為什麼美國的精英學校那麼「白」？

NATASHA WARIKOO, NADIRAH FARAH FOLEY

Who deserves to get an elite education?

誰配獲得精英教育？

That question is being debated in Massachusetts, where court papers argue over Harvard』s use of race in its 「holistic」 admissions process, and in New York City, where politicians are trying to increase the number of black and Latino students at top public high schools.

這個問題正在馬薩諸塞州和紐約辯論，在馬薩諸塞州，法院文件爭論哈佛大學在其「全面性」招生過程中考慮種族因素的做法；在紐約，政治人物正試圖增加頂尖公立高中的黑人和拉丁裔學生人數。

But the answer has always been obvious: only the elite.

但這個問題的答案一直顯而易見：只有精英階層。

While standards of merit shift over time, prominent schools and even their critics usually take for granted admissions systems that uphold the privileges of elite groups. In the United States, 「elites」 are mostly white people. That means Asian-Americans and underrepresented minorities — Latinos, Native Americans and African-Americans — are pitted against one another for coveted spots at elite schools.

雖然優秀的標準隨著時間的推移不斷變化，但知名學校，甚至它們的批評者，通常都認為維護精英特權的招生制度是理所當然的。在美國，「精英」主要是白人。這意味著亞裔美國人和未被充分代表的的少數族裔——拉丁美洲人、美國原住民人和非裔美國人——正在爭奪精英學校令人垂涎的位置。

This is patently clear in the Harvard case. A financial adviser named Edward Blum, who orchestrated Fisher v. Texas, the most recent Supreme Court case attacking affirmative action, is also behind the lawsuit against Harvard. But instead of alleging bias against whites, he and the plaintiffs use supposed anti-Asian bias as a way to undermine affirmative action for blacks and Latinos.

這在哈佛的事件中顯而易見。費希爾訴得克薩斯大學(Fisher v. Texas)案——這是最高法院攻擊平權行動的一個最新案例——由一位名叫愛德華·布盧姆(Edward Blum)的金融顧問策劃，他也是哈佛訴訟案的幕後人物。但是，他和原告並沒有指控偏向白人的行為，而是利用所謂的反亞裔偏見來破壞幫助黑人和拉丁裔的平權行動。

In doing so, however, they sidestep a more glaring inequality in admissions: Harvard applicants who are recruited athletes or children of alumni enjoy significant advantages, and these candidates are disproportionately white and well-off. However, neither the university nor Mr. Blum』s legal team address this point. In fact, Mr. Blum』s expert witness, the economist Peter Arcidiacono, excludes applicants in these 「special categories」 from his analysis.

然而，在這樣做的同時，他們避開了招生中更明顯的不平等：如果哈佛申請人是被招募的運動員或校友的孩子，他們會享受巨大的優勢，而且這些候選人中白人和富人佔比格外高。哈佛和布盧姆的法律團隊都沒有正視這一點。事實上，布盧姆的專家證人、經濟學家彼得·阿契達康諾(Peter Arcidiacono)將這些「特殊類別」的申請者排除在他的分析之外。

Instead, Mr. Blum and the plaintiffs claim that black and Latino applicants unfairly have a higher chance of admission than Asian and white applicants with the same academic record. But that』s a gross misunderstanding of how admissions policies work. When evaluating applications, Harvard takes into account many nonacademic qualities, like overcoming hardship, that are not easily captured by quantitative analyses.

相反，布盧姆和原告聲稱，黑人和拉丁裔申請人不公平地比擁有相同成績的亞洲和白人申請人獲得了更多入學機會。但這是對招生政策如何運作的嚴重誤解。在評估申請時，哈佛考慮了許多非學術的特質，比如克服困難的能力，這些都是定量分析不容易捕捉到的。

If Mr. Blum were really concerned with fairness, he would instead question the metrics for admissions decisions that often benefit white applicants: not only athletic recruiting and legacy preferences, but also less visible but still unbalanced considerations like geographic diversity, which favors whites because minorities in the United States are concentrated on the coasts.

如果布盧姆真的關心公平，他就會質疑錄取決定的衡量標準，這些標準通常會讓白人申請者受益：不僅是招收體育生和對校友子女的偏好，還有那些不那麼明顯但仍然失衡的考慮因素，比如地理多樣性，這有利於白人，因為美國的少數族裔集中在沿海地區。

Indeed, if race alone is removed as a factor in admissions, as Mr. Blum wants, the group that will gain the most might not be Asian-Americans, but whites.

事實上，如果像布盧姆所希望的那樣，取消種族作為錄取的一個因素，那麼獲益最多的群體可能不是亞裔美國人，而是白人。

Further down the East Coast, Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York has proposed revamping admissions at eight of the city』s 「specialized high schools.」 These eight sought-after schools admit students solely on the basis of a standardized test. The State Legislature passed a law in 1971 to deter efforts to open those schools to black New Yorkers who can』t afford test prep and don』t have the networks to help them navigate the admissions process.

在東海岸，紐約市長白思豪(Bill de Blasio)提議改造該市八所「特殊高中」的招生制度。這八所受歡迎的學校完全根據標準化考試的成績錄取學生。該州的立法機構於1971年通過了一項法律，以阻止這些學校對那些負擔不起備考費用、在招生過程中無人指點的紐約黑人敞開大門的努力。

Mr. de Blasio』s goal of making these elite schools more accessible to the two-thirds of the city』s public school students who are black or Latino is worthy of the fight necessary to change the law. But his proposal leaves out major changes that the city can make without state approval — changes that the new school chancellor, Richard Carranza, has already set in motion.

白思豪的目標是讓占該市公立高中三分之二的黑人或拉丁裔學生更容易進入這些精英學校，為了這個目標去努力改變法律是值得的。但他的提議忽略了該市在沒有得到州政府批准的情況下也可以做出的重大改變——該市新教育局局長理查德·卡蘭扎(Richard Carranza)已經開始著手進行這些改變。

This includes reforms to admissions into the one-third of city high schools that screen applicants, rather than consider any student interested in the school. Seventy-eight high schools give priority to students who live nearby. For example, whites are overrepresented in Manhattan』s affluent District 2』s desirable schools because admissions policies consider where a student lives. These selective schools educate more New York children than the specialized schools covered by Mr. de Blasio』s proposal.

這包括改革該市三分之一高中的招生制度，這些學校會篩選申請者，而不是考慮接受任何一個想進入那所學校的學生。有78所高中優先考慮住在附近的學生。例如，在曼哈頓富裕的第二區令人嚮往的學校中，白人比例過高，因為招生政策考慮到了學生的居住地。這些精英學校教育的紐約兒童人數遠超白思豪的提議所覆蓋的特殊學校。

But the mayor has put his weight behind only changes to the specialized high schools. Perhaps he』s afraid of angering white parents. As our colleagues Syed Ali and Margaret Chin have argued, it』s not a coincidence that Asian-American students are the most overrepresented at the specialized schools but wealthy whites are the more overrepresented group at these other schools.

但是市長只支持特殊高中的改革。或許他害怕激怒白人學生的父母。正如我們的同事賽義德·阿里(Syed Ali)和瑪格麗特·秦(Margaret Chin)所言，亞裔美國學生在特殊學校中的比例最高，但富裕的白人在其他精英學校中的比例更高，這並不是巧合。

In our highly unequal society, education systems have consistently found ways to favor elite, white applicants, whether it』s through slippery definitions of 「merit,」 giving added weight to athletes or children of alumni, or fighting to change admissions policies to schools in which Asians are more overrepresented rather than those where whites are.

在我們高度不平等的社會裡，教育體制一直設法照顧精英的、白人申請者，不管是通過對「優秀」的含糊定義，給運動員和校友子女額外優待，還是努力改變那些招收了更多亞裔的學校的招生政策，而非改變那些白人學生更多的學校。

Admissions policies continue to push people of color to the margins while ensuring that a quorum of white students always have a place. To move toward a more equitable system, we must reject efforts to sow dissent between minority communities, as Mr. Blum is doing.

招生政策繼續把有色人種推向邊緣，同時保證特定人數的白人學生總是有一席之地。為了走向一個更公正的制度，我們必須拒絕那些在少數族裔群體中製造分歧的努力，布盧姆正在做的就是那樣的事。

But we also must reject educational systems that, behind a supposed commitment to equity, quietly perpetuate the status quo. Instead of focusing on who from the margins is able to get in, we would do better to direct our attention to the fundamental ways selective admissions and educational institutions maintain the privileges of whiteness.

但我們也必須抗拒那種在所謂的公平承諾背後偷偷維護現狀的教育制度。與其關注哪些位於邊緣的人可以進入精英學校，更好的做法是把我們的注意力集中在選擇性的招生制度和教育機構如何從根本上維護白人特權的方式。

本文作者Natasha Warikoo是 「The Diversity Bargain: And Other Dilemmas of Race, Admissions, and Meritocracy at Elite Universities」一書的作者，也是哈佛大學教育學院的副教授，Nadirah Farah Foley是該學院的一名博士生。

翻譯：Ziyu

下載客戶端

安卓：全新安卓客戶端可通過Google Play下載安裝。

iOS：iOS客戶端版本更新，推出搜索等功能。

感謝各位讀者的關注和支持！

喜歡這篇文章嗎？立刻分享出去讓更多人知道吧！