|
|
AAMC Reporter: August 2008
More Battles Looming Over Affirmative Action
This November, votes in three states could continue
to erode the ability of public institutions, including
many medical schools, to employ race- and gender-based
hiring and admissions policies such as affirmative
action.
Arizona, Colorado, and Nebraska are the latest battlegrounds
in a bitter philosophical debate in which proponents
of the ballot initiatives assert that the time has come
for a race-neutral society, and opponents defend race-conscious
programs as crucial to maintaining diverse
academic and professional environments. The stakes
are high, as the issue's importance grows along with
the country's ballooning minority demographics. The issue has even surfaced in the presidential debate, with
presumed Republican candidate John McCain endorsing
the ballot initiative in his home state of Arizona, and presumed
Democratic candidate Barack Obama calling
such measures "divisive."
"Our nation is changing rapidly, and it is changing in
unimaginable ways," said AAMC Chief Diversity Officer
Charles Terrell. "One of these ways is that racial and ethnic
minorities are starting to make up more and more of
the population. And as these kinds of changes happen,
we need to find policies that benefit everyone without
hurting anyone else."
State ballot initiatives banning affirmative action in the
public sphere have already passed in California, Washington
state, and, most recently, Michigan. Health care
workforce researchers claim that student-body diversity
may decrease as a result of these initiatives—a significant
concern as studies show that racial minorities are more
likely to practice and thereby improve health access in
some of the nation's most vulnerable areas.
"I think these proposals would have a negative impact,"
said Rubens J. Pamies, M.D., vice chancellor for academic
affairs at the University of Nebraska Medical Center. "More minorities and diverse views in our classrooms
broaden our students' educational experiences. We're not
taking this lightly. We want to try and make sure this initiative
doesn't pass."
Earlier this year, the University of Nebraska Board of
Regents voted to oppose the ballot measure. Pamies said
the school is part of a local nonprofit group aimed at preventing
the initiative's passage. Several other local and
national organizations exist to combat ballot initiatives
and other measures viewed as anti-affirmative action.
One of these is the Health Professions for Diversity
Coalition, of which the AAMC is a member.
Ward Connerly, who spearheads the state ballot initiative
efforts as director of the American Civil Rights Initiative
(ACRI), said affirmative action in medical school admissions
is not the key to improving health care access.
Ward Connerly, director of the American Civil Rights Initiative, has helped
develop ballot initiatives banning race and
gender considerations in state hiring and
admissions practices.
|
|
"There might be some validity to the notion that black
physicians, for example, might be more likely to go into
black neighborhoods, but the overall goal should simply
be to make sure the community is served," Connerly said. "If you're concerned about health care in various communities,
give students a tuition break or some other race neutral
incentive that will encourage them to practice in
underserved areas. As it is, you're essentially saddling these
communities with doctors who needed preferential treatment
in order to be admitted to medical school."
University enrollment data are mixed. The University of
Michigan's 2007-08 application cycle—the first full cycle
since Michiganders voted to ban race and gender considerations
in state practices—revealed that applications
from underrepresented minorities (defined as black,
Latino, and Native American students) declined only 2
percent from last year.
However, the effects of these ballot initiatives may take
time to reveal themselves. For example, another recent
report, from the nonprofit Greenlining Institute, found
that at the University of California's (UC) five medical
school campuses, underrepresented minorities comprise
44 percent of California's population, but only 17.8 percent
of UC's 2007 entering medical school classes. In
recent years Latinos have experienced a 60 percent increase
in their numbers at UC medical schools, but those
gains do not keep pace with the overall rise in California's
Latino population, the study stated. Race-conscious hiring
and admissions policies have been illegal in California
since 1996—the longest time of any state.
Before the measures can be added to the state ballots this
November, proponents in each state must submit a certain
number of signatures from people who support the
initiative. These petitions have been submitted in each
state, but as of late July, Colorado activists were set to go
to court to challenge the validity of the signatures, with
Arizona and Nebraska potentially following suit.
Connerly, who believes the ballot initiatives will be passed
in all three states, said that society has now essentially rendered
practices like affirmative action obsolete.
"I think this is a turning point in the country," he said. "Hopefully, we are striving toward a place where race is
not a consideration. The country has to come to terms
with the relevance, or irrelevance, of race in our lives."
Connerly's opponents counter that his stance may be
obstructing a deeper dialogue.
"They use affirmative action to frighten people into
thinking that people are getting unfair advantages,"
Terrell said. "But if we as a nation really believe we're
fair and equitable in our judgments, then we can sit
down and determine what the measurements of access
should be to our institutions."
The two sides do not seem to agree on much, but there
could be general agreement that it is time to rethink how
medical schools evaluate prospective students. "Roadmap
to Diversity: Key Legal and Educational Policy Foundations
for Medical Schools" is a new AAMC report that
offers, among other things, instructions on evaluating students
based on broader personal and economic factors over
simpler demographic measurements like race or gender.
Cynthia E. Boyd, M.D., assistant professor and director of
medical staff operations at Rush Medical College of Rush
University Medical Center in Chicago and a member of
the AAMC's Minority Affairs Coordinating Committee,
said schools can actually improve diversity while focusing
less on purely racial considerations.
"I don't think affirmative action is the cure-all," Boyd
said. "Admissions committees should start to look at the
individuals, and the roads they've traveled to get to medical
school. The whole picture of a person is always more
telling than just a set of data."
—By Scott Harris
|
