Georgetown admissions won’t ignore social history

Georgetown University’s President John J. DeGioia announced on Sept. 1 that the university developed a plan to atone for its historical participation in the slave trade. This plan includes revising the university’s approach to admissions to offer preferential treatment to descendants of the 272 slaves the university sold in 1838. Preferential treatment favoring the descendants of slaves will roughly equal the “boost” children and grandchildren of alumni receive, DeGioia claimed. The announcement has received wide attention in the wake of a report by The New York Times earlier this year, which detailed how the university survived financial hardship through participation in the slave trade exceeding that of any other elite education institution.

Georgetown’s plan ultimately divides itself from the traditional model of affirmative action, not through offering the utopic, ill-defined goal to establish a “diverse campus,” but by emphasizing the modern relevance of the past, and recognizing the role of minority students’ ancestries in their opportunities and academic careers as students. Additionally, through the admissions plan, the university directly and transparently assumes responsibility for past wrongdoings, bringing the history of African Americans back into the modern dialogue where it belongs.

In spite of this new approach, its overarching roots in racial justice render it vulnerable to the common arguments against affirmative action, a controversial issue in the wake of the Supreme Court’s June ruling favoring the University of Texas, Austin in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin. The decision upheld the right of universities to be conscious of race in admissions in order to foster diverse campuses. Relevant to Georgetown’s admissions plan, the holistic nature of college admissions is worth noting amid exaggerated accusations of “reverse racism.” Race is, after all, one of many factors ranging from academics, leadership and relevant extracurricular roles to students’ world experiences and backgrounds which admissions officers take into consideration. For example, admissions officers might note pervasive research revealing how students of color are more likely to face discrimination and harsher disciplinary action than white students, as early as elementary school.

Affirmative action is most often argued against through portraying it as “reverse racism,” but others also misleadingly present it as a detriment to minority students: Some claim that students of color admitted into prestigious schools will not be able to graduate. Alternatively, others argue race-based admissions’ potentially diverse effects on Asian-American students. This can sometimes be the case, but race cannot be understood as a disproportionately decisive factor in the admissions process.

Race-based admissions are advocated for progressives, but progressives have their own criticisms of the traditional model of affirmative action. It has important, positive intentions, but in terms of implementation, it is flawed in failing to set clear goals. The quintessential goal of affirmative action is often stated as the promotion of diverse campuses and yet, more often numbers rather than diverse communities are the actual result. Even amid statistically inclusive surroundings, students of similar backgrounds tend to naturally pool together into segregated, homogeneous communities, limiting authentic cultural exchange, which is crucial to higher education and preparation for the “real world.” Cultural exchange, after all, is not necessarily a consequence of creating a proportionally varied campus and in this sense, the goal of affirmative action is flawed in its lack of a clear definition of what constitutes a diverse campus, and what students should retain from this.

This is what makes Georgetown’s approach to race in admissions such a unique precedent, as it neatly executes a very clear goal of acknowledging, understanding, and taking responsibility for a crucial chapter in history that must never be forgotten. Cultural understandings and portrayals of slavery, segregation, the racist implications of the American criminal justice and mass incarceration systems and ongoing discrimination as ancient history create the illusion that these consequential societal constructs bear no effect on the opportunities of today’s black students versus those of today’s white students, whose families were never subjected to racial disenfranchisement. The extent to which historical racism has affected modern African-American communities was recently examined by the United Nations Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent in February, as it called for modern “reparations” in the form of investment into African-American communities affected by poverty.

Where traditional models of affirmative action emphasize proportionally diverse campuses, Georgetown sets a bold precedent by reminding a nation of the importance and relevance of its past to today’s students of color and, in that same vein, of the importance of taking responsibility for that past.