The hypocrisy of affirmative action

I remember going through the heinous college application process about a year and a half ago. As I struggled to figure out whether I should check off “Asian” or “White” on my application, I kept on thinking to myself, “Why does mentioning race even matter?”

After stating that I was an Asian-American female on my application to Smith College, a predominately white women’s school, I was stunned when the college gave me a $20,000 scholarship just for being a “minority of academic merit” — as if, for some reason, minorities weren’t supposed to be worthy of academic merit. In high school, I had a pretty good GPA, decent test scores and involvement in extracurricular activities, but then again, so did everyone else who applied to Smith.

The Supreme Court is about to hear Fisher v. the University of Texas at Austin, a case that may lead the court to interpret affirmative action as a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Affirmative action, which has the clear purpose of preventing racism and discrimination, might just be interpreted as racist itself.

Throughout history, minorities in this country have endured the insidious experience of being judged for their race and had to work hard to make their oppression end. However, when Martin Luther King Jr. spoke on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, he called for equality in America — not reverse racism.

As much as I appreciated getting a scholarship, receiving one based off of my racial status felt like a slap in the face. Obtaining a scholarship or acceptance into a school partially based off of racial background tells me society doesn’t think I can get accepted on my own. Because I am a “minority,” I somehow naturally lack the strength and academic talent of the majority. Because Smith referred to me as a minority, the admissions officers automatically assumed I had a tough background, in which I had been discriminated against and attacked. The funny thing is, I lived a perfect life. I lived in an upper-middle class household, I was rarely discriminated against and, honestly, I knew of many white males who had an entirely worse upbringing than I did. But they never got scholarships.

As the end of the year approaches, seniors are hearing back from graduate schools and employers. It’s just a matter of time before I’m in their shoes. But will deciding between marking myself as “Asian” or “White” factor into my acceptance into a law school or a business firm?

In 2003, the Supreme Court ruled that public colleges, like this university, can consider race as one of the factors for admission. But seeing how competitive this university has become, it would be better off having a racially blind admission and scholarship process. As much as our undergraduate admissions director states this could negatively affect students by not creating a diverse college experience, is our university really that diverse in the first place?

The university must understand that diversity cannot be socially engineered, as if you can just put a bunch of people of different ethnicities together and call your school “diverse.” Diversity is something that naturally happens on its own over time, whether we’re referring to racial diversity, intellectual diversity or religious diversity.

Essentially, affirmative action is a constitutional paradox. You are doing something unequal to ultimately create something that’s supposedly equal. As more students apply to this competitive school, the university should try to define each applicant for the incoming class based off of their academic merit and skills, not partially based off the color of their skin.

Caroline Carlson is a freshman government and politics and marketing major. She can be reached at carlson@umdbk.com.