Posted on 08/09/2013 6:56:08 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
What is the most intellectually dishonest profession around? My nomination: the admissions officers at highly selective colleges and universities.
Evidence in support of this comes from, of all places, a recent article in the New York Times. The writer is Ruth Starkman, and the subject is her experience as a reader of applications to the highly selective University of California, Berkeley.
“Admissions officers were careful not to mention gender, ethnicity and race during our training sessions,” she notes. But when she asked one privately, “What are we doing about race?” she was told it was illegal to consider it, but that they were looking at “the ‘bigger picture’ of the applicant’s life.”
Racial discrimination in state universities was made illegal in 1996 when California voters by a 55 percent margin passed UC regent Ward Connerly’s Proposition 209.
At first UC admissions officers enforced the law, as Richard Sander (a UCLA law professor) and Stuart Taylor report in their book, Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It.
The result was that fewer blacks and Hispanics were admitted to the most selective UC schools, Berkeley and UCLA, but more were admitted to and graduated from less selective UC campuses.
But then admissions officers started to cheat. They declared that they were using “holistic” criteria, trying to gauge from students’ applications the “bigger picture” of their life.
In practice, this meant racial discrimination in favor of blacks and Hispanics, and against Asians and whites
Starkman’s job was to read applications and rate them on a numeric scale, with 1’s being the most desirable. She “was told I needed more 1’s and referrals. A referral is a flag that a student’s grades and scores do not make the cut but the application merits a special read because of ‘stressors’ — socioeconomic disadvantages that admissions offices can use to increase diversity.”
It’s not hard to imagine what “stressors” might include. A Spanish surname. A home address or high school in a heavily black neighborhood. An essay recounting “the hardships that prevented the student from achieving better grades, test scores and honors.”
So the admissions officers were tipping the scale heavily in favor of certain students — and heavily against others.
“When I asked about an Asian student who I thought was a 2 but had received only a 3, the officer noted, ‘Oh, you’ll get a lot of them,’“ Starkman writes. “She said the same when I asked why a low-income student with top grades and scores, and who had served in the Israeli Army, was a 3.”
What’s extraordinary about this is that you have an organization every member of which is well aware of its main purpose — illegal racial discrimination — but in which no one will say so out loud. A willingness to lie and break the law are job requirements.
Now I am aware that there are arguments against a college’s just admitting the students with the highest test scores. It does probably serve some educational purpose to bring together people with different interests and different strengths.
Preferences to offspring of alumni and talented athletes may be warranted for schools that need private contributions to thrive.
But racial discrimination is unlawful and has been rightly repudiated by the American people. The corrupt silence concerning such discrimination in college and university admissions suggests that at some level these people know they are doing something for which they should be ashamed.
Unfortunately they are doing their intended beneficiaries no favors. That’s proved beyond demur by Sander and Taylor’s Mismatch. Black and Hispanic students tend to drop out of schools when they find themselves less well prepared than their schoolmates.
Those intending to major in science and engineering tend to back out of those fields. Many do not graduate yet are stuck with mounds of student-loan debt.
Meanwhile, there appears to be a ceiling on the number of Asians in selective private schools, similar to the ceiling imposed on Jews there from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Just 19 percent of students at Stanford and 16 percent in the Ivy League are Asian — numbers that have remained static for two decades despite increasing numbers of Asian applicants.
This is, in my American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray’s phrase, “discrimination against hardworking, high-achieving young people because of the color of their skin.” His word for it: “despicable.”
― Michael Barone, senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a Fox News Channel contributor, and a co-author of The Almanac of American Politics.
It may be stating the obvious but the bat could be taken out of the lefties’ hands by EVERYONE claiming minority or handicapped status. In other words, the entire system is predicated on self-identification of information that is none of their business in the first place (see also: job applications).
“But you’re not black!”
“Prove it, racist!”
I don't think they'd even bother denying it.
I recently learned that my daughter-in-law had a great-grandfather who was 1/4 Native American. According to the Elizabeth Warren model, it doesn’t matter if you are 100% Native American or 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/64, or 1/128. You are entitled to all the benefits that accrue therefrom.
My son has three grade-school kids and I told him to start identifying them as Native American whenever the question arises. Warren got educational and employment opportunities far in excess of her credentials just by claiming such lineage, despite no confirming evidence. I think I’m going to start calling my grandkids Tonto, Cochise, and Pocohantas.
Tell your son to go dig ditches... and if he shows any promise maybe the foreman will put him in the cab of a backhoe... or maybe he will learn how to fix busted hydraulic lines... and then become a Class 1 mechanic.
Get your daughter out of Transqueergender Vampire Literature 101, cut off the free tuition gravy train she's getting from you and tell her to go pick fruit for a living... she will pick up Spanish fairly quickly... and the costs for books is $0.
The nation needs producers... all academia produces are consumers... and false intellectuals that wind up as the Democrat rank and file in congress
</rant>
Be sure they are not teased by others with the names — Fauxcahontas or Lieawatha... :)
Ramesh Ponnuru wrote a book several years ago,titled:
Illiberal Education.
He talked about how schools were very quick to admit minority
applicants, but never talked about how many of them wound up
dropping out after the first or second year because they couldn’t keep up with the curriculum.
Judge Smail, is that you?
Hey, when I try out for the NBA, make sure they consider the bigger picture of my life. The fact that I'm white should be a major selling point. The fact that I'm old, slow, short, and couldn't hit a 12-foot jumper if my life depended on should all be considered in context.
I started checking Native American for several reasons one being that my grandmother was 1/4, anyone immediately I was bombarded with paperwork asking for proof, they wanted to get additional federal funds for the school district. Should funding be equal for all schools?
Hey, Whitey! Where’s your hat!
As a tongue in cheek, my dauaghter used to check off “Native American” on any nosy info sheet/applications. Then the term got more specific, I think the term was changed to “American Indian” so she stopped doing that, even tho many of her (nominally Scots) paternal ancestors had high cheekbones and pitch black eyes. Sen. Warren seems never to have had any such compunction.
Long-time conservative radio talk-show host Bob Grant used to scream, “I’m a Native American! I was born here!”
Exactly! That was daughter’s reasoning, and ultimately why the designation was change. ‘Twas fun while it lasted.
As a public university, Berkley should pick the top students, regardless of race. Any child you pick that has the lower scores is a denial for a better qualified student.
There are community colleges and lesser competitive schools which would be a much more satisfying pick for these kids. Once you get up to speed, transfer into Berkley.
Trayvon’s girlfriend Janteel should apply to Harvard. She could get her entire cost paid for too.
Preferences to offspring of alumni and talented athletes may be warranted for schools that need private contributions to thrive.
As self righteous as she sounds she still has it wrong, no there is no educational purpose served by not allowing people in, in the name of diversity. Nor should athletes be given admission simply because the school needs the money they bring in. If an athlete wants to go to college on an athletic scholarship then let them put in the work in HS and get the grades.
Discrimination is discrimination regardless of what reasons you give to justify it.
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