Race, Class, Merit, and Higher Education

For those who attended this past Saturday's discussion group on the topic of affirmative action, attending the John Hamilton Fulton Lecture to be held this Wednesday (April 30th) in Mead Chapel would be a great continuation of our dialogue.  Lani Guinier will be speaking.  She's the first tenured black female tenured professor at Harvard Law, and will  be speaking about "how wealth became merit, class became race, and college education became a gift from the poor to the rich" (adapted from the Institutional Planning and Diversity email).  

A quick wikipedia search tells me that Ms. Guinier has proposed to recast the affirmative action system into something she calls "confirmative action," which "ties diversity to admissions criteria for all students, whatever their race, gender, or ethnic background--including people of color, working-class whites, and even children of privilege."  It seems that she will employ the argument that diversity contributes value to universities, but I'm sure it will be more nuanced than that.  For those who attend, we'll need to summarize and discuss this talk at the next discussion group.  Just wanted to give everyone a heads up.