, Lauren Brown,
Timothy Mayer, Tom Sullivan, Marc Damman, Michael and Beth Fitzsim-
mons, Jennifer Yachnin, and Mai Nguyen.
Much research points to the importance of mentors for young people,
and I have been greatly helped by several: Ben Guerrini at Holy Name,
Marcel Gagnon at Brother Rice, Donald Flesche at Kalamazoo College,
Theodor Veiter at the Association for the Study of the World Refugee Prob-
lem, Mike Wagner at the Detroit Free Press, and Gary Hoffman at Detroit
Monthly. Among other editors who were valuable influences were Owen
Eshenroder at the Ann Arbor News, Joe Strohmeyer and John Horan at the
Northern Virginia Daily, and Greg Chronister and Martha Matzke at Edu-
cation Week. I am eternally indebted to all.
Finally, I might never have been in the position to write this book with-
out parents who were willing to help put me through college. Thanks,
Mom.
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Introduction
A Celebration of the Few
Who should run our society?
Who should we trust to make our laws or preside over our courts? Who
should we be counting on to come up with tomorrow’s scientific break-
throughs or to steer the large corporations that drive our economy? Who
should decide when to send our nation’s sons and daughters off to war?
In modern American society, many of us assume—or, at least, desperately
hope—that the people in leading positions in government, business, and the
professions are our best and brightest. We acknowledge that there are excep-
tions, that luck and personal connections sometimes play a key role in deter-
mining who rises. But, perhaps more than at any point in American history,
we believe we live in a meritocracy that elevates those who are smart and work
hard—that the people at the top, for the most part, are our top people.
How do we decide who deserves such status? Generally, we rely on aca-
demic credentials. We entrust the task of identifying and training our best
and brightest to our elite higher education institutions—to the venerable
members of the Ivy League, to top research universities such as Stanford, to
“public ivies” like the University of Virginia, and to the scores of small-but-
solid liberal arts colleges that serve as feeders for our most prestigious med-
ical, law, and business schools. Our higher education system functions as a
great sorting machine, with prestigious colleges determining much of the
membership of our nation’s elite by sifting through huge stacks of applica-
tions from teenagers barely old enough to drive.