Centuries of neglect cannot be overlooked
We must defend affirmative action at Oberlin and beyond
Diversity at Oberlin is a myth
Racial, economic, and gender concerns not "irrelevant"

I was interested to read Professor Cruz's letter in the Review about the need to place purely academic capabilities above considerations of ethnicity or social/demographic background in recruitment/admissions decisions.

I agree that Oberlin and other institutes of higher-learning are, first and foremost, academic institutions. In that context, one of our missions should certainly be to recruit the most highly academically qualified applicants. However, one cannot mask the effect of centuries of discrimination and neglect on certain sections of society. While I am no expert on genetics and their role in determining certain races' intellectual capacity (if such a thing exists), I can-as can any human being with open eyes and an iota of conscience-certainly see the effect of discrimination and neglect in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods where life has been reduced to a raw, naked battle for survival, in homes where 12-year-olds have been forced to become little bodies in an effort to survive. For the few who do manage to break out of such vicious circumstances, it is only to attend underfunded, understaffed inner-city schools where playgrounds have become battlegrounds. The sad thing, as Professor Cruz may know, is that such phenomena are not limited to the US. In both the Philippines (our common residence) and India (my country of origin) similar wretched scenes are all too common. There, facilities are even more limited than those available in the US. Many rural districts in India barely have accessible schools or clinics. People spend their lives in back-breaking labor, in bondage or what in Western terms are sweatshops but at home constitute a princely source of income.

Children such as these may have the brightest minds the world has ever know, but never get a chance to use them. We have an obligation to allocate resources to them. Should such allocations come in the form of preferential treatment and quotas at institutions of higher-learning or in relatively high-level jobs? I would gamble that anyone-regardless of background-who has had weak schooling and a difficult childhood would find intensely competitive atmospheres with social structures very different from their own difficult to handle. Therefore, I would argue that we need to do more in our schools and on the streets, creating better schools and better conditions so that our children can have the opportunities they need from day one.

I apologize for the length of this letter, but felt it best to provide a complete view.

Thank you.

-Jaya S. Bajpai, College sophomore

Anyone who acknowledges that there is inequality in our society should be outraged by Yolanda Cruz's letter to the editor in last week's Oberlin Review. Her viewpoint is representative of a nation-wide attack on affirmative action and other gains of the Civil Rights movement, an attack that attempts to maintain and deepen the inequality of a system in which the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and quality education is available only to a chosen few.

"Diversity is an interesting, but irrelevant, consideration when the criterion for participation is academic preparedness," Cruz says. If diversity is to be discounted in admissions in favor of a universal standard of academic preparedness, this implies either that inequality does not exist (and does not affect educational opportunity) among different economic and racial groups, or that inequality does exist, but that fighting it is unimportant.

We don't have to look too hard to see that the quality of education available to a person in this country is inherently linked to his/her racial and economic background. Public schools are more segregated today than they were in the early 1970s, when the Supreme Court mandated desegregation of schools. Inner-city public schools, which have a disproportionately large population of students of color, receive a fraction of the funding of their suburban counteracts. Wealthy parents are increasingly choosing to send their children to costly private schools where class sizes are small and resources are many, while public schools in working class neighborhoods are disregarded by politicians and left overcrowded, in disrepair and without bare essentials such as books and chairs. Clearly, this system "prepares" some students for admission to college and the majority for low-paying, unfulfilling jobs. Those who make it to the college admissions process are then faced with a standard that is set up to favor certain groups over others. The SAT, for example, has been shown to be a racially biased test. In our society, a standard of "academic preparedness" that pretends to be objective is nothing but nice sounding rhetoric which serves to maintain a racist and classist system.

We should not be fooled into thinking that people like Yolanda Cruz are blind to this reality. Education is a battleground and we must take sides. Ms. Cruz has taken the side of attacking the right of all people to quality education. We must fight to defend and extend this right. All over the country, students and workers are uniting in an active struggle to oppose efforts to deny equal opportunity in education and the workplace. In California, where the anti-affirmative action Proposition 209 was passed last year, students at UC Berkeley's Boalt Law School staged a massive protest, outraged that the new law had resulted in the presence of only one black student in this year's entering class. More than 10,000 people marched in the state capitol on Oct. 27 to defend affirmative action, immigrant rights and bilingual education. This is what it will take to turn the tide. The students, faculty and administration at Oberlin have a choice: do we consent to the right wing assault (either by actively supporting it or by remaining silent) or do we make Oberlin a part of the organized fight against it?

Yolanda Cruz has made her position clear. The sarcastic and hostile tone of her letter trivializes the very real oppression that makes affirmative action necessary. This is not a matter of abstract principles; it is a matter of real people's lives. We must see her letter for what it is; racist right wing rhetoric thinly disguised in academic language.

We need to build a struggle to support diversity at Oberlin College through public forums, petitioning, and demonstrations. Get involved with other groups, like the coalition that meets at Afrikan Heritage House, engaged in this fight. Hold the administration accountable for promises they make about representation. Be an active and vocal advocate for affirmative action!

-Felicia Mello, College sophomore and Peter Olson, College sophomore

I am writing in response to Professor Cruz's letter about diversity. I do not wish this to be seen as a personal attack upon her. I believe she has a very different understanding of diversity and the purposes that it serves, than I do.

Diversity is not an important factor "when the criterion for participation is academic preparedness." However, how standards of "academic preparedness" are set greatly affects who is considered prepared.

How ever much we may wish it to be, Oberlin cannot be"unflinchingly clear" in its selection of those who are prepared. The criteria for academic preparedness are not clear. Those "few politically salient criteria" of diversity are attempts to balance for systematic inequalities that are definitively present. SAT scores have a great deal to do with income levels, the quality of your high school education has a good deal to do with what neighborhood you happen to live in; both have quite a bit to do with race. We do not have a clear way of immediately and definitively spotting aptitude.

Oberlin's mission is "the education of all academically qualified people regardless of ... etc." I am sure there are a great many academically qualified people out there. By which I mean that they could participate in, contribute to and benefit from an Oberlin education. It would be wonderful if such things were easily conveyed by scores and grade point averages (which are the only "unflinchingly clear" forms of measurement I can think of), and if such criteria were not in some way influenced by systematic inequalities. If this were true we should have, at the least, an application turnout that in some way reflected the population percentages in the US. We do not.

I firmly believe that there is a greater number of qualified students of color, lower income students, and first-generation students, than enroll here. They aren't, and won't be, here because of many reasons. Maybe they are not targeted for recruitment, or they do not apply because they don't know how our current system of non-need blind admissions will affect their acceptance, or perhaps they have heard too much about lack of support on this campus.

Yes, that is a phrase that has been used a lot lately, and no, not everyone has the same meaning behind it. Here are some cases where what I consider support is lacking, maybe you will understand what I mean by support better by example. When those academically qualified individuals who leave because they have had their financial aid packages reduced each year (although that officially isn't supposed to happen), or because they are tired of being the only person of color, or low-income student, or first-generation student, in their classes, or they get burnt out struggling to overcome structures that impede their access to education that is meaningful to them. These students leave Oberlin because of its inability to provide access for them to an education. This inability stems specifically from the very things Oberlin is supposed to educate regardless of.

These are the reasons that I see for a call for diversity as a priority in enrollment (and in hiring). Diversity is the term that most often covers for a call for critical mass. A critical mass, is a mass whose significant numbers can push into effect the changes needed. Then, just maybe, those who are here won't have to fight for the same causes year after year. And maybe they will be able to get enough support, either from each other or institutionally, to get through the day to day discrimination, frustration and struggles. And then, finally, these students who are academically qualified will be able to turn their attention and energy to that education we're supposed to be getting.

-Yvonne C. Doble, College junior