We have previously discussed how schools have rejected students with substantially higher scores for college admissions to allow the admission of African-American and hispanic students. Some academics, myself included, have raised concerns about the significant differences in academic scores — a difference that is particularly great with regard to Asian Americans. For that reason, I share the concern that this constitutes a form of discrimination based on race. While there remains a permissible range in which schools can select students to achieve a diverse and pluralistic student body, the differential of admissions scores can be alarming in some cases and suggest that students are being rejected simply because of their race.
I have previously discussed how schools have largely circumvented prior rulings against affirmative action programs. While many defend race-conscious admissions in terms of the need for affirmative action to correct historic discrimination, the Supreme Court barred such affirmative action in 1978 in Bakke. Justice Lewis Powell allowed for only a limited use of race for the purpose of achieving “diversity” in classes. Notably, in Bakke, the Medical School at the University of California at Davis had a more modest program over all by setting aside 16 of the 100 seats for “Blacks,” “Chicanos,” “Asians,” and “American Indians.” Those slots were justified as a matter of diversity, but found unconstitutional by the Court. However, the Court was deeply fractured. Five justices Powell and the plurality found that Bakke had to be admitted and that the weight given race was unconstitutional.
The exception however soon swallowed the rule as schools fought to maintain levels of minority students as a diversity rather than an affirmative action program. Many academics privately admit that the real purpose of these programs remains the original affirmative action rationale to ensure greater numbers of minorities in higher education.
The fact that the case continues to be referred to as the “affirmative action case” shows how little has changed since Bakke when the Court supposedly closed the door on affirmative action in admissions. By allowing race to still be used for diversity, educators sought to achieve the same numerical goals as a matter of diversity and achieving a racial “critical mass.”
In the most recent case, more than 60 Chinese, Indian, Korean and Pakistani groups filed a complaint with the civil rights offices at the justice and education departments. The Obama Administration is viewed as disinclined to pursue such claims and to support the use of race as part of a “critical mass” approach to admissions.
Robert Iuliano, Harvard University General Counsel, insisted that the university uses a “holistic admissions process” that is “fully compliant with federal law” to build a diverse class. That “holistic” approach is permissible but it can also hide the same type of affirmative action approach that the Court rejected. It comes down to the numbers and the record, which may only be made fully apparent with an investigation or litigation or both.
Source: USA Today
Not to beat a dead horse, but the central issue is this:
Can present descendants of “a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars” in 1863 be held accountable for “providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology” in 2015 ?
The obvious answer is NO, and that is the root of many of our social problems today.
No Harvard, no Peace!!
Asian brains matter!!
Let’s be honest here. The “diversity” argument has always been a facade that allows racists to hide their discrimination against whites. Now the racist crowd is expanding their discrimination to include Asians, hispanics, and other non-black races. But this new Diversity 2.0 racism is not driven by the need to achieve some sort of “balance”, is about protecting the franchise. It’s about power.
Does an employer have to hire someone because of their race? I may have three candidates on the table. One with high grades, one with stellar articles written in journals, and one who can talk my arse off. The job in question is to sell things worldwide. It does not matter if the employee is black, white or Asian to the customers, it is the ability to sell and yak. But yakking does not have a test score on the application form. I hire the best candidate.
Do not hire someone from Harvard or Yale. They TTSDS (ThinkTheirShitDontStink). Hire someone from Berkeley. Better school and no TTSDS. In fact avoid the East Coast schools altogether.
I have sat in on some of the Board of Trustee meetings at the University of Florida. I was shocked at the time to see that everything was about racial diversity. It is their religion. They send black men in vans to all the high schools to recruit blacks and offer lots of money to pay their schooling. White men are discriminated against as the university bureaucrats rush toward their goal of having greater diversity in the university. They sought to increase Asian diversity too, but it seems that it is pretty easy getting Asians. The blacks are the ones they keep focusing on to get their diversity numbers in line with their goals and objectives. The problem is this whole equality meme. Races are not all the same in terms of culture, intelligence, and the way they think about higher education. As long as we keep working from the meme that everybody is equal rather than from the meme that everybody ought to have equal opportunity and be treated equal under the law, we will see more and more injustice like described in this article. Let all the races compete for admission to the university and may the better races win. If the more intelligent race turns out to be Asian, so be it. Let the whites and blacks work harder to keep up.
A certain percentage of students, mostly minorities and those considered to be from disadvantaged backgrounds, were admitted into my law school class. The low GPA and LSAT scores were ignored; instead, these individuals were required to attend and pass some sort of preliminary law school course, given the summer before law school. At the end of three years, few, if any, were still left standing to graduate. They were woefully unprepared for the rigors of law school, yet the university gave these students some of the few and precious available seats. Can’t help but think of those whose hopes and dreams, of attending this law school, were dashed simply because they were displaced by those unfit to ever be admitted.
bam bam – you can thank you liberal administrators for those decisions.
White men have had the benefit of AA for centuries in the US. There were no AA laws because there didn’t need to be any laws. It was just “the way it was.” They were the ones who were allowed to vote, own property, get an education, get elected for public office, etc. The rest of us have had to fight hard for equal status. AA was a necessary remedy but now it’s gotten out of hand and isn’t working very well. So we should try a new approach.
old nurse – the court told the schools that AA was over for them, but they have just found new ways to keep it. It is Jim Crow in reverse.
Regretfully, social geo-engineering has priority in the distribution of federal funds from agencies whose budgets are reviewed by the National Academy of Sciences for Congress.
The central question is just this: Can the National Academy of Sciences be held accountable for
1. Deceiving Congress, and
2. Abusing NAS review of budgets of federal research agencies to deceive the public.
See: http://www.nasonline.org/about-nas/mission/
“The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a private, non-profit society of distinguished scholars. Established by an Act of Congress, signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863, the NAS is charged with providing independent, objective advice to the nation on matters related to science and technology.”
Correction *to see less*
Asians are a minority in this country, if they have higher scores they should be selected above other minorities with lower scores. Obviously then more Asians will be admitted and the balance of ethnic groups would be disrupted. While it would be sad to less less black and Hispanic students on campus, the high scorers shouldn’t be discriminated against because there are more of them scoring high. We need to focus on and improve early childhood education among Hispanics and blacks. And more black parents need to step up and be their child’s best advocate.
Inga – we have already improve early education and it didn’t help. By grade three everyone levels out.
Where in this article was this discussed as an issue of money?
The issue is that Asian students who are MORE qualified by grades, SAT scores and academic history are being declined JUST because of their race. They are being squeezed out because the institutions want to continue with affirmative action AKA….more Blacks and Hispanics and therefore boot out the more qualified Asian and White students.
Not only is this racism, pure and simple, it is also illegal. Affirmative action and diversity for diversity’s sake also degrades the quality of the entire institution’s product….be it education or making widgets or fighting fires.
Trailer park white kids are the same as billionaire white kids in this protected class, black privilege, world.
This isn’t an issue of money or elite social status. U.C. Berkeley has been dealing with these issues for decades. Berkeley is an extremely competitive, highly desired institution, but nonetheless a state school with tuition but a fraction of that of Harvard. It is truly an issue of Asian students being rejected in favor of blacks and Hispanics with markedly inferior academic records. And these are not poor blacks. An inner-city black would not make it through a semester at Berkeley. Law suits have shown that Asians from impoverished backgrounds, with stellar academic records, are rejected in favor of blacks from middle-class homes but weak SATs. So in terms of fairness, as well as the societal interest in educating top performers at top schools, I am sympathetic to the Asians. Where I lose sympathy, however, is that some Asians want it both ways. They are opposed to affirmative-action where it hurts them, such as in college admissions, but still want affirmative action where it benefits them, such as employment. Whites are harmed by AA in every area, so Asians shouldn’t get to pick and choose when it applies to them. I think it is hard to justify AA in this day and age, unless it is just an outright acknowledgement that middle and upper class blacks can’t compete academically with poor whites and poor Asians. But that does seem to be the case. Every black attorney in my agency has an Ivy or near-Ivy law degree, but are marginal lawyers, at best. They are usually put into management because they lack the skills to be lawyers. The litigation is performed by whites and Asians from second-tier law schools, who most likely would have gone to first-tier schools had they not been discriminated against by AA policies favoring blacks and Hispanics.
You cannot force cultural evolution without discriminating against people that had nothing to do with the original offenses.
Jill, you are confusing your imagination with reality.
“They select for wealthy students first and foremost. Next, they select for legacy students (also wealthy) whose parents will contribute money to their coffers.”
As a Yale graduate I’d have to classify this as used horse-food.
When China takes over the US this there will be payback, BIG TIME!
People with money will always have advantages over people without money. If it isn’t the cost of Harvard it is the cost of getting to Harvard. To insure diversity the focus has to first be earlier on. Society must recognize those kids with potential as early as possible and assist them to the gates of these schools. The strength of our society depends on getting the best of the best to the top, not the richest of the rich. Affirmative action was and remains a necessary means to establish examples of what is possible but should only be seen as a ‘bandaid’ to the larger problem.
People with the money to put their kids through the best private schools are not enough to ensure the advancement of our society. If those are the only ones to rise to the top the top will stagnate as it has so many times throughout history.
The Prog religion has many such instances of hypocrisy that might produce cognitive dissonance, so denial becomes their touchstone, and angry shouting while carrying placards their second line of defense whenever the obvious contradictions are pointed out.
In short:
1. No it isn’t .
2. You RACIST!!!
The problem for Asians is that they are deducting point OFF their SAT so even if they get a perfect score they don’t get a perfect score when they compete for a spot at Harvard. I wish them the best in their case.
These wealthy schools do not select for diversity. They select for wealthy students first and foremost. Next, they select for legacy students (also wealthy) whose parents will contribute money to their coffers.
I suggest a lottery for students. Anyone who wants to should put their name in the lottery. No grades, no test scores, nothing but a number linked to their name. A good school with these types of huge endowments should be able to take any student, put every available resource at their disposal and teach them. This will ensure diversity.
We don’t realize how many extremely intelligent and gifted young people are out there, (often having had equally poor education). The lottery would force Harvard and other schools like it to deal with actual diversity. Now, they are just ticket punchers for elites. Time for them to step up to the plate and actually educate people. More importantly, it is time for them to learn from their students. There are truly many different kinds of people with amazing skills and gifts.
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