affirmative action in theory and practice: letters on the Bakke case, September 22, 1977

(The following letters were sent to Nathaniel S. Colley of the NAACP and to William Coblentz of the Board of Regents of the University of California on the topic of Allan Bakke, a white medical student who charged that affirmative action preferences people of color and is therefore unconstitutional.)

 

 

 

To: Mr. Nathaniel S. Colley, Esquire

Western Regional Counsel

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

 

Dear Mr. Colley:

What will a Supreme Court dominated by the racist appointees of an imperial madman decide regarding its previous decision on Bakke? The answer is rhetorical. The real questions are whether form is more important than content; does a change in strategy negate a principle; how long will we allow ourselves to play their cruel and usual game?

It is obvious to those with eyes that our people, black people, have suffered, to this day from the first day of chattel slavery in this country, the most outrageous forms of barbarity set upon any single group of people in known history. It is evident that blacks in the United States have been denied—even to this day—by a white-dominated society the most fundamental of human rights. The question of having to reverse a mere trend is piteous in the face of turning over an entire institution of racism.

We must look to win. Do we want to win an argument on the right-ness of our plea or do we want to win the issue? We are right; but right in this country has usually spelled white. We deserve by decree our forty acres and two mules; but do we have them? We deserve a decent education; and since 1954, have there been any serious changes toward that? We must win any way we can. By any means necessary, pursuing a variety of courses.

The Bakke question is not complex. The answers are. Will we ask murderers not to kill? Will we ask racists to deny racism? Will we ask a Supreme Court, that has outraged the civilized world with its many antihuman decisions to become humane, understanding?

I urge, indeed, beg you, my Sisters and Brothers, to reconsider our posture in the Bakke case. If the Supreme Court decides on the issue as presented, it will surely find the victim guilty. It will set a nearly irreversible precedent to our disinterest. It will say with the rhetoric of “democratic racism” that to allow minority quotas in schools is a form of “reverse racism.” This tragic turnabout will destroy, within a few years, all programs of affirmative action in this country and devastate our little achievements toward full citizenship.

Enclosed is my letter to the University of California Board of Regents. As the letter indicates, only one in five whites even applied to the Davis program. If the program were applied as generally written, it is probable that only a few of them would have been admitted, perhaps not even Bakke himself. If a few whites had categorically fallen into the program, albeit. Better those few than what the Supreme Court can ultimately do: eliminate all or most blacks. With the removal of one concept, the race concept, from the program’s language, we will have our program. It will still be dominated by blacks. (Who else is more economically and educationally disadvantaged?) My letter to the Board of Regents is a desperate attempt to force the University of California to stop playing its game of saccharin sensitivity and let our people go to school.

Consider this position, please. Consider the withdrawal of the question before the Supreme Court on this basis, lest the inevitable answer make folly of our pathetic lot.

I humbly request your response.

 

All Power to the People, Huey P. Newton President Black Panther Party

 

 

 

To: Mr. William Coblentz, Chairman

The Board of Regents of the University of California

 

Dear Mr. Coblentz:

I write to urge immediate consideration by the University of California toward administering the special admissions program at the medical school of the Davis Campus in a manner consistent with the program’s stated purposes and thereby, hopefully, avoiding an opinion in the Bakke case now pending before the Supreme Court. I make this request after thoroughly reviewing the opinion of the California Supreme Court and the briefs filed with the United States Supreme Court, as well as after talking with many people concerned about the implications of a ruling either way in the Bakke case. It is my conclusion, for reasons I will explain, that the issue posed by the Bakke case—that is, the constitutionality of preferential racial quotas—is unnecessary and bitterly divisive to the university and the country at this time.

The twofold purpose of the special admissions program at the Davis medical school is, according to the University, (1) to equalize the opportunity for “educationally or economically disadvantaged” students to obtain a medical education, and (2) to increase the number of doctors who will practice in medically underserved areas. The first goal can be achieved without regard to race, even though a disproportionate number of educationally or economically disadvantaged applicants for medical school are likely to be nonwhite racial minorities. But it is beyond dispute that poor whites, whether they be migrant farmworkers, urban welfare beneficiaries, or Appalachian residents, fit within the category of “educationally or economically disadvantaged.” In fact, of the total number of students who applied for the special admissions program at Davis, one in five was white; although since 1969, none but racial minorities, unfortunately, were admitted. Indeed, the university did not even “challenge the trial court’s finding that applicants who are not members of a minority are barred from participation in the special admissions program.” Bakke v. Regents of The University of California, 18 C. 3d 34, 44 (1976). Thus, the practical application of the special admissions program fails to meet its own theoretical standard of assisting “educationally or economically disadvantaged” students; instead, it has obviously only focused on those “disadvantaged” who also happen to be minority. I believe this is a prime example of a program that—at least in terms of the lofty stated purpose of assisting the “disadvantaged”—is constitutional on its face, but not as applied.

Accordingly, I suggest that if the university has not already done so, it immediately administer the special admissions program consistent with its first stated goal and, without regard to race, inform the Court of this fact and urge it to dismiss the case as moot. This will avoid a ruling that is not only factually unnecessary, but puts in political and financial jeopardy numerous programs intended to benefit economically and educationally disadvantaged persons.

With respect to the second stated goal of the special admissions program—that is, increasing the number of doctors who will practice in medically underserved areas—the University can and ought to go further than it has to achieve this aim. Only if we assume that “educationally or economically disadvantaged” persons will practice in underserved areas upon graduation will this goal be achieved. They might, and then again they might not, desire to return to the poverty they can leave behind them after acquiring a medical education. To assure that the present imbalance of physicians throughout California is redressed, I propose that additional points or credits be given to applicants for medical school who will agree to practice in medically underserved areas for a specific period of time upon graduation. This principle is already well established and accepted by the public in similar situations. The military academies and even ROTC (at least the navy) conditioned the public subsidy of a college education upon later military service. Medical education is the most heavily subsidized of all educations, and it does not seem too oppressive to condition its receipt from those who opt for extra credit toward admissions upon their later service for pay in an underserved area. I recognize, of course, that this may raise yet another constitutional issue—the right of a public university to attach such a condition to admission. But I suggest this is politically a far healthier issue to litigate and publicly debate, and at least ought to be put to the test before we reach the divisive one of racial quotas.

The entire debate now raging over Bakke and the constitutionality of so-called benign racial classifications reminds me of a story told about my namesake, Huey P. Long. This story was told to me many times by my father, who was from Louisiana, but was also recounted by A. J. Liebling in The Earl of Louisiana. During one of his campaigns for reelection as governor, Huey was approached by a group of blacks who were concerned about the massive depression unemployment suffered by the black population of the state. They asked him to do something to relieve their plight. He told them he would but warned them they might not like the way he went about it. Thereupon, Huey began campaign stumping around the state, complaining to audiences that he had been shocked to see black orderlies handling white women patients in some of the state’s hospitals. He called for separate hospitals for blacks and, after getting reelected, embarked upon an ambitious and popularly supported construction program for black hospitals, which produced a substantial number of jobs for blacks. Judging by the results, Huey’s program was partly benign, an example of color consciousness; but judging by the rhetoric employed—or the means used—it was racist. Only history can judge whether, on balance, this effort of Huey P. Long’s to relieve black unemployment was more positive than negative.

History, and not the Court, ought to also judge the value of the special admissions program at the Davis medical school, especially since its purpose is not dependent upon a racial classification.

I have rarely been accused of shirking debate, especially since I believe in the necessity and inevitability of contradiction. See, for example, E. H. Erikson and H. P. Newton, In Search of Common Ground (1973). But the Bakke case does not represent a true or necessary contradiction; it is a contrived one that can and should be avoided in the public interest.

I am keenly aware of your personal commitment to public education and equal justice; therefore I am hopeful that you will give these thoughts your immediate attention, share them with the appropriate authorities, and inform the Court of the suggested change in the administration of the special admissions program at Davis that renders Bakke moot.

 

Respectfully, Huey P. Newton