On the recordDecember 19, 1997
The real issue here is, if you go back, there's lot of thought being given in the private schools and universities--and Governor Kean, who runs a great one, can talk about it--that a lot of these private universities are thinking, okay, now, what if the colleges, if all the public institutions end affirmative action in their admissions process and they don't really--the State doesn't come up with a comprehensive alternative they'd like, where you've got all the colleges maybe taking over public schools, in effect, in terms of their college prep, so you get to--you maintain the diversity of the student body population with non-race-based policies; then will the private institutions basically have to carry the burden of educating a more diverse student body--or unless we're going to resegregate higher education like we once had? So there's a reexamination about whether--I'm not saying that what you said is--how you described it, that that's the right way to do it, but there is a genuine, I think, reassessment about whether test scores plus grades should be the only predictor of success in college and success later, the only definer of merit, and whether we can assume that there is somehow an absolute character to that. As a matter of fact, the test scores were--[inaudible]--they have been a pretty good rough indicator. But you know, look at what Texas is doing. It's interesting when you look at Texas, I mean, it's this desperate attempt, I think--desperate sounds critical; I'm not being critical. But people are looking around and trying to find a way to honor America, be fair, and still have a society where everybody's got a chance. Keep in mind, go back to basketball and our view of the doctors in Iowa, the people have got to believe everybody had a chance. [Ms. Chavez stated that it was not good public policy to have different rules for different groups and that the agreed criteria must be equally applied to every individual.]
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