Posted on 01/27/2011 10:24:35 AM PST by Nachum
Professor Bruce Fleming is not your typical US Naval Academy (USNA) Professor. He teaches English and he also happens to be a liberal. I’ve written favorably in my books about his work because he also happens to believe in speaking the truth. And by speaking the truth about the dirty secrets of affirmative action at the Naval Academy, he has set off a fire storm.
Fleming wrote a piece last year exposing the fact that the USNA had a “two-tiered” system of admission that was designed to bring more minorities into the academy. (Since access to the full article has expired, reporting on the article is available here.) And he began speaking to academy alumni about the lower standards. ”We’ll do anything to get non-white students,” he said, in order to appear more diverse and improve the football team. According to Fleming, the admissions system is two-tiered because minority candidates have lower test scores and grades than their counterparts. In short, Fleming says that the Academy is rejecting better qualified white applicants to admit minority candidates with less impressive credentials. The USNA has been very aggressive on the affirmative action front in recent years. In 2009, Adm. Gary Roughead, the chief of naval operations, went so far as to say that “diversity is the No. 1 priority” at the academy. (Gee, I guess training warriors and officers is now #2).
But Fleming, who has served on the academy’s admissions board, goes even further. While white applicants are required to secure a nomination by a member of congress or other federal official, minority candidates are sometimes given what he calls “a pro forma nomination to make it legit.”
But it gets even worse. As the Associated Press reports:
“Fleming told The Associated Press that midshipmen who struggle are given easier coursework
(Excerpt) Read more at bigpeace.com ...
Naval Academy student charged in smuggle case
SAN DIEGO: A U.S. Naval Academy midshipman who was in San Diego for summer training has been charged with trying to smuggle marijuana across the border, armed robbery, burglary and other offenses, Navy officials said yesterday.
Juan Domingo Alonso, 24, of North Hollywood has been held in the brig at Miramar Marine Corps Air Station since he was detained June 10 at the San Ysidro Port of Entry. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials stopped him on suspicion of bringing 153 pounds of marijuana into the United States.
The Navy has accused him of intending to distribute the drug.
I found the article. July 11, 2009 San Diego Union Tribune (signonsandiego)
“I thought military affirmative action was a well-known fact.”
Here is a story my career Marine father told me....
In the aftermath of the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Marines in the 60’s decided that they would remove pictures in the promotion packages that all officers submit to get promoted.
This was so that it would be “color blind”
The next year they required pictures again, as it seemed that on merit alone - using a fair color-blind assessment, minority officers didn’t make the cut in sufficient numbers.
This story is, of course, anecdotal, but the point is that it’s a problem that isn’t new.
Don’t whine about getting turned away from something because you are white. It won’t be the last time. Go get something better.
And not just when he was in college...
Blacks grumble about the makeup of teams but how much does it really affect things. Our dreadful local team (Pirates) has seemed to be completely immune the this “influence”. The local football team is the origin of the “Rooney Rule” however that rule only says you have to interview a black coach not hire them. The Steelers did hire a black coach but if he’d failed to prevail over the standard NFL schedule, he would have been fired like anyone else.
There is a legitimate reason to want to have more minority offiers, and that's so that minority enlisted can see there is the possibility of advancement and promotion, and an understanding that the leadership isn't all white.
But if you want to accomplish that goal, the only proper way to do it is to recruit more qualified applicants, not lower the standards for the folks who do apply. That ends up creating a much worse problem -- a rational belief that minority offers, on average, won't be as good as white ones.
From my time on active duty in the Marines, I never saw a discrepancy in the quality of officers by race. Recruitment of minorities was pushed hard, to attract good people who might not otherwise have considered the Marines. That's fine. But you didn't lower standards or promote based on race, so it worked out.
Sorry. Had to, brother.
I’m not whining, I’m sharing my experience.
If people don’t shed light on their experiences, nothing’s going to change. This professor did everyone a favor by sharing his experiences.
My first-hand experience was 20 years ago. I have moved on, but often wonder about what laid down the other road.
I don’t think there will ever be a legitimate study.
Yes they are different.....They have a crappy football team....Go Navy!
One of the theory's major protagonists is the respected liberal Harvard professor Robert Putnam, known for his 2000 book "Bowling Alone," in which he uncovers a sobering decline in civic engagement in America. He has now come up with some astonishing findings that are so shocking that he did not release them for several years.The truth, Putnam found, is that the greater the amount of multiculturalism and diversity in a society, the lower the level of civic engagement and shared sense of community cohesiveness. The multiculturalists who have dominated our social thinking for nearly 50 years got it all wrong.
“affirmative action” is an illegal, unconstitutional disaster. It is unfair. It hurts those it pretends to help. It hurts those who work hard.
Maybe they figured 'the voluntary army' would lack recruits if the officer corps were all white and the enlisted all black. Just guessing.
Educated guess: to kiss the asses of PC politicians and PC superior officers who can influence their promotion and career prospects. The same old PC rot that resulted in a report on the Fort Hood massacre that never mentioned Islam.
This is 100% the doing of Obama.
” a black coach but if he’d failed to prevail over the standard NFL schedule, he would have been fired like anyone else “
Back in the days when I could afford Cable, I watched with incredulity when, not one, but virtually all, of ESPN talking-heads concluded, with perfectly straight ‘pundits’ faces, in sonorous ‘pundits’ voices, that Notre Dame’s first Black Coach (who had precided over two of the team’s worst seasons in history) should be judged on criteria other than his won/lost record.....
(This pre-dated the Rush Flap, when I stopped watching ESPN altogether...)
Notre Dame itself was thrilled to have a black coach right up to the point that he proved he couldn’t win, then he was out on his butt.
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