This year was a particularly difficult year for college applicants; universities around the country received thousands of applications more than normal and Stanford University only accepted five percent of their 42,000 applicants. Although it was common to hear Ladue High School students complaining about getting rejected from elite universities, most of them calmly accepted the situation and decided to attend other universities instead. However, Brooke Kimbrough, an African-American senior from Michigan, is refusing to accept her rejection from the University of Michigan; rather, she held a news conference at the campus in an attempt to change the university’s decision.
“I fervently believe in black equality,” Kimbrough said. “I am appealing my application not only for myself, but for other black and minority students who deserve the equal opportunity to go to the best public university in the nation.”
Kimbrough is absolutely correct; every student does deserve the same opportunity to go to any university in the nation. So I decided to take a quick look at Kimbrough’s credentials to see if she was qualified to attend the University of Michigan.
Kimbrough’s ACT Score: 23, 68th percentile
University of Michigan average ACT Score: 30, 95th percentile
Kimbrough’s GPA: 3.6
University of Michigan average GPA: 3.85
Of course, standardized test scores and grades aren’t the only things that should be considered in the college admissions process. However, Kimbrough is so far below the University of Michigan’s normal standards that she would probably not succeed if she did attend. Kimbrough clearly doesn’t want an equal opportunity; she wants affirmative action.
Affirmative action is a system that allows universities to provide educational opportunities to disadvantaged minorities. It is also an inherently unequal system that legalizes discrimination; it has been protected since the Supreme Court’s decision in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke. In that case, a badly divided Supreme Court agreed that racial quotas were unconstitutional, but that the use of race in higher education was permissible.
However, the University of Michigan has not been allowed to consider race in their admissions process since 60 percent of Michigan voters approved a ban on affirmative action in 2006; the Supreme Court just recently upheld this ban on Tuesday. Since that time, the percentage of black students at the University of Michigan has decreased sharply. However, the purpose of a college is not to promote diversity; the purpose of a college is to educate the most qualified students they can. Kimbrough has no right to complain about equality when her application is clearly inferior to her competitors.
