Guinier: America Should Rethink Assumptions

Guinier: America Should Rethink Assumptions

BY ROBERT STANTON
Special to the Rice News

April 22, 1999

If America is to become a truly inclusive society in the 21st century, decision-makers
must abandon outmoded ways of thinking and develop new ways to solve problems,
a top civil rights leader said.

"We have made choices as a society that need to be exposed," Lani
Guinier, a Harvard Law School professor, said in her April 6 talk at Rice’s
Hamman Hall. "The challenge is to take the experience of people who have
been left out, underrepresented and marginalized and send them a signal that
we may need to rethink some of our conventional assumptions that we take for
granted."

If anyone knows about challenging assumptions, it’s Guinier, who rose to national
prominence in 1993 when President Clinton appointed her assistant attorney general
of civil rights, then abruptly withdrew the nomination in the face of strong
conservative criticism.

Guinier said she survived the "national embarrassment" by relying
on her network of allies for support and recalling her mother’s advice not to
internalize criticism.

Today, Guinier is persuading Americans to think outside the box to find solutions
to the critical problems facing the nation. She says decision-makers must find
better ways to educate and to sharpen Americans’ collective problem-solving
skills.

Guinier’s presentation was part of the Walter and Helen Hall Lecture series,
organized by the Department of Sociology. After the address Guinier signed copies
of her new book, "Lift Every Voice," which chronicles her struggles
and search for meaning in American life.

Guinier likens America’s current social and political situation to that of
the miner’s canary, the songbird that miners carried underground as a precaution
against a toxic atmosphere. If the bird died, the miners pulled out to avoid
becoming the next victims.

In Guinier’s view, America illustrates the "failure theory of success."
Too often, she explained, a premium is placed on academic, legal and social
success at the expense of critical problem-solving.

"The experience of people of color, the experience of women, of those
who have been left out, of those who have been targeted, of those who in some
instances have been disappointed, is the experience of the miner’s canary,"
said Guinier.

"Unfortunately, the way in which many of us have evaluated and looked
at the theory is that we have internalized the criticism," she said. "We
have blamed the canary."

Instead of blaming the victim, decision-makers should begin the process of
revamping the social, political and economic systems to embrace a more diverse
approach, said Guinier, the first African-American tenured professor at Harvard
Law School.

A case in point, Guinier said, was the landmark Hopwood vs. Texas case of 1994,
which effectively ended almost 20 years of affirmative action in the state.
The ruling by the Fifth Circuit Court has prompted schools throughout the nation
to reconsider admissions policies that take race into account.

"Part of the problem for Hopwood is there were also 140 white students
who had been admitted to the law school at the same time (plaintiff Cheryl)
Hopwood was rejected, and they had lower Texas index scores than she,"
Guinier said. "But nobody talks about that."

The reason, she added, is that "we have assumed that the color of the
canary (plaintiff) is significant&emdash;that there’s a problem with the
canary."

Guinier also points to gender differences in education. She noted that male
law school students tend to speak out more in class while women usually wait
until they have something important to say. As a result, men more often are
rewarded for their class participation than their female counterparts.

On the other hand, Guinier said, women tend to be better negotiators because
they are "willing to put their cards on the table," while men withhold
information they think will gain them a competitive advantage.

Guinier urged educators to take into account the gender differences and their
effects on higher education.

Chandler Davidson, chair of the Department of Sociology at Rice, said Guinier’s
visit "came at a very good time," noting her involvement in the national
debate on affirmative action.

"The single most important point she made is that we must look beyond
the narrow, quantitative measures of people’s ability when we’re thinking about
how to admit students to universities," Davidson said.

"Universities all over the country ought to be thinking of ways to deal
with what seems to be the imminent demise of affirmative action while maintaining
diversity of teaching styles," he added.