Affirmative action: class or ethnicity?

Nicholas Jones at the Herald reports:

Students from poor backgrounds could have places reserved for them at the country's largest university in a shake-up of admissions currently targeted according to ethnicity. 

In a first for the country, the University of Auckland council has supported a proposal to improve access to higher education for students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, regardless of ethnicity. 

At present, the targeted admission programme allows for Maori, Pasifika and students with disabilities.

For the most part, I’m not opposed to affirmative action on the basis of income.

Having said that, reserving places for low income students might compromise affirmative action’s most important aim: diversity, or, “that a critical mass of racial diversity is an education necessity”. That was the leading argument in Grutter/Gratz v. Bollinger – an affirmative action case before the Supreme Court of the United States – and Fisher v. University of Texas (where the argument was upheld – again).*

Affirmative action (on the basis of ethnicity) isn’t and shouldn’t be seen solely as atonement for past injustice. Affirmative action is, for the most part, a response to contemporary ethnic inequalities. It happens that ethnic inequality is sometimes a stand in for class inequality. For that reason, I'm not entirely opposed to affirmative action based on income.

However, recognising ethnicity acknowledges that the education system isn’t designed to accommodate Polynesian** learning styles. Education in New Zealand is largely monocultural. That puts Polynesian students, especially Polynesians immersed in their own culture, at a disadvantage. Systemic disadvantage exists. Under Article 2.2 of the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination affirmative action can be a requirement to remedy systemic disadvantage. In other words, there's broad consensus that affirmative action based on ethnicity is acceptable and sometimes necessary.**  

The argument holds for disabled students too. The New Zealand education system treats disabled students poorly. Many opportunities are not open to disabled students. The best method to rectify that is to base affirmative action around ethnicity and disabilities. Class has its merits, but it misses, say, Maori students who don't meet the income threshold but are disadvantaged because they're oral learners. 

Race can be a proxy for (low) income, but race and disability is a better proxy for (lack of) opportunity.

Resistance to affirmative action based on ethnicity and disability is resistance against sharing privilege. Equality in law and policy – that nebulous, protean and prejudiced idea – must give way to equality in fact. Auckland University may be making the wrong decision. Thoughts? 

Post script: ideally, affirmative action programmes consider several factors including: ethnicity, language spoken at home (e.g Maori, Samona, Somali etc), household income and makeup (e.g. did the applicant grow up in a single-parent household) and school decile. Ethnicity should be the primary factor, though. Perhaps framing affirmative action as about ethnicity only or income only is problematic.

*The Fisher case is not without its difficulties. Although affirmative action was upheld, the Supreme Court sent it back to the lower courts. The strategy behind the decision is “a cynical attempt to let the lower court bury it”.

**The Bill of Rights Act 1990 holds that affirmative action is legal, but there the act doesn't impose a requirement for affirmative action. The Human Rights Act 1993 also allows affirmative action.