Silence at Boalt Hall: The Dismantling of Affirmative Action

Reviewed by Benjamin Baez

What is compelling and fresh about this book is the story about Boalt Hall. We learn how students of color (and some of their white allies) sought to save affirmative action, despite the resistance of many of Boalt Hall's faculty and administrators; about the decision by the California board of regents to eliminate affirmative action at the University of California; and about the passage in 1996 of Proposition 209, which barred the use of affirmative action programs in the public sector. Guerrero tells a credible and often poignant story, based primarily on interviews with administrators, faculty, and students. She is partial to the students' stories, but points out significant contradictions between what Boalt Hall faculty and administrators espoused and what they did. For example, they lamented the mandates laid down by the regents and Proposition 209, but also implemented them conservatively, failing to pursue creative ways to recruit promising applicants of color, even though such efforts were not prohibited. This story is made more credible by the fact that Guerrero was an active participant in the events at Boalt Hall, and more poignant by the fact that she was among the last beneficiaries of affirmative action at the law school.

The book's final chapter is somewhat disappointing, because it repeats what others have stated about the current political landscape of affirmative action, the importance of racial and ethnic diversity, and the need to de-emphasize the use of standardized tests. Guerrero is right in arguing that affirmative action is necessary because using traditional indicators of merit negatively affects underrepresented minorities. However, we should also question the ideas and practices that make affirmative action necessary in the first place. Thus, I question the rhetoric of limited admissions and the legitimacy of selectivity, especially at public institutions. I question the common acceptance of "merit" as something individuals possess (even when one seeks to expand its meaning beyond traditional indicators of quality) rather than as a concept used solely for the purposes of distributing social resources and legitimating the prevailing institutional arrangements of such distribution.

Indeed, when Guerrero strays from the story of Boalt Hall her arguments become weaker. For example, she sometimes falls into the trap of "conservative bashing"; blaming, say, political figures such as Ronald Reagan, Pete Wilson, and Ward Connerly for conservative racial trends in this country. Certainly these individuals played key roles in her story. As many proponents of affirmative action will agree, however, such blaming must be avoided because it distracts attention from the norms and practices that ensure the success of a few at the expense of many. Moreover, although bashing of conservatives can be good sport, it is ultimately contradictory, since Guerrero, along with many others, argues that racial injustice is not primarily attributable to individual actions but to unconscious norms and institutional practices. Thus, blaming conservatives seems much like resorting to the kind of individualism that we want to avoid. One must remember that discourses about color-blindness and merit, and institutional practices such as using test scores in admissions decisions, existed before Reagan, Connerly, and others like them came along. These discourses and practices should be the focus of progressive individuals. Guerrero acknowledges this fact when she explains how the rhetoric of merit works against racial justice, as well as when she argues against the use of standardized admissions tests. But the book would have been stronger had she given more careful thought to our tendency to blame particular individuals for what is happening to affirmative action.

What I found most interesting about this book was how Guerrero illustrates both the possibilities and the limitations of students' power to create institutional change. Her historical overview of events at Boalt Hall begins in the 1960s and highlights how important student protests have been at Berkeley. She shows how at Boalt Hall students kept affirmative action on the school's agenda despite the resistance of administrators and faculty. The students created some change but only after intense and relentless political action. Guerrero poignantly illustrates, however, the limitations of such power: students do not have the resources and cannot maintain the kind of energy necessary to effect serious institutional change. One gets the sense that when Guerrero's class graduated, what little attention had been paid to affirmative action stopped. I read the "silence" in the title of this book to refer not just to what appears to be the end of affirmative action at Boalt Hall, but also to the fact that students have little voice and ultimately can do little to change an administration and faculty that refuse to change.

Benjamin Baez is associate professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies at Georgia State University and chair of the AAUP's Committee on Historically Black Institutions and Scholars of Color.

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