The Perils of "Cascading"

"Cascading" is the latest craze to hit college campuses. Like "revenue enhancement" in the world of taxation, the word artfully masks its otherwise blunt meaning. In the aftermath of Proposition 209 and other measures outlawing affirmative action in higher education, bright black and Latino high school graduates who once were destined for highly selective schools like the University of California at Berkeley, are "cascading" down to less rigorous institutions like UC Riverside. Translated, cascading means that minorities who once qualified the best higher education has to offer, should settle now for less. W.E.B. DuBois must be rolling over in his grave.

Those who countenance cascading say it\'s preferable to racial preferences. Advocates of affirmative action openly endorse the consideration of race among a variety of factors that are weighed in admissions decisions.

There\\\'s an enormous difference between preference and consideration. The former presupposes that a less qualified black or Latino candidate is admitted over a more highly qualified white applicant. In that schema, "qualified" is largely a function of one\\\'s SAT or ACT score.

Why shouldn\\\'t race be among the factors considered in deciding which students in the pool of demonstrably qualified students, all of whom are deemed qualified to do the work. For generations, highly selective colleges and universities have weighed a wide variety of factors and refused simply to pick by the numbers, namely SAT scores.

In other words, they have long heeded the warnings of the College Board and the Educational Testing Service, which design and administer the exam, that the SAT should be one of the factors, but by no means the sole determinant in admissions. Other attributes, such as high school grades, leadership, determination and creativity, should also be weighed heavily in deciding whom to admit.

Many members of minority groups have bitter stories to tell about having their abilities under-estimated based on standardized test scores. As a high school junior, I was selected to participate in highly selective summer program for students who were strong in math and science.

During the summer, the Defense Department contractor we worked for saw fit to subject us to a battery of academic assessments. I’ll never forget what they told me about my potential. I was informed that I probably would get to go to college, but that I should not count on getting into graduate or professional school. I was reminded of that unpromising appraisal when I received my LL.B. from Yale Law School.

By the way, I had butchered the law school admissions exam. Nevertheless the Dean of Admissions at Yale evidently detected enough potential to justify admitting me. Ironically, I finished in the bottom sixth of my class. Nothing to shout about, to be sure. But that means a number of my classmates finished below me, the bulk of whom probably had higher LSAT scores. Since there were only seven black students out of 150 in my class, this also means that the overwhelming majority of those below me were white. I achieved this ranking even though I worked about 20 hours a week to help support my wife and daughter.

It is profoundly troubling, even demeaning for the apologists for cascading to suggest that black and Latino students on the margins are better off attending less selective and demanding colleges. They\\\'ve become the latest accomplices in an ignoble tradition of telling young blacks to lower their sights.

I attended one of the best high schools in Washington, DC. Over the course of three years, I received just three Bs as semester marks. Every other grade was A. My SATs and achievement test scores were rather high. Yet my white guidance counselor advised me to apply to what might be considered a third-tier college. Fortunately my parents and I had the presence of mind to ignore this malevolent advice. I subsequently was admitted to Amherst and Harvard, among other top-rank schools.

Much the same thing happened to my eldest daughter in the early 1980s. She was advised to apply to a second-tier school and cautioned not to apply to Harvard because she’d have to work too hard to stay there. Happily she didn’t heed that advice either. In conversations with black parents and young people over the years, I’ve heard similar tales over and over and over.

Supporters of cascading argue that blacks and Latinos are better off with fewer acceptances, say, to the elite campuses of the UC system because more of them will then gravitate to less selective and rigorous campuses where their odds of graduating are higher. Yet as James Traub noted in his recent article in The New York Times Magazine, the non-completion rate for blacks at UC Riverside, one of those less selective schools, actually exceeds the rate at Berkeley.

Critics of affirmative action imply that minorities who don\\\'t finish the selective schools "on time" have failed to do so because they are over their heads academically. That\\\'s doubtless true of some students. But raw statistics seldom take account of other reasons that have little to do with academics, such as economic and family circumstances, difficulty adjusting to a hostile campus environment engendered in part by whites who question the legitimacy of black undergraduates or the simple need to mature.

Minorities should not be satisfied with less if we\\\'re capable of more. I\\\'ve yet to read a scholarly article suggesting that whites and Asian Americans should strive for less academically than they are capable of attaining. Why is this argument aimed only at African Americans and Latinos? The competition for admission to prestigious colleges and universities is more intense than ever. I see no sign that white and Asian-American parents are backing off, tempering their aspirations or foregoing any advantage they can gain (such as spending a small fortune on SAT tutorials) in order to position their children for admission. Why should minorities accept less than the best?

A century ago, W.E.B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington were embroiled in a running debate on much the same issue. Washington argued that blacks should strive for and be satisfied with vocational education, so that we\\\'d be self-reliant and upstanding citizens. DuBois set our sights higher. Push our young people into the most rigorous and prestigious institutions possible, he said, because that\\\'s where they\\\'ll acquire the tools and savoir f\\\'aire needed to swim with whites in America\\\'s swiftest currents.

The clash over cascading isn\\\'t an abstract debate over research methods and college dropout rates. It\\\'s a contest over vision and values that must be viewed in the larger historical context of how African Americans have been treated -- and continue to be treated -- in this country. The moral imperative, the census projections and, thus, time are on the side of those who believe equal opportunity and inclusion ought not be left to chance.