Racist College Admission Policy
A post looks at California administrators defying the will of the people by still using race as a determinant for college admission.
The fact of the matter, however, is that while Harris’s life circumstances have been “difficult,” difficult circumstances are not confined to black students. There is absolutely nothing in the description about Harris that is uniquely an obstacle confronted by blacks. Whites have also been known to file for bankruptcy and to have parental inadequacies. Asian and white kids also attend unstable schools. Yet, because Harris is black, every disadvantage in her life is interpreted as a problem engendered because of her “race.” And, those who support race preferences want to use the tool of “affirmative action” to compensate for those supposed “effects of being black.” They want to do that which the United States Supreme Court forbids them from doing: “curing societal ills.” In the absence of Prop. 209, they could hide behind the fig leaf of “diversity,” but Prop. 209 removed their ability to do that in California.
October 5th, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I’m a Bush Republican who believes very steadfastly in standards based education as spelled out in the awesome no child left behind act. These ideals have led me to believe that we should adopt the same principles to college admission. Since the SAT is the best way to objectively test standards we can simply admit only those with good scores. That will solve everything. Now, let me get back to destroying the environment and hating people.
October 5th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Funny, I didn’t know that Supreme Court had forbidden college admissiosn boards from trying to cure societal ills. Or maybe that guy’s talking out of his ass.
Anyway, I dont support affirmative-action requirements in general, although I would say we should be careful about chastising institutions blindly. I don’t know if I agree that it helps college students prepare for the real world to be on a diverse campus where they’ll have to deal with people from all different kinds of cultures, but I do think it’s a reasonable argument if someone wanted to use it to justify diversity enrollment programs.