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Students Divided on Affirmative Action (STEVE GIEGERICH, 8/04/03, AP)

At The Associated Press' request, a dozen young people of varied backgrounds recently got together for an informal discussion about affirmative action. They were all attending the University of Maryland's Young Scholars Program, where exceptional high school students from around the country earn college credits. [...]

Joseph Green argued that, at most schools, race will be an issue only to a limited number of applicants who have fallen just short of a college's academic standards for admission.

"It only deals with a few people on the bubble and all it says to (both white and minority students) is that you should have worked harder,'' said Green, a white senior from Olney, Md.

Several minority students said they had already been debating internally whether to mention their race on college applications. As it happened, Camille Rivera-Garcia applied for a scholarship moments before joining the discussion.

When the application asked her ethnicity, Rivera-Garcia proudly filled in Hispanic. An hour later, she began having second thoughts.

"I'm thinking that maybe I'll change it,'' said Rivera-Garcia, a senior from Puerto Rico. "I want to be accepted for what I've accomplished, not just because I'm Hispanic.''

A black teenager, James Brounson, shared Rivera-Garcia's concern that white classmates in the future will automatically assume that the color of his skin got him into college.

It's a fascinating conversation, because even though they're basically just kids, they already know what's at stake here. Young Mr. Green seems to have completely failed to comprehend that what affirmative action does is take two students who are on the margins, one white and one minority, and tells the white they should have worked harder, but the minority that they didn't need to, that their ethnicity trumps their effort. It seems an odd message to send if we truly don't want race to define people. Posted by Orrin Judd at August 5, 2003 8:21 PM