In the midst of all the current breast-beating about affirmative action, the Washington State Commission on African-American Affairs has found that data — provided by four-year institutions and compiled by the Washington State Office of Financial Management show that whites are the key beneficiaries of “special/alternative admission standards” and affirmative action affecting hiring at Washington States’s four-year schools. The beneficiaries include significant numbers of white men as well as white women.
This contradicts the public perception among many white Americans, even among some African Americans, of the effects of affirmative action.
The Commission’s findings clearly show that a broad schism exists between the public’s perceptions of affirmative action and the reality of affirmative action as practiced in both student enrollment and hiring at Washington State public four-year schools.
In keeping with the restrictions of the Supreme Court decision in the Bakke case, Washington state’s higher education system is devoid of any policies or programs that establish racial quotas for student enrollment. in April 1988, the Washington State Higher Education Coordinating Board (HECB) approved minimum standards for freshmen admissions to public baccalaureate institutions. The primary criterion for admission is an indexed combination of high school grade point average, standardized test scores, and high school course completion.
Alternative admission standards allow admission of students whose combined indices of grades and standardized scores do not meet regular admission standards as defined by the HECB.
HECB policy limits the percentage of admissions that can be made under the alternative admission standards. No more than 15 percent of freshmen can be admitted using the alternative standard. Additionally, HECB policy was originally contemplated as an affirmative action tool to encourage increased enrollment of students of color.
Special/alternative admission standards have long been derided by critics of affirmative action as a “lowering of standards” which diminishes academic excellence and limits opportunities for those who are better qualified. To the degree that alternative admission standards can be viewed as a lowering of the bar, that bar is being jumped far more often by whites than by African Americans in Washington’s four-year schools.
