Affirmative action is back. Last January, some of Spike’s Lees comments during his All-School meeting speech spurred an intense, but poorly informed discussion about affirmative action. The arguments articulated by students were written without knowing all the facts, understanding all the arguments and being aware of all the nuances of the discussion. After the controversy dissipated, many students retained their original opinions, but even those staunchly opposed could agree on one thing: they needed more information. Was Dr. Kennedy the expert we need to get the facts, the arguments, a sense of the nuances? Will this round of discussion be better informed, and yield meaningful conclusions? Certainly we learned something about the affirmative action discussion from Dr. Kennedy. He outlined the basic arguments against race-based affirmative action: it discriminates against “unpreferred” candidates, causes racial resentment, undermines an ideal meritocracy, and ignores socio-economic disparity. Of these four arguments against race-based affirmative action, he offered a counter argument against only the final issue, although he noted that counter arguments for each exist. These observations alone about the different possible arguments are immensely helpful to the affirmative action discussion on Andover campus. Students now have a framework, a system, in which to discuss affirmative. They can talk about specific arguments and counter-arguments, without being mired in a sea of disorganized controversy. The second part of Dr. Kennedy’s speech, his counter arguments, raised other important basic ideas about affirmative, that until now have been poorly defined on campus. Is affirmative action a response to previous racial injustice, or a way to rectify current injustices? This is a critical question that lies at the heart of any affirmative action discussion. Dr. Kennedy posited that the purpose of affirmative action was to balance racial injustice. This assumption was critical in his argument against class-based affirmative action. Is it enough? Is a clear categorization of arguments against affirmative action, and an example of a question critical to the discussion, enough for students to form coherent, relevant arguments? No. Dr. Kennedy’s All-School meeting speech was an important step towards heightening the level of the discussion, but it is still not enough. Students still need more exposure to more varied arguments, and still need facts, statistics and other types of raw data to develop informed opinions. So will the second round be better than the first? Yes, but only a little. The school still has yet to invite an anti-affirmative action speaker, an important step in fully informing the students. Intellectual leaders on campus, teacher and other faculty, need to keep the students talking. Last year, the controversy around affirmative action subsided only a few weeks after Spike Lee’s visit. Consequently, little progress has been made in reaching meaningful conclusions. Teachers, administration – one speaker is not enough. The ideas presented by Dr. Kennedy represent a huge step in the discussion, but there is much progress to be made. An anti-affirmative action speaker would round out the discussion. Teachers should keep the affirmative action dialogue alive to ensure that the students do not forget what they learned this Wednesday between now and the next speaker. The affirmative action discussion is back, and let’s hope it is here to stay. This editorial represents the views of the Editorial Board CXXXIII.
