Tapu Misa: Essential steps to build a diverse and civil society

COMMENT

At a party in Auckland, two women are locked in a heated debate. They're both Pakeha, and the subject being discussed is the special admissions scheme for Maori and Pacific students at the University of Auckland.

One of the women has been loudly declaiming at the unfairness of the quota scheme. It should be scrapped, she says.

Exhibit one is the daughter of a well-off businessman who was admitted to medical school under the scheme. Told that one of the aims of the scheme was to get more Maori doctors into the health system, she then claimed the girl had minuscule Maori blood, and the flimsiest of claims to tangata whenua status.

What a small place Auckland is. When I related the story to Nin Tomas, a senior lecturer in law at the university, she knew who the girl was. Knew that she'd been head girl at Queen Victoria School for Maori Girls at Parnell (before it was forced to close down), that her mother is Maori and that she's well versed in tikanga and te reo.

Tomas has been forced into doing a fair bit of explaining lately - and it irks her. She's not been used to having to defend her qualifications, or justify her position, but doesn't feel she's had much option after the latest Brashism suggesting there is a perception that Maori who make it into university on special-admission schemes graduate with inferior degrees.

The idea quickly took root, fertilised by the resentment already evident around the country.

When Tomas' Dalmatian relations started asking her if she had the same degree as everyone else, she knew it was time to set the record straight. Until then, it had never occurred to her that anyone would question her degree, but here it was from her own family, from people who were on her side.

Among Maori and Pacific students on campus, there was the same sense of being undermined. "It's going to make it look like they're getting an easy ride," she says.

So this week she fronted up to a lecture room of first-year students and laid out her credentials. She told them she'd worked hard for her degree, sat the same exams and sweated like everyone else. She got a good degree, too, graduating with honours.

Did she have to do that? Absolutely. In this new environment, nothing is self-evident.

Tomas is the youngest of 15 children - the only one of her siblings with a university degree. Her son is in his second-to-last year of medical school, likewise the only one among his cousins with a degree. That's the way it works, says Tomas - and despite the perception of Maori privilege, he's amassing quite a hefty student loan.

Tomas was her family's great educational hope. Single motherhood put that plan on hold for a few years, but when her son started school she also went back to school. She did a BA at the University of Auckland, distinguishing herself by being named Senior Scholar, and then, armed with A-plus passes, law school.

She has no doubt that she wouldn't have made it without Government help. She'd been on the DPB and received a training incentive allowance that helped by taking care of her fees and books. That allowance is no more, no doubt judged to have given beneficiaries an unfair advantage.

Still, she recalls that money wasn't the only barrier to university. She was so daunted by what appeared to her to be a white institution that it took her two attempts to enrol - succeeding only after a Pakeha mate walked her through the process.

Tomas says a lot of straight A students apply under the Maori and Pacific Admission Scheme because they want to be identified as Maori students, but I know of some who prefer to go in under general entry - partly because they can and want to leave room for others more disadvantaged.

The places aren't always used up, and merely claiming a fingernail of Maori blood doesn't cut it. Applicants are vetted, their cultural knowledge and ties scrutinised.

"In law school we're rigorous. They've got to be able to show some real Maori connection. They can't just tick a box. It's not just about whakapapa. Being Maori is an active thing, it's not a passive thing," she says.

There's no question in her mind that the quotas are fair - as fair as quotas for rural students, and other concessions made to the disabled, women and adult students.

"The quota is a good thing. I look around me and I see a sea of diversity and I think that's wonderful. If we didn't have a quota, a lot of that diversity would be absent," she says.

"We have a restricted number of places - 230 places at law school and 1000 applicants. Had we not implemented that quota there would be far less diversity at the law school. It's about democracy and representation. All groups deserve to be represented."

As well as aiming for diversity, many admission schemes, including Auckland's, also acknowledge the kinds of inequalities that mean the brightest kids from the poorest neighbourhoods and schools don't necessarily turn up at university with exam results that reflect their true abilities.

That's just one of the challenges of trying to build a fairer society from one with built-in inequalities. And whatever Dr Brash says or threatens, our tertiary institutions are unlikely to shrink from policies that acknowledge the crucial role they play in building a civil society.

They ought to be allowed to get on with it.

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