This is what I consider affirmative action. If you want to help black students don't condescend by lowering your standards, be affirmative. Give money to the UNCF, volunteer to help in poor schools, look for kids to mentor, especially kids who haven't been given opportunities commensurate with their talents.


I find the Michigan solution insulting, and the reasons for it, little more sensitive than slavery. Diversity has come to mean a kind of reparations when people say that to give white kids a good liberal arts education, we have to have more black and hispanic students, as though they were campus amenities.


What blacks need is genuine respect and well-founded self-respect, but they won't get that from lowering the standards for achievement. We should be working harder to improve schools in poor communities, and I don't mean buying them more computers. I mean that they should be made safe from gangs and violence, have rigorous testing to identify what needs they have and better teaching. Research and common sense suggest that families have more to do with a child's success than any other factor. Maybe we should be sponsoring training for poor parents to help them understand the importance of education for their kids. We should be encouraging marriage and family formation for single parents. We should be more concerned as individuals with others. Our society seems bent on alienating us from one another when what we need is more reaching out and caring.

I'd like to see something like the PEF for kids across the country, and more programs to lay the foundation for greater achievement among poor, minority children and families. Anything else is a meaningless gesture.