Our View on Equal Education: Admission to College Isn’t Just About Grades, Test Scores
| AR Articles on Racial Preferences in Education |
|---|
| The Hollow Debate on Race Preferences (Jun. 2003) |
| The Cost of Affirmative Action (Dec. 1996) |
| More Blows to Affirmative Action (Jun. 1997) |
| Search AmRen.com for Racial Preferences |
| More news stories on Racial Preferences in Education |
Jian Li was the ideal high school student. He had perfect scores on the SAT reading, writing and math tests. He graduated in the top 1% of his class. He participated in lots of extracurriculars, including leadership roles. And yet in 2006, Princeton University turned him down. Why?
{snip}
Although Li was admitted to Yale University, he filed a complaint against Princeton with the federal Department of Education, which earlier this month confirmed it was using Li’s complaint to take a broad look at Princeton’s admissions policies to determine whether discrimination against Asians was involved. On the surface, Li appears to have a good case. According to a study done by two Princeton scholars, if students were admitted on grades and test scores alone, the acceptance rate for African American and Latino students would plummet while the rate for Asians would rise sharply.
That says high-scoring Asian students face higher admissions hurdles, but it does not necessarily prove discrimination. Tests scores and grades have never been the sole basis for admission to college; nor should they be. {snip}
In the 1978 University of California Regents v. Bakke decision, the Supreme Court ruled out race-based quotas and separate admissions tracks for students of different ethnicities. The court did, however, allow colleges to consider applicants’ race and ethnicity as “one of many factors.” Twenty-five years later, the court clarified Bakke by ruling out point-based admissions (giving minority students extra points) but allowing subtler evaluations of applicants.
Translated, that means universities routinely hand out what looks like preferences to get the freshman class they want. Football players, oboe players, dancers, minorities, children of alumni and men (yes, many colleges favor men to keep their campuses from becoming too female) at times find the scales tipped in their favor.
That is discrimination only if you imagine that university admissions policies are designed solely to sweep up the highest-scoring students.
{snip}
But the goal of that process—to produce a diverse freshman class where students are exposed in college to the mix of races, ethnicities and viewpoints that await them in the world beyond—is a good one and worthy of preserving.
(Posted on July 7, 2008)
Comments
Note the underlying yet unspoken premise of this op-ed: without affirmative action, a campus would be less diverse — it’d be more white and yellow, and less black and brown. I don’t quarrel with this proposition. Undoubtedly, the genetic endowments of certain races ensures their over or under inclusion in a class determined by merit. But that proposition is, however, the operative premise of affirmative action. Oddly, then, race realists and liberal affirmative action supporters share one belief in common: without preferential treatment, blacks and hispanics can’t compete on merit. Some realities are too stark to ignore, I suppose.
Posted by Kevin at 6:38 PM on July 7
As someone who used to be an admissions officer, the fact is that grades and test scores are not the only criteria used to determine student admission.
In fact, it is a good thing. Otherwise, you would have nothing but a bunch of egghead, high strung nerds on campus.
Posted by Thadeus at 7:25 PM on July 7
Where are the scientific studies which show “diversity” benefits anyone but unqualified people “of color”? If the diversity mongers can’t prove there is any benefit ,it is obviously unconstitutional violating the equal protection clause. Of course, the Supreme Court ignores clearly defined rights such as freedom of association, and finds constitutional “rights” which are not even mentioned, such as the “right” to privacy. The motto of the liberal “justices” should be the “US Constitutional is whatever we want it to be”.
Posted by Joe Hamilton at 8:45 PM on July 7
W subsidize foreign students with our tax dollars and admit them into our best universities ahead of American students even though there are waiting lists full of American students that would jump at the opportunity. The elitists have all sorts of explanations why we must not allow American students into American universities that range from their desire to have the most diverse campuses necessary to American students often have marginally lower scores than the cream of other countries clamoring to get in to American students cannot afford the tuitions (yet foreign students are often subsidized).
The source of the problem is top down and not bottom up. That the American student is not to blame; it’s the elitists who leverage our government and the leveraged government officials themselves that are to blame. They have constructed and maintain a system that is becoming more and more self-defeating for the national interest and none of their excuses change this simple fact.
Public education isn’t bringing the desired results. We spend more time and money seeking to turn kids and then college students into entitled disparate modern liberals than we do instilling in them with traditional American values, a solid work ethic, and empowering them with a high level of education and a responsibility to make this country something they can be proud of. That’s what we used to do and it worked.
What we have today is a system the elitists created. A system they overcharge us for that brings little in the way of desirable results. They ask us to pay for our own demise with the logic that it’s good for us when the only thing it’s good for is their own careers and ideology.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 9:32 PM on July 7
“What any university desires is a mosaic in which students learn as much from one another as they do in class.”
What is it that’s so valuable students learn from one another? I’m guessing these multicults won’t really have a legitimate answer to that question.
If they say diversity is good, helpful, and a valuable learning experience, that’s a premise that they just mouth as a conditioned reflex and not something they’ve experienced themselves and know to be a fact; nor is it a concept that they’ve derived at through much internal debate based entirely on the facts.
They’ve been programmed into the cult of diversity, which, like any cult, requires belief without reason, a blind acceptance to its tenants, even so far as fighting and dying for the belief system.
They like diversity, because they’ve been brainwashed into liking it. That’s the answer in a nutshell.
Posted by ice at 9:53 PM on July 7
There should be one standard for admission and diversity should be immaterial. If only Asian Americans qualify for admission, then they should be the admittees. Who wants an affirmative action doctor operating on the brain? You want the best and brightest, and the complexion of his/her skin should be the least of your worries. When you admit a student on the basis of diversity, that student takes the place of another who becomes a victim of discrimination. Louis Powell’s ruling in the Bakke Case was poorly reasoned. Why should there be a compelling state interest trumping the equal protection clause of the 14th amendment.
Posted by at 11:07 PM on July 7
“But the goal of that process”—[to produce an egalitarian, globalized, mongrel race of consumer/automatons]—moves ever forward at the bidding of USA Today and their co-conspirators in the MSM, academia, and our corporate masters.
Posted by KonfederateKarl at 11:07 PM on July 7
You can bet that inside the university, they teach that judging people by their skin color is a great evil. In fact, that’s the lens through which all they do teach is filtered. It must all depend on what race you are. Or in other words, racism.
Posted by at 11:22 PM on July 7
There’s no way in hell the Department of Education is going to say that a private university discriminates against Asians. That would push the affirmative action debate in exactly the opposite direction from what they want.
Posted by Reader-1 at 11:25 PM on July 7
Asian minorities are the “inconvenient truth” that liberals face. If America is so racist, how is it that Asians excel in this country? How can that be?
Posted by James Markson at 12:00 AM on July 8
“Li filed a complaint with the Dept. of Education”
How many Whites have had the guts to do it? Whites should stick up for their rights too.
Posted by Jessica at 1:22 AM on July 8
Does anyone know the entrance rate of blacks into Annapolis Naval Academy or West Point? and what the graduation rate is for those black students?
Posted by Skip at 2:07 AM on July 8
“Football players, oboe players,…”
Unbelievable “we’re all the same” PC “journalism”. Read/view/listen to any MSM for (black) humor purposes only.
Posted by Cousin Charlie from TN at 3:40 AM on July 8
The insane filmflam re “other criteria” explains the collapse of standards in the US.
I hope all these are the last gasps that try to defend the indefensible - quotas in hiring and higher ed.
No university wants to mold second-rate students into physicists and medical specialists!
The “multiple criteria” mentioned are only meaningly when NARROWING DOWN A DECISION BETWEEN TWO HIGHLY QUALIFIED CANDIDATES, and certainly NOT in order to turn down someone in the top 1% for someone 35 points lower!!!!!!!!!!
If nearly all physicists and physicians in the US are at some point Asians and white, with a large Jewish contingent, and almost none that were black or hispanic, then this would reflect performance and ability.
It is not a problem to be fixed.
As for whites who are horrified by Asian and Jewish performance in the professions, I can only repeat the philosophy of my roomate who was doing premed at an ivy uni, and who kept up with her brilliant Chinese-American fiance:
“I’m not the smartest person in the class, but I’m going to do whatever it takes to keep up!”
To compete in the professions against Jews and Asian-Americans (many of whom are not “invaders,” but instead 4th,5th,6th generations Americans), whites should take their own advice to blacks:
stop feeling sorry for yourselves, hunker down, focus, work hard, make sacrifices, find the achool and the job that suits your talents.
Please, after the devate about AA, no calls for white quotas!
Posted by elitist at 5:59 AM on July 8
Colleges are practicing massive transfer of wealth from the “haves” (Whites) to the “have-nots” (non-Whites). This is done through preferences in admissions and preferential financial aid to minorities. Whites pay higher tuition while minorities get enormous amounts of financial benefits.
Socialism in action.
Posted by at 9:52 AM on July 8
But the goal of that process—to produce a diverse freshman class where students are exposed in college to the mix of races, ethnicities and viewpoints that await them in the world beyond—is a good one and worthy of preserving.
The irony is that learning is often actually stilted by diversity. It’s difficult if not impossible to have an honest conversation about any number of issues when the room is full of minorities. You sure as hell can’t talk about poverty in America without talking about the IQ gap. You can’t talk about Islamic terrorism without talking about the nature of Islam and the people who believe it, (especially Arabs).
Maybe what they’re learning in these “diverse” settings is how to use language to finesse “diverse” people one way or the other without saying what you mean?
Posted by Alan at 10:55 AM on July 8
60 years ago they didn’t look only at grades either. They also looked at race and religion. If you were Jewish, they probably would not accept you. If you were black, they also probably would not accept you. So really things haven’t changed all that much. The only thing that has changed is the ideology behind the discrimination. 60 years ago the ideology was that a more homogenous campus would work better and have less strife. This happens to be true. Today’s ideology is built upon a house of cards: that racial diversity has benefits in its own right. As Jared Taylor has pointed out time and time again, there are no benefits to racial diversity. There are only disadvantages that come with it. Bottom line: the underlying belief that it is okay to discriminate based on race has not changed one bit - only the victims have changed.
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:09 AM on July 8
As is evident by much of the premise of this article, and several of the posts. You can educate someone, but you can’t make them smart. Hense the term, “EDUCATED IDIOTS”, aka liberals. After all why do you think they call it a liberal arts education?
Posted by at 12:02 PM on July 8
If they can deny you resources based on your race they can deny you all resources based on your race.
Posted by LeRoyCoyote at 1:03 PM on July 8
Another example of liberals flushing all that our forefathers worked for down the frickin toilet. Good job you idiots! Screw the 60s!
Posted by LightningStriking at 2:29 PM on July 8
Premise one: Race doesn’t exist
Premise two: Racial diversity is really really important
Liberals are funny.
Posted by Aaron at 2:49 PM on July 8
I hope he gets an enormous punitive damages award. Money - lots of money - is the only thing the human cockroaches running our universities pay attention to.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 3:36 PM on July 8
In the court’s 5-4 Grutter v. Bollinger ruling, Justice O’Connor’s majority opinion held that the United States Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body. … A lawyer who filed an amicus curiae brief on behalf of members and former members of the Pennsylvania legislature, State Rep. Mark B. Cohen of Philadelphia said that O’Connor’s majority decision in Grutter v. Bollinger was a ‘ringing affirmation of the goal of an inclusive society’.”
This presupposes two of the Constitution’s goals are “diversity” and “inclusiveness”. Where does it mention either? It also pre-supposes there are “compelling educational benefits” from a diverse student body. What are they, where is the evidence of any benefits, and why are they compelling? Why is the court’s job to make sure society is inclusive? This sort of activism is reading things into the constitution that are clearly not there.
Constitutional law Professor Lino A. Graglia writes in “THE ‘AFFIRMATIVE ACTION’ FRAUD” http://law.wustl.edu/journal/54/Graglia.pdf , “As the remedy rationale for racial preferences has become more obviously untenable, its proponents have increasingly relied on the argument that it provides a needed educational ‘diversity.’ Selection of students by race, however, provides ‘diversity’ in nothing but race. The typical black applicant to an institution of higher education comes from a middle or upper middle class background not readily distinguishable [intellectually] from that of the typical white applicant. If diversity of views or experience were the objective, one would expect to see a preference for foreign students or members of minority religions, which is not the case. … The many arguments once offered for racially preferential admission to institutions of higher education … have more recently come down to a single one: ‘We can’t have,’ (i.e., it is not politically feasible to have), ‘an all white institution.’”
Translation: The court saw a political reason for endorsing affirmative action and crafted its reasoning to reach the politically “correct” conclusion. IOW, it saw where it wanted to be and argued back from there.
“Decisions regarding affirmative action are done on no other basis or authority than the fact that diversity is one of the current cause célèbres in today’s academia. The primary function of judicial opinions explaining such decisions is to deny or conceal this fact.”
Posted by sedonaman at 4:24 PM on July 8
The excuse of “racial & ethnic diversity by itself is valuable ” is a vile excuse for racial & ethnic discrimination. While other things may be counted, such as extracurriculars, including leadership roles, race or ethnicity should not; at least not until the awful judicial legislation of the Supreme Court, thanks to evildoer Sandra Day O’Connor in Grutter v. Bollinger. The allowed use of race was supposed to be very limited but, as expected, with the ever can’t-cut-it minorities, give them an inch and they’ll steal miles. It’s their only hope.
Posted by FM at 5:18 PM on July 8
How timely this article. My son and I attended a two day long freshman orientation at UNC-Charlotte last week. It was a first hand “in yo’ face” experience for me that I’ll not likely forget. The descriptives of how this orientation (brainwashing, intimidation, and discombobulation) session went down (according to other parents who had within the past few years attended other orientations at other traditionally white University of North
Carolina constituent campuses with their older children) is not new or unique. The whole UNC system is thoroughly stewed in it.
Day one— Parents, incoming freshmen, a group of about 25 upperclassmen Orientation Counselors, and a few administrators stage in a court yard. A visual scan of the families yields an approximate demographic as follows: 80% Caucasian, 8% Afro-American, and 12% other/multi-racial. The OCs (presumably getting in work-study hours for their services) however, were a different story: 70% Afro-American, 25% Caucasian, and 5% other. Administrators were 95% Caucasian and 70% women. We were quickly treated to an coreographed “Booty Call” by the OCs that would have been more befitting of a late night BET show. Then parents and students were separated for their respective programs and a generally exhausting and frustrating leading around to this, that, and the other.
Later on we’re treated to another “booty call” skit by the OCs and more “seminars”. It soon became clear that well over 50% of student services are oriented to remedial high school edjukashun, lockstep diversity promotion, and insuring the academic success of “under represented minorities” (new buzz word to exlude Asians from minority status) at all costs. There was a group for everything from trans-gendered Afro-Muslim disabled people to Students for a Democratic Society.
Dinner time finally arrives and rest and relief is about to come. 400 plus incoming freshmen and parents are seated in the dining hall and happily into their meals when BAM!!— The swinging doors are stampeded by the OC shock squad and we have to choke on our food while watching yet a third and grand finale “Booty Call”. I literally spit out my half chewed food and ran back to my car to take a Xanax.
One small victory did occur however. In one of the brainwashing sessions it was stated that there would be a required summer reading of “Enrique’s Journey” by Sonia Nazario. This is an illegal alien sob story that constitutes a childishly transparent effort on the part of academia to foment a softening of attitudes towards illegal immigration. I challenged a representative from the Dean of Student’s office on this and was then told that it was not a required reading unless a specific professor teaching certain relevant courses for which the student had signed up for specified it as a required reading in the course syllabus.
Posted by Jesse Helms at 7:37 PM on July 8
if they will not let the most qualified white males attend college, then they should all go to trade schools and learn a skill. who needs ivy league indoctrination anyway. its the skills that will get us by when crunch time hits. also all white owned businesses should not require a person to have a college education. just hire a white guy. if you have to hire a black guy or woman, just hire a white guy too. fill the position with two people, and raise your costs accordingly.yankee engenuity.
Posted by danjack at 11:18 PM on July 8
danjack is right about the real value of a college education. It will prepare you to sit in an office and do nothing of any particular utility. Unless you are going into science or engineering, college is a waste of time.
Smart Whites should go to trade school. Even if they can’t get a good job right away, they will actually know how to do something useful, something that can see them through hard times when the make believe economy crashes. What can a stock broker do when the Dow Jones goes through the floor? If he can do electrical work, he won’t starve. There is and has always been a large black market, cash or barter, subsistence economy in this country. How do you think poor Whites avoid starvation?
Posted by Schoolteacher at 7:57 PM on July 9
“60 years ago they didn’t look only at grades either. They also looked at race and religion. If you were Jewish, they probably would not accept you.”
Posted by jewamongyou at 11:09 AM on July 8
I resent that because I believe I’ve read about what you are talking about. The time period I read about was the 1920’s. I read about this because it was used as an excuse for affirmative action. There were quota’s placed on the number of Jews who could attend some of the big east schools. The ‘reasoning’ (and they didn’t quite have double-speak down to a science as it is now) was that Jews were terribly over-represented at many of these schools. This is no different than how these affirmative-action programs work today, although it was probably less universally and rigorously implemented.
The reason I resent it… is that these very same programs from the 20’s have been used to invoke white-guilt and justify discrimination against whites for the last 50 years or so.
It would make just as much sense, if 50 years from now, after they’ve forgot all about us, they still use ‘affirmative action’ against whites, because, after all, those evil white racists were discrimination against Asians in 2008!
Anyway, I said my peace.
Posted by Just another AmRener at 2:15 AM on July 10
“…grades and test scores are not the only criteria used to determine student admission.
In fact, it is a good thing. Otherwise, you would have nothing but a bunch of egghead, high strung nerds on campus….”
Posted by Thadeus at 7:25 PM on July 7
Yes, far better to deny those ‘egghead, high strung nerds’ access to the universities than to deny, in the name of ‘equity’ and ‘making up for past wrongs’, unqualified non-Whites with far lower, if not dismal SAT scores.
Far better to have more sociology and race-grievance majors (chicano/black studies) than White ‘nerds’ who tend to major in such useless (and easier) fields as theoretical physics, math applications, engineering and software design.
Wouldn’t you say we need far fewer planetary and scientists and Bill Gates-types than we do those who will fight for racial justice against evil Whites? Money given to such organizations as NASA should be used to pay for reparations to blacks and full rides to college for illegal aliens. Who needs those useless, White, egg headed nerds anyway, right?
Makes perfect sense.
Bon
Posted by BonBon at 9:07 AM on July 10
Clearly, to get the kind of “diversity” that colleges want, they should hire experts from the Coppertone company. This company keeps track of different kinds of tans, and surely has charts for different kinds of skin colors. Each student could send in a color swath indicating his skin tone. This would make the admissions process much simpler.
Posted by Victor Gerhard at 1:12 PM on July 12
Have these people ever been to college? Blacks and Mexicans only “major” in studies of their ethnicities. I’m sorry, but what do those majors contribute to the work force? They are simply there to further the “civil rights” fight against Whites.
Posted by Antranick23 at 4:05 PM on July 20