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Research by Susan Welch, professor of political science
and dean of the College of the Liberal Arts,
shows virtually no change in enrollments at U.S. medical and law schools
as a result of the
1978 Bakke decision, which struck down quotas but approved the use of race
as a factor in
admission policies at colleges and universities.
Photo: Greg Grieco
By Vicki Fong
Public Information
The legal heart of today's affirmative action policies, the Bakke decision, did not generate dramatic results as claimed by supporters and detractors. In a recent study, two political scientists argue that the 1978 legal ruling did not significantly increase or decrease minority enrollments at U.S. medical and law schools.
The authors question whether the energy spent debating affirmative action might be better directed at finding more effective ways to combat discrimination and enhance opportunities.
"Bakke's effect on minority enrollment was far less than either supporters or opponents predicted," said Susan Welch, professor of political science and dean of the College of the Liberal Arts. "It produced almost no change in pre-Bakke levels of minority applications and enrollment or admissions decisions made about minorities."
"However, the decision was significant because it legitimized and institutionalized the practice of affirmative action in higher education," said co-author John Gruhl, a political science professor at the University of Nebraska.
The Bakke decision was a 1978 Supreme Court ruling which struck down quotas but approved the use of race as one factor in admission policies at colleges and universities. In the case, Regents of University of California vs. Bakke, a white student sued for reverse discrimination after being rejected for medical school.
In their study of African American enrollment in medical schools, the two researchers found the greatest jump -- from 200 to 1,200 -- occurred between 1965 and 1975, three years before the Bakke court case. Then, from 1975 to 1985, enrollments were stagnant, rising only gradually, rather than rapidly as predicted. In the 1990s, however, the numbers climbed sharply to a peak of more than 1,500.
The trends were generally similar for Hispanics, except that the 1975-85 period reported slow upward growth, leveling off in the late 1980s.
"The steep upward climb in minority enrollment had reached a plateau before Bakke and would not resume again until more than a decade after the decision," said Welch.
The researchers saw similar conclusions in reviewing African American and Hispanic first-year enrollments in law schools. For African American students, enrollment stayed stagnant from 1975 to 1986, followed by a rather sharp increase beginning in 1987. Hispanic enrollments rose slowly but fairly consistently from 1969 to 1995.
The more influential factors affecting minority applications and enrollments may have been the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the growing middle class in the African American community; and the large increase in the number of college educated minorities in the late 1980s and 1990s. More families could afford to sent their children to professional schools, said Welch and Gruhl.
The researchers also surveyed admissions officers in medical and law schools about their perceptions of the decision's impact and of their admission policies.
"More than three-quarters of the medical school officials and 63 percent of the law officials claim it affected policies not at all," Welch said. "Only a small minority of schools reported that Bakke changed, rather than reaffirmed, their admission policies."
"Perhaps, a better route is for Americans to come together and devise more effective ways to overcome racial discrimination," she said.
Grassroots resistance to big companies with major resources has a good chance of success, as shown by community efforts to block construction of incinerators, according to authors of a new book.
"Ordinary people increasingly confront large bureaucracies over that which they feel they have little or no control," said Edward J. Walsh, associate professor of sociology. "Our evidence shows, however, that corporate power is more fragile than many citizens imagine. This was demonstrated dramatically by our study of eight attempts to locate incinerators in Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey in the late 1980s."
Grassroots opposition defeated five of the eight attempted sitings, located in Broome and St. Lawrence Counties, N.Y.; Cape May County, N.J.; and Lackawanna and Philadelphia counties in Pennsylvania. The three efforts in Delaware, Montgomery and York counties in Pennsylvania were approved by county governments.
"For groups opposed to incinerator sitings, the key to success is the ability to mobilize widespread county support and shed the parochial 'not in my back yard' image," said Rex Warland, professor of rural sociology.
Walsh, Warland and D. Clayton Smith, a recent Penn State Ph.D. graduate and now a data analyst with the Kentucky Department of Education, are co-authors of a new book, Don't Burn It Here: Grassroots Challenges To Trash Incinerators, published by Penn State Press.
"Grassroots resistance to government and corporation-sponsored projects is not for the fainthearted," Walsh said. "Our research reveals that many people are still intimidated by societal elites and modern technologies. Because they perceive themselves, families or friends as vulnerable to economic retaliation, they can easily succumb to fear and cynicism during times of heated debate and name-calling."
Researchers in the College of Medicine have discovered that variations in a particular gene occur in greater frequency in premature infants suffering from respiratory distress syndrome (RDS) -- a link that may lead to ways to save babies with potentially fatal breathing problems.
"It's possible that certain genetic alterations in the surfactant proteins are some of the factors that may predispose to, or protect from, RDS," said Joanna Floros, professor of cellular and molecular physiology and pediatrics in the College of Medicine.
All babies need surfactant for normal lung function. When there is not enough surfactant produced, babies face the risk of developing respiratory distress syndrome.
About 10 percent of all prematurely born infants, or 1 percent of all births, develop breathing problems or RDS. In the United States each year 40,000-50,000 infants develop RDS, and roughly one-tenth of them will develop severe complications or die.
Surfactant is produced beginning in the final trimester of human gestation. This means the more premature a baby is, the less surfactant it has, and the higher the risk of RDS. However, the amount of surfactant produced during fetal development differs among babies and that may explain why some babies born prematurely develop RDS and others do not.
