Invisible Fences
When I was in 10th grade, my English teacher put a rather large emphasis on student-generated vocabulary acquisition. This means that our vocabulary quizzes were pulled from lists of words brought in by the class, defined on the spot by the teacher, and added to an ever-expanding dictionary contained in our notebooks, which we would then periodically be quizzed on. These quizzes were relatively simple, “define and use in a sentence-type” deals. Which brings me to the word umbrage.
When this word was brought to the cohort, our teacher defined it as “offense.” While this is a relatively simple definition, it does work. However, given this was a time slightly before the age of ever-present screens and differentiated education, I was only presented with this definition aurally and my brain heard “offense” and my mind’s eye saw “a fence.” Hence, when quiz time came, and I wrote all about hopping over the umbrage, and then read it out loud, everyone had a good laugh…except me. I was embarrassed, I felt horribly stupid, and I did not speak up again in class for a good long while. I did, however, learn in unforgettable detail what the word umbrage meant, and I also did get over the embarrassment of a mistake genuinely made and moved on.
However, there is definitely a world out there in the multiverse where I processed my negative emotions outward instead of inward, where I did not get over it. Rather, I committed myself to make the system bow to ME and not the other way around. Where I made it my life’s work to earn degree after degree, consolidate power into the highest position at Merriam-Webster and uniformly add “a fence” as a secondary…or maybe even the primary…definition of the word umbrage, all to eliminate a negative feeling from decades prior. And I’d do so with a smile on my face.
Having the Supreme Court finally label Affirmative Action unconstitutional, I’d imagine this is what Clarence Thomas is feeling: like his decades long crusade to make his younger self feel better, despite anything and anyone that got in his way, was finally over.
Thomas, you see, would not be where he is today without affirmative action…and he knows it. It is widely known that when he was admitted to Yale Law in 1971, they had a standing quota in place to ensure 10% of its incoming class were students of color. This puts Thomas in a bit of “Schrödinger’s Admissions Letter” situation: he will never truly know if he belonged at Yale Law, or if he was admitted only to meet that quota.
His privileged white classmates and the members of the upper class White aristocracy of which he sought to be a part after he graduated certainly had their theories about it…or rather, their one theory about it. To them, there was only one clear cut reason Thomas was there and, reportedly, they let him know it. This led Thomas to view his hard-earned degree as “virtually worthless” and he never, ever, got over that sense of embarrassment, that self-doubt, that shame that he felt. And he would do whatever he could to not feel that way anymore…even if it meant, as it turns out, relying on EVEN MORE forms of affirmative action to work his way up to the Supreme Court. (Thomas, after all, was appointed to replace Thurgood Marshall, who was himself appointed to the court by LBJ in the midst of the Civil Rights movement when purposefully appointing the country’s first Black justice can only be viewed as a form of affirmative action.) I’m sure Thomas views himself as the hero of this story: now every young Black man admitted to a prestigious program will surely know he was there because he deserved it, and, clearly, so would his classmates. Racism over, folks!
Except…no. The idea that this country has moved beyond the need for mandated admissions quotas to preserve equal opportunities for citizens of historically underserved communities is a complete farce. All this decision does is encourage institutions to build invisible fences instead of visible ones.
Allow me to explain.
For well over 300 years, the types of folks admitted to the most prestigious institutions of higher learning were always (not usually, always) A) white, B) Christian, C) wealthy, and D) male (not unlike the four other men and one woman who still checks the first three of those boxes who sided with Thomas on this decision.) Those individuals went on to achieve massive success at the highest echelons of society and, because of that, these schools gained a reputation as kingmakers — that the pathway to true success must pass through their halls. This was true before, during, and after the American Revolution (which Harvard itself predates by over 100 years). Of course, the fact that those folks were white, Christian, wealthy and male meant they would achieve success and be handed power even if they did not go to school AT ALL is important to note as well, but what was done was done and the mystique was solidified. But even as the country changed and women and minorities gained more social and political power, the admissions policies at these success factories did not change and they were VERY above board about it.
This is the visible fence: the doors to these schools and the paths to success they seemed to guarantee were locked to everyone save the progeny of the ruling class. The results of this fact are still present in our society today, not the least of which because schools like Howard and Brandeis STILL exist to provide opportunities to religious minorities and people of color that they are not always afforded at other schools.
And so…affirmative action. Spurred on by cultural shifts in the 1960s and 70s as a result of the Civil Rights movement, institutes of higher education made student diversity, or the appearance of it at least, a priority. In order to achieve this goal, they set admission quotas in order to knock down those fences. Now, in reality, many of these schools had minority quotas BEFORE affirmative action took hold, and the axis of those quotas just…shifted. Instead of “this is the number of *insert minority* we’ll allow in every year,” it became “this is the number of *insert minority* we MUST allow in every year.” This is why, for obvious reasons, one of the names for affirmative action is “positive discrimination.” (Obviously, this depends on who you ask.)
For a myriad of reasons, the existence of affirmative action policies like these are, on many levels, debatable. The results, however, are not: more people of color in higher education, and more people of color in the highest levels of society. That link is not circumstantial or fabricated, either. One absolutely led to the other. That is a net good, regardless of how it happened. But…this is America, and “regardless of how it happened” never passes muster when perceived slights against white folks are involved. From the moment these policies took hold, the backlash against them began.
The refrain was simple: “so you’re gonna tell me that if two identical candidates are up for one spot, and one is white and one is black, it’ll go to the black guy because he’s black? That’s not fair…THAT’S RACIST!” (Never mind that, again, the inverse of that statement was literally the written policy at these schools for HUNDREDS OF YEARS.) The ones singing this refrain were usually A) white, B) Christian, C) wealthy, and D) male (remember them?) — although, it should be noted, not always. Let’s translate that into what they really mean though: “before YOU PEOPLE were allowed in here, I would’ve snuck in under the wire with my mediocre grades but now those last few spots go to YOU.” Even decades on, this sentiment remained the underpinning of opposition to affirmative action…this idea that designating spots for minorities meant fewer spots for non-minorities. Is this fair? Maybe not. Does it solve a problem of fairness even more significant and historically vast, albeit sloppily? Yup. Affirmative action is a problem-causing solution to a much bigger problem, but it is a solution that worked for decades.
And yet, the dissenters’ minds would not be changed. “Ill-gotten gains,” they would call it. “Diversity for the sake of diversity.” “Un-American.” Now, on that last one, I would absolutely agree. Flipping the axis to subvert the archetype of the American “self-made man” that has NEVER been fully true is not a bad thing. The myth of American exceptionalism is that with enough hard work, anyone can achieve anything here; in other words, America is a meritocracy where the hard working receive the benefits of society and the lazy…do not. That’s all nice and fluffy in theory, but history has rarely shown that theory to be entirely accurate mostly because our society is, and has always been, pre-disposed to assign the monikers of “worthy” and “unworthy” without any consideration of merit whatsoever. That is the backbone of racist thought: that some people are better because of who they are, not what they have done, and nothing will ever change that. And if THAT is true, the entire idea of a meritocracy becomes fundamentally suspect. How can the country which draws arbitrary distinctions based on race WITHIN ITS OWN CONSTITUTION claim to be a true meritocracy? It can’t.
History is full of mediocre white people beating out accomplished people of color for positions of power for reasons that, it was claimed, were not based on race, but which tended to buckle under scrutiny. And when the truth was made plain…nothing happened. Because prioritizing white folks over people of color is, and has always been, the way things have been done in this country. Hence, prioritizing people of color over whites is, on a foundational level, EXTREMELY un-American…in the best way possible. But is a wrong that subverts a bigger wrong okay? Philosophically? Spiritually? Morally? Maybe. Legally? Apparently not.
The very idea of reparations is, by design, unequal. When someone goes to court and is commanded to make reparations for crimes they committed to the people against whom they committed those crimes, there is a transactional element to it. The criminal loses and the victim gains. When slavery was abolished by constitutional amendment in 1865, it made slavery a crime. We knew who the criminals were, and we knew who the victims were, all that was left was making it right and for eight years during Reconstruction, it looked as if making it right was actually possible. Black men were elected to state legislatures and congress alongside poor whites for the first time in the history of the Southern States. “Forty acres and a mule” were promised to the formerly-enslaved and, in many cases, that acreage came directly from the land owned by their former enslavers. Power was distributed, by force, to more people than the country had ever seen or tolerated. However, as Southern states were re-admitted to the Union and the Northern grip on the South began to loosen and eventually release, these reparations came into question.
“Ill-gotten gains,” they would call it. “Un-American.” “UNFAIR.” (UGH.)
Despite the fact that black folks were literally denied their fundamental freedom for hundreds of years, taking power (and, perhaps more importantly, land and money) and giving it explicitly to them because of their historic treatment was deemed a bridge too far. This was America, after all. If they wanted the reward, they had to work for it just like everyone else. (Even though their previous enslavers who were now their employers and landlords had never worked a day in their lives and continued to not do so.) The freedom to live or die based on your own merit, it seems, was reparation enough.
I won’t go into detail on the many, MANY ways Black Americans were wronged, slighted, shamed, killed, and otherwise othered between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the Civil Rights Act of 1965, but it’s hard not to see the parallels between the reparations intended for the formerly enslaved during Reconstruction and the idea of affirmative action in the 60s and 70s, and the logic used to ultimately eliminate both.
Progress in this country has always been resisted by those required to give up some of their (literal and figurative) power in order to facilitate that progress and “fairness” and even “equality” were always cited as the reason for going back to the way things were before. And here we are again, with the upper class praising this decision as a return to pure meritocracy, including the guy who paid someone else to take the SAT for him. And it SOUNDS like a good thing, right? Like isn’t it GOOD to know that everyone admitted to a prestigious university was admitted because of what they’ve done and not who they are? Of course it is!
Except…wait…this decision ONLY had to do with policies that used an applicant’s race as a factor in their admission? Not policies having to do with legacies? Or donor connections? Or athletes? Policies which disproportionately benefit folks who are *checks notes* A) white, B) Christian, C) wealthy, and D) male?
Huh, how about that.
Look, ultimately, schools are still free to make the admissions decisions they want to make and there are still plenty of ways to ensure diverse student bodies without locked in quotas and policies. But with affirmative action now outlawed, it’s not hard to envision the future that might be coming.
Picture this: every single rich white student not admitted to their school of choice losing their minds if even one student of color is admitted in their place. There are no guardrails anymore, nothing mandating diversity, but a Supreme Court decision which says, in so many words, that explicitly admitting students with diversity as a goal is illegal. This decision will empower white supremacists to turn over every stone looking for rule breakers. Every white student denied entry will be cause for investigation, accusation, and legal challenges and every person of color admitted will be caused to show their worth above and beyond what is expected of white students.
And so, universities will inevitably admit more mediocre white folks in order to avoid controversy. And the racist meritocracy will then signal what racist systems always do: that the reason folks of color aren’t admitted to school CAN ONLY MEAN they are not up to snuff. And thus will come the invisible fences — the see-thru walls that folks of color will slam into so an institution can avoid even the appearance of favoritism.
And THAT is something at which we should ALL take umbrage.
