The recent US Supreme Court v Harvard University decision is a backwards step for racial equality and has echoes of our own treatment of Māori students
Opinion: Those who knew my late husband Rob Davidson when he turned 15 probably would not have predicted where his life would take him, given that was the day he left school.
By the time he died, among other things in his life, Rob had established a successful law firm and had been the chair of the Aranui Community Trust for 20 years.
So how did that happen when he left school on the first day he legally could?
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When Rob was in his late 30s he, along with nine others, was granted preferential entry to law school at Canterbury University on the basis they were ‘educationally disadvantaged’ and had the potential to make a significant contribution to the community they came from.
In Rob’s case this was the trade union movement, having become a lay union official when he was a train driver.
None of these 10 people needed the grades that were the prerequisite for everyone else being enrolled in the law school, and they were to be given additional tutorial support and mentoring to help them get through the first year or two.
The question I am compelled to ask is: is that unfair to someone who was not educationally disadvantaged or is it just tipping an uneven playing field towards someone who would never have even made it into law school if the rules had been the same?
Whenever I talk about this, I always remind people this was just the starting point – they all had to pass their exams to earn their degrees. Without preferential entry, the first rung of the ladder might not have been within reach, but they still had to climb to the top.
I remember Rob telling me what it was like. He had been determined to succeed, but it was tough not having completed his secondary education. He did a liberal studies course at the university before he enrolled, and that helped enormously.
However, his success came through sheer hard work and a real commitment to learning.
I know there were lecturers and students who felt their experience of university was enriched by the presence of someone who had lived another life beforehand – a life that had been very different from their own.
That’s another advantage of admitting students not just on the scores that rate their ability to pass exams, but on what makes up the whole person and what they could do with an education others pretty much take for granted.
US Supreme Court v Harvard
So where am I heading with this?
There has been a lot of debate around the US Supreme Court decision on the admissions policies of Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. The court, driven by its conservative supermajority, ended race-conscious admissions at universities across the country, saying they violated the US constitution’s equal protection clause.
The 14th amendment was designed to address the legacy of racial inequality in a society whose founding constitution explicitly provided for the slave trade, and where society was not and has never been colour blind.
Sadly, much of the debate has focused on an ill-conceived view of the purpose of the reference to race in what is a holistic admissions policy and a misguided view of the purpose of the equal protection clause.
None of the admissions policies had a quota for race. They simply recognised the value of diversity, measured in myriad ways.
Ignoring race ignores the remedial purpose of the 14th amendment. It was designed to address the legacy of racial inequality in a society whose founding constitution explicitly provided for the slave trade, and where society was not and has never been colour blind.
I know this is a constitutional debate involving American history, but is our own history so very different?
How well do we know our history of legally denying Māori students the education they needed to get to university?
No level playing field
I was born in 1960, the same year the Hunn Report into Māori Affairs came out. It reported a ‘statistical blackout’ in higher education for Māori, something that was not at all surprising when we realise Māori were being specifically educated for labouring and domestic roles. How many people know there were policies that deliberately deprived Māori of the subjects that would have enabled them to matriculate?
Even the college that enabled the first Māori to gain degrees was stopped from offering these courses.
This was no level playing field.
I have been reading the Supreme Court decision, but it is the dissenting judgments that contain for me the essence of the debate we ought to be having.
The majority judgment does not stand up to scrutiny – legally or otherwise. It is built on the pretence that the inclusion of race in a holistic admissions policy somehow disadvantages people who come from a background that has always been admitted to these universities.
These are the same universities that would not have allowed black students to enrol only two generations ago.
Their admissions policies allow them to bring together students with a range of unique attributes – talented athletes, artists, scientists, and musicians; students with diverse viewpoints and different political ideologies and academic interests; students who have struggled with different types of disabilities; students who are from various socio-economic backgrounds, and who understand different ways of life in various parts of the country.
They seek students who can offer different perspectives because of their identity – and that may include their race. Until now.
These admissions policies have increased the numbers of minorities on campus and that is purposeful, and constitutional, given the extent of the inter-generational disadvantage that is needed to be overcome.
It is the history of denial of access to opportunity that has led to systemic disadvantage. I am very happy that we find ways of breaking down those barriers, whether it’s race, or educational disadvantage, or both.
We need to know so much more about our history and how we may address some of the inter-generational disadvantages this has wrought.
And we need to think of the benefits and shared opportunities that come from increasing diversity in spheres that were not inclusive not so long ago.
We shouldn’t be fearful of sloping the playing field towards diversity. It is a benefit to us all.
