Two nationally known public intellectuals convened in Kagin this Monday to debate one of the most contentious questions in American public policy: affirmative action.

Benjamin Hooks, former executive director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, spoke in favor of the policy, arguing that “affirmative action has worked in the past, and it is necessary if we want to keep that progress going.”

Hooks retired from the NAACP in 1993, after acting as its leader for 15 years. He is now head of the Tennessee Human Rights Commission, a state agency that investigates civil rights violations.

Speaking for the opposition was syndicated columnist, author and former Bush cabinet appointee Linda Chavez. Chavez is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a Washington D.C.-based think tank.

Chavez argued that affirmative action programs hurt the very people they are designed to help, including Blacks and Latinos, because the policy fosters a sense of inferiority among these groups.

“I’m less concerned about the effects on whites than I am the effects on African Americans and other minorities,” Chavez said. She also invoked Martin Luther King, saying that the America he dreamed of was one where all people were judged based on the same standards.

Hooks said that, “this business of people feeling inferior is overplayed.” He also pointed out that Dr. King wished for all people “to be judged on the content of their character, not on their IQs, and not their SAT scores.”

Hooks argued that, while no college or corporation should make a policy of accepting unqualified applicants, once an institution has narrowed down the field to a qualified pool, they should be able to take race into account in their final decision.

In an interview with The Mac Weekly, Hooks explained that this is the brand of affirmative action endorsed by the Supreme Court in its landmark 1978 decision California v. Bakke. At the time, Bakke was viewed by many in the civil rights movement as a severe setback, because it made unconstitutional so-called quota systems.

Hooks, himself an attorney, said that although he has not always agreed with the high court’s decision, he has chosen to embrace it for reasons of political expediency.

“It’s a concession on my part,” Hooks said. “The fact that I am an endorsing Bakke shows just how much ground we have lost already [in the affirmative action debate].”

The debate began with opening statements from the two panelists, followed by questions from the audience. MCSG president Nick Berning ’02 acted as moderator.

Much of the debate centered on affirmative action in higher education, which has been one of the major battlefields in the policy’s history.

Chavez’s think tank has published studies on exactly how great a preference members of certain minority groups receive in public university admissions, and found the amount was significant.

“These were not just a thumb on the scale,” Chavez said. “At the University of Michigan we found that the odds were 171 to 1 in favor of a black student over a white student with comparable test scores and high school grades.”

It is not so easy to quantify the magnitude of Macalester’s affirmative action program, according to Dean of Admissions Lorne Robinson.

“It’s not mathematical,” Robinson said. “There is no set formula that we use to evaluate [prospective students]. We have a process that is much more subjective, and much better, in my opinion.”

Robinson said that Macalester does give preference to people of color in the admissions process, in order to ensure diversity, but stressed that “we do not admit anybody who is not qualified.”

Macalester accepted 69 percent of the people of color who applied last year. But of those 239 it accepted, only 49 decided to enroll.

Chavez added that she thought that it was fine for private institutions like Macalester to use affirmative action in its admissions practices, but that she drew the line at public Universities.

Hooks seemed confused by and incredulous of Chavez’s statistics and pressed her to reveal the actual number of students of color enrolled at the University of Michigan.

“Are you telling me that 171 more black students are enrolled at University of Michigan?” Hooks asked. “I’m confused, because I have been to Michigan’s campus, and it is pretty white.”

Of the over 24,000 students enrolled at the University of Michigan, approximately 75 percent are white, according to the college’swebsite.

MCSG helped to sponsor the event in conjunction with the president’s office. The affirmative action debate was part of Macalester’s ongoing lecture series, “Democracy, Activism and Our Multicultural World.”

Reaction to the debate was mixed.

“As a person of color, I feel that [Chavez’s] policies just didn’t make sense, said Krista Star Scott ’03 at the reception following the debate. “Affirmative action doesn’t give degrees to people who are unqualified, it gives people of color the opportunity to compete. I wouldn’t have ‘qualified’ to get into Macalester, but now that I am here, I am beating the pants off of a lot of my white counterparts.”

Associate Dean of Students Joi Lewis, who sits on the Speakers Committee, felt that the event was a definite success.

“I thought it was great,” Lewis said. “The fact that we said ‘this is the last question,’ and there were still people lined up at the mikes, shows that the audience was really engaged.”

But not everyone agreed.

“It was pathetic,” Mike Gelardi ’02 said. “You could have taken any two people from my constitutional law class, put them up there, and had a better debate. If this is the level of political debate we have in this country, I’m moving to Canada.”