(Re)Claiming History as a Social Justice Project: Challenging Ahistorical Narratives Against Race-Conscious Practices

• In Event: Marriott Roundtable Session 27
  In Roundtable Session: Historicizing for Racial Justice: Reform Schools, Student Activism, and Affirmative Action

Abstract

Critical race legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw (2007) argued that “what most people think they know about affirmative action isn’t right, and what is right about affirmative action most people don’t know” (p. 131). Indeed, since its inception, affirmative action has remained among the most maligned and misunderstood social policies in both public and legal debates surrounding educational opportunity, especially concerning postsecondary access (Chemerinsky, 1996). Too often, these debates are dehistoricized (Crenshaw, 2007; Ledesma, 2012; Torres, 2015), resulting in (at best) simplistic and (at worst) disingenuous (mis)characterizations. Moreover, the policy is described very differently by supporters and detractors (Ledesma, 2012). Within college admissions, those who seek to uphold affirmative action suggest it is an indispensable tool in the quest for educational equity and social justice. Opponents see it as nothing more than a blatant—even illegal—attempt to privilege race above all else in granting admission to the nation’s most sought-after postsecondary institutions (e.g., Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 1997).
Confusion about affirmative action begins with misunderstandings about what the policy is and is not (Holloway, 1989). The policy can be traced back to Executive Order 11246, signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 in an effort to promote civil liberties and civil rights for those historically shut out of employment and educational opportunities. Citing the American Psychological Association, Richardson and Lancendorfer (2004) defined affirmative action as “a catchall phrase referring to laws, customs, and social policies intended to alleviate the types of discrimination that limit opportunities for a variety of demographic groups in various social institutions” (p. 76). In theory, affirmative action has sought to “mitigate the current blindnesses of institutions and decisionmakers” (Young 1990, p. 198) and “to [extend] a hand to eminently qualified people previously held back by bias” (Cose, 1997, as cited in Tierney & Chung, 2002, p. 271). In practice, it has allowed for race to be just one factor among many in holistic reviews of applicants for college admissions (Wright & Garces, 2018), and it wields less power than other more deeply institutionalized but less scrutinized affirmative action practices, such as legacy admissions (Oppenheimer, Onwuachi-Willig, & Leong, 2019).
The purpose of this paper is to undertake a critical analysis of the sustained ahistorical attacks on race-conscious policies since their inception beginning with the 1865 Freedman’s Bureau (Oakes, 1979). The author examines how such attacks both embolden calls for prematurely ending race-conscious practices and contribute to the maintenance of white supremacy, a practice which has only heightened in today’s post-truth politics (Peters, 2017) environment.

Author

• María C. Ledesma, San Jose State University