They hope to use race in a “narrowly tailored manner,” perhaps as a tiebreaker in assignments to popular schools, much like the diversity plan in Seattle that currently stands before the Supreme Court on question of constitutionality.

At Lowell, a diversity plan would mean more than simply busing students around town: It would essentially reintroduce affirmative action into the admissions process, picking one student over another to increase the numbers of minority students — mainly Latinos and African Americans. Under our current admissions system, Band One admits the majority of students based on their grades and test scores while Bands Two and Three admit students based on activities, financial status and any nominations by principals of underrepresented middle schools. This gives students from poor backgrounds who have to support their families or students with other family problems the chance to succeed at Lowell, even without perfect grades in middle school.

Supporters of affirmative action argue that it counteracts years of discrimination against people of color and will raise African Americans from the aftermath of slavery and the Jim Crow era. But by allowing race in Lowell admissions, the district would be practicing reverse discrimination. Students accepted to create diversity would rob statistically qualified students of their places at Lowell. Whites or Asians who achieved the necessary points to qualify for acceptance will be passed off in favor of people who are equally qualified but also satisfy the race requirement.

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Affirmative action also sends the idea that Latinos and African Americans are not capable of the same achievements as Asians and whites. Chinese Americans once faced blatant racism on a regular basis in this country. They were denied the same public education as whites under the same “separate but equal” idea used to deny African Americans an equal education. Has the government made any efforts to make up for the racism against the Chinese? No. And yet they have proven that they don’t need such help.

Under a plan that includes race, those Latinos and African-American students that do get accepted based on their own merits will face an uphill battle for acceptance at Lowell. African-American students already face the racist idea that they were accepted solely because they’re black on a daily basis at Lowell. In fact, in the September 2006 edition of The Lowell, senior Megan Dickey, who is black, wrote that “affirmative action suggests that minorities are incapable of attaining a good education and job on their own” in a column discussing the assumptions other people make about her because of her race. While any Lowell student who thinks an African-American student got in because of race is clearly in the wrong, giving race a role in admissions would only give substance to these false racist assumptions.

Supporters of affirmative action policies argue that class discussions would be enhanced by diversity, as people of different ethnic backgrounds would offer alternative opinions. But race is just one kind of diversity, and students are much more than their race.

Instead of assuming that Lowell lacks diversity because only 2.6 and 5.5 percent of our students are black or Latino respectively, the district should realize that diversity comes in many forms. America puts far too much emphasis on race. It’s about time for us to focus on our collective humanity rather than dwell on the differences between people. As long as we continue to separate ourselves by race, we will never get past the days of blatant discrimination.