I want to come out officially in favor of the UC-Berkeley Affirmative Action Plan because it’s not really “affirmative action,” aka race-based preferential treatment.
Yes, the school will aggressively recruit minority students, but not in a way that compromises its admissions standards for the sake of racial diversity. Instead, the school will provide privately funded financial aid for minority students. UC Berkeley sets another example, after University of Michigan, that universities can still achieve a diverse student body without practicing racially discriminatory affirmative action policy.
I have gained notoriety for the fact that I got into medical school by posing as black, something I have documented in my book Almost Black. I eventually dropped out of medical school and attended business school at UCLA Anderson, a renowned business school that does not practice affirmative action in admissions. I came to admire the University of California’s educational system and UC schools’ requirement not to consider race as a factor in admissions. Although I am skeptical about the President of the University of California Janet Napolitano’s view on affirmative action, I trust her to obey the law.
There is nothing wrong with supporting UC-Berkeley’s African American community as long as it does not involve discriminating against other groups of people.
