The Coal Miner’s Daughter Preference: A Review of Cashin’s Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity in America

A half century after Henry Caudill described the abject poverty of Eastern Kentucky as “night comes to the Cumberlands,” the region still awaits the dawn. Lyndon Johnson, inspired in part by Caudill’s work, launched the War on Poverty in Letcher County, Kentucky, but that war was lost in Appalachia. By any objective measure, the fifty-four Kentucky counties served by the Appalachian Regional Commission lag behind the rest of the Commonwealth and the Nation. Indeed, in terms of per capital income, poverty rate, percentage of adults with a high school diploma, percentage of adults with a college degree, and homes with broadband access, the non-Appalachian counties of Kentucky (population 3.2 million) closely track the national average, but the Appalachian counties (population 1.1 million) resemble another country.Yet, despite the obvious economic, cultural, and educational disadvantages, America’s selective schools give little regard for the people of this beautiful, yet troubled, region. Universities have never insisted that a certain number of seats be set aside for residents of Appalachia or that residents of Appalachia should automatically receive bonus points in the admissions process. Higher Education does not litigate over how many poor whites constitutes a critical mass or how many poor whites must be in each classroom to ensure diversity across the institution.Sheryll Cashin, a professor of law at Georgetown University, wants to change this paradigm. In a provocative new book, Place, Not Race: A New Vision of Opportunity In America, she “challenge(s) universities to reform both affirmative action and the entire admissions process.” In her view, preferences should emphasize place, rather than race, as the focus of affirmative action for the pragmatic reason that it will foster more social cohesion and a better politics. . . . Those who suffer the deprivations of high-poverty neighborhoods and schools are deserving of special consideration. Those blessed to come of age in poverty-free havens are not. Fifty years ago, “race and gender were appropriate markers for the type of exclusion practiced by most predominately white universities. Today, place is a more appropriate indicator of who gets excluded from consideration by admissions officers at selective institutions.” Cashin’s rationale for this paradigm shift is basic fairness. Her primary focus is to “help those [minority children] actually disadvantaged by [de facto] segregation,” but she recognizes “whites who do live in impoverished environs or attend high-poverty schools are no less deserving of special consideration — as is anyone who is actually disadvantaged by economic isolation.” Applicants from “low-opportunity places that rise, despite the undertow, deserve special consideration from selective schools. They have enormous fortitude and focus — skills they had to develop to succeed against ridiculous odds, skills that will help them persevere through college. And it should not matter what color they are or what nation they come from.”Cashin recognizes that her desire to diminish the emphasis on race while increasing emphasis on poverty is “sacrilegious in the civil rights community.” Acknowledging “[r]ace still matters in American society, particularly in the criminal justice system,” she insists that “race is underinclusive” and that higher education’s race-based affirmative action efforts are about “what skin color the rich kids have.” “Race-based affirmative action buys some diversity for a relative few, but not serious inclusion.” “Race does not, by definition, capture those who suffer the structural disadvantages of segregated schools and neighborhoods. Race is also over-inclusive in that it can capture people with dark skin who are exceedingly advantaged.” “ [D]iversity by phenotype puts no pressure on institutions to dismantle underlying systems of exclusion that propagate inequality.”This review of Cashin’s new vision of equal opportunity has three parts. Part I details her argument and her supporting evidence in some depth. Part II examines the two constitutional questions resulting from a public institution’s choice to adopt Cashin’s emphasis on place rather than race. Specifically, would university administrators violate the Constitution by substituting place for race? If an emphasis on place allows an institution to achieve the educational benefits of diversity, must the institution substitute place for race? Part III explores the public policy consequences of her new paradigm.