Merit Means More Than Test Scores

Mark down 1996 as the year affirmative action made the national endangered species list. Some practices, like set-asides, have long been under legal and political siege. In defiance of the Supreme Court decision in the celebrated Bakke case, a federal appellate court in Texas has outlawed the use of race even to promote diversity.

I pray that the high court holds its ground by recognizing that inclusion is a compelling state interest. By 2050, census projections show, the United States will be scarcely more than half white. Thus the workers, managers and entrepreneurs who must carry the nation’s economy increasingly will come from the minority population. The better educated this population is, the more bounteous the benefits for all.

But if even the justices reverse themselves, that needn’t prove fatal for inclusion. The key in the case of higher education, for instance, is for colleges and universities to link their missions to society’s needs and then align their selection policies accordingly. Consider how Harvard University manages admissions. Not even Harvard states that its mission is to train students for the dean’s list next semester or to qualify all of them as Rhodes scholars upon graduation. As William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions, put it: “We are in the business of choosing leaders for the next century.”

Were I the president of a less selective, state-supported institution, I would formulate a more modest mission, perhaps something like: “We exist at the sufferance and with the support of taxpayers to equip our students to meet the myriad needs of our state and the broader society for capable workers, entrepreneurs and public servants in the many sectors and communities that comprise our society.”

How would this mission shape admissions? To begin with, it may be necessary under the new court rulings to abandon two-tier qualifications tracks. So let there be only one minimum threshold. Universities and colleges should set the qualifications bar for admission at a point that reliably predicts that all those situated above it will perform satisfactorily. The more selective and academically rigorous the college, the higher the threshold. This way, everyone in the candidate pool would be qualified without question and presumably capable of doing the work. Those doing the admitting could then choose candidates--of all ethnic and socioeconomic groups--based on demonstrated ability, broadly defined. And it would empower universities to say with a clear conscience that the highest test scores do not automatically entitle applicants to admission, because their mission is more broadly defined. The challenge then for parents and educators is to help our children clear the qualifications bar and to hoist as many of them as high above it as possible. Inclusion is the least we’re after; excellence in every realm of life is our ultimate objective.

Gatekeeping tests like the Scholastic Aptitude Test help spot those who will do well in the freshman year of college, but they don’t reliably predict who will prosper later in life. I’m reminded here of the experiences of an old college friend, who is white. After graduating from Amherst, he received an MBA from Columbia. The first Wall Street investment firm he worked for hired brilliant graduates of Harvard Business School and what my friend called “bright pluggers” like him from working-class backgrounds. The superstars examined every nuance of each assignment and couldn’t make quick recommendations. They were better suited to the classroom than the real world. The pluggers, however, plowed ahead and presented their analyses and options that the firm’s partners then were able to act upon in a timely fashion. The firm made bundles of money off the pluggers, but the scholars were less profitable. As he told me this, it dawned on him why I and others who defend affirmative action argue that merit isn’t solely defined by test scores.

Walter Shipley, CEO of the newly merged Chase/ Chemical Bank, had such unimpressive grades at Williams College that he wasn’t allowed to graduate; he concluded his studies elsewhere. In 1993, an unembarrassed Williams proudly reclaimed its prodigal alumnus by conferring on him a belated--and loftier--honorary degree.

In the rush to scuttle affirmative action in the name of merit, what folly it would be to strip universities of their ability to act based upon their valid understanding of what merit means in the real world.