This week I testified in the Senate about the erosion of free speech and academic freedom in our universities where professors are being punished or even fired for expressing viewpoints that challenge a new orthodoxy on our campuses, particularly with regard to racial and political issues. The latest example can be found this week at the University of Pittsburgh. The University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (which is separate from the university) has removed Associate Professor of Medicine Norman Wang was removed from his position as Program Director of the Electrophysiology Fellowship. The removal was in direct response to Wang publishing an article in a peer-reviewed journal that questioned the use of affirmative action in medical schools admissions. The action raises serious concerns over both free speech and academic freedom. The only thing more unsettling than the actions of the university was the relative silence of his colleagues throughout the University of Pittsburgh as he was punished for expressing his academic views.
In the white paper in the Journal of the American Heart Association, Wang wrote:
“Racial and ethnic preferences at both the undergraduate and professional school levels for blacks and Hispanics result in relatively weak academic starting positions in classes. This has been postulated to lead to poor performance through compounding ‘academic mismatch,’ stress‐related interference, and disengagement. Many do not complete their intended programs or do not attain academic success to be attractive candidates for subsequent educational programs or employment….
“We will have succeeded when we no longer think we require black doctors for black patients, chicano doctors for chicano patients, or gay doctors for gay patients, but rather good doctors for all patients.’ Evolution to strategies that are neutral to race and ethnicity is essential. Ultimately, all who aspire to a profession in medicine and cardiology must be assessed as individuals on the basis of their personal merits, not their racial and ethnic identities.”…
According to MedPage Today, the Journal announced that it was reevaluating the paper and Editor Barry London, MD, PhD, attached an apology to the paper, saying JAHA “will support all efforts to correct this error, including but not limited to the publication of alternate viewpoints, which we solicited at the time of publication but have not yet been submitted to the journal. In addition, we will work to improve our peer review system to prevent future missteps of this type.”
I am not in a position to judge the merits of the entire paper. However, Wang was expressing his academic view and defending that view with what he considered to be supporting data. He is challenging commonly held positions to be sure in writing such things as “There exists no empirical evidence by accepted standards for causal inference to support the mantra that ‘diversity saves lives.'”
The pledge to publish “alternative viewpoints” is a good one. That is what academic debate and free speech is all about. However, the report that Wang has been stripped of one of his positions is deeply disturbing. There must be room for debate over the efficacy and basis for affirmative action in our schools. Wang clearly does not support such programs, at least to the degree that they have been used in admissions. It is a view that is consistent with some of the members of the Supreme Court in cases like Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action (2014) and Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978).
Yet, Wang has been apparently been removed from his position as Program Director of the Electrophysiology Fellowship.
Once again, I am less concerned with the merits of the debate as I am the right to have such a debate. The action taken against Wang clearly sends a signal that such unpopular views will not be tolerated. The “reevaluation” orders by the Journal also raises the concern that the type of cringing compliance that we saw recently at the New York Times is now invading our academic journals.
Again, the UPMC appears separate from the university, but the lack of support from the faculty in this controversy is notable. While the UPitt handbook is relatively understated in its expression of support for academic freedom, it does declare in Article II that “Autonomy and freedom of inquiry are required for the University to carry out its mission.” Simply because Professor Wang does not endorse the use of affirmative action in admissions does not mean that those views impact his treatment of students or countermand any university policies. Indeed, he presented his views for debate in a respected academic journal. The objection is not that he is right in these views but that he has a right to express them without punishment or retaliation.
Update: the article was slightly edited to clarify that the UPMC and the university are separate entities.
Professor dismissed after questioning systemic racism at his university.
The freedom of speech and freedom of research are severely damaged. Universities’ “diversity and inclusion” become a joke!!
With the irony being that they will probably hire a “person of color” to replace him in his position. Please keep drawing attention to this, Professor Turley. If we don’t protect the First Amendment we have no voice to protect any of our other “inalienable” (coff coff) rights.
“The fallacy of white privilege — and how it’s corroding society”
https://nypost.com/2020/07/11/the-fallacy-of-white-privilege-and-how-its-corroding-society/
“Fundamentally, privileges of all kinds exist: able-bodiedness, wealth, education, moral values, facial symmetry, tallness (or in other contexts, shortness), health, stamina, safety, economic mobility, and importantly, living in a free, diverse society. Rather than “whiteness,” an exponentially more predictive privilege in life is growing up with two parents.
This is why 41 percent of children born to single mothers grow up in poverty whereas only 8 percent of children living in married-couple families are impoverished. In a racial context, the poverty rate among two-parent black families is only 7.5 percent, compared to 11 percent among whites as a whole and 22 percent among whites in single-parent homes. In fact, since 1994 the poverty rate among married black Americans has been consistently lower than the white poverty rate. Furthermore, an illustrative study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that when controlling for family structure, the black-white poverty gap is reduced by over 70 percent.”
Yet BLM’s manifesto promotes black single mother homes as preferable to black two parent married couple homes.
Further proof that they don’t give a flying fvck about black lives, and all they care about is promoting their Marxist ideology.
Yes, of course.
But the postmodern ideologies fueling the notion of white privilege, always reduce all human experience into single categories for an oppressor vs oppressed paradigm.
Additionally, since they emphasize subjectivity over objectivity, the kind of obvious reasoning in that article means nothing to them.
Rhodes– Of course there is white privilege. You forget how we whites have to get up at midnight and go to the ghetto to scatter litter, dump garbage, sell dope, break windows, steal shopping carts, hijack cars, rob stores shoot a couple of bros, and vote for morons just to keep up appearances and make blacks look bad.
Happens all the time.
Darren Smith: look at this immediately! Crazed Idiot has turned on ‘you’. My sympathies, of course. As a former cop you know certain individuals can’t stop playing the games they play.
Darren Smith SOS
May we stipulate that the Framers presumed a minimum of decorum?
They never intended for non-“…free white person(s)…,” per the Naturalization Act of 1790, the “poor” or women to vote, presumed the perpetuation thereof and failed miserably to codify it.
The Founders are rolling over in their graves right now, asking, “Who’d a thunk it?”
Oh, my! You read them all, don’t you?
Thanks for reading…again!!!
At some point, the American truth will out.
Thank you so much, comrade.
I am forever indebted.
For over 50 years blacks & people of color have been given preferential treatment in both education & employment. Affirmative Action has blanketed every sector & industry across the nation. Unconstitutional on its face, it specifically discriminates against white citizens & most specifically, white men. Literally trillions of tax dollars, redistributed, American wealth have funded welfare & public programs. Nowhere in the world has there ever been such a governmental, societal effort at social engineering. It came as a curative cap stone & good will gesture to the civil rights movement. Instead of equality & opportunity, it granted special & preferential treatment on the basis of race and sex. It lowered standards & mandated acceptance. Today we see the result, the unreasonable hatred of America & white people manifested by ignorant, senseless violence.
I want to be very clear & quite unambiguous. I’m done with black people & especially with the black community whatever that’s intended to mean. I will continue interfacing with black individuals, one at a time and, as they present themselves, but any good will & willingness to concede special consideration is gone for good. Some will say I have become a racist. If true, it is a position, attitude & posture taken in self-defense. I want no proximity to senseless violence, crime, drugs, self-perpetuating ignorance, poverty and filth. I no longer make any excuses for it, nor will I accept any responsibility.
The entire communistic American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, rent control, social services, forced busing, minimum wage, utility subsidies, WIC, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, Agriculture, Commerce, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, etc.
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto 59 years after the adoption of the Constitution because none of the principles of the Communist Manifesto were in the Constitution. Had the principles of the Communist Manifesto been in the Constitution, Karl Marx would have had no reason to write the Communist Manifesto. The principles of the Communist Manifesto were not in the Constitution then and the principles of the Communist Manifesto are not in the Constitution now.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax only for “…general Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual welfare, charity or any form of redistribution of wealth. The same article provides Congress the power to regulate only the value of money, the “flow” of commerce among nations, States and Indian tribes, and land and naval Forces.
The right to private property is not qualified by the Constitution and is, therefore, absolute allowing only the owner to “claim and exercise dominion over” private property.
Marty, right on.
I cant stand the term People of Color. Everyone has a color, including white. White is not white like a sheet of paper.
The term People of Color is meant to Look Sensitive, but in fact, be a put down towards Black. It is almost as if the people using the term want to show their virtue while simultaneously looking like as arse.
Back in the day, before I was born, there were signs and it said Colored Bathroom or Colored Water Fountain.
For f*wk sake, if you’re Black, you’re Black. Whats wrong with calling someone Black?
This world has gone full blown Looney Tunes.
The term “people of color,” is intended to draw a distinction between whites and everyone else on the planet. It is extremely divisive and discriminatory. It is used for political purposes and cultural purposes, to turn everyone against white people, and eventually to cause whites to be servient to everyone else. It is South African apartheid in reverse.
Justice for All – I should have finished it off with—if youre White, youre White; if youre Black, youre Black; if youre Asian, youre Asian; if youre Hispanic, youre Hispanic.
Its so obvious these terms are meant to be divisive and pit everyone who is not deemed white, separate but equal (lol), from the who are deemed white.
I am in awe that terms like People of Color and Separate but Equal are so nonchalantly back in full swing in 2020.
It amazes me how they have been able to brainwashing Gen Y and Gen Z, and some other gens, into taking the bait and regurgitating these ideas in 2020.
If you know history, you would not use the words People of Color and you would not use the other N word. Those words should be put in a Pandora”s Box and never opened.
The whole idea that rappers and some others will casually throw the N word around at each other and claim it is a positive endearing term, it is wrong. You cannot use that word in a positive light or claim bc youre black and theyre black, it is okay. It is not okay. And it makes those using it to one another look like a bunch of Arses.
If “JAHA will be publishing a detailed rebuttal.”, how then is JAHA going to refer to a retracted paper. I thought a retracted paper was essentially not published and therefore not available to be referred to. Instead what JAHA should have done is to keep Dr. Wang’s paper and use it for a spirited debate – facts and values vs facts and values. Famously, Bohr and Einstein had their debate which in the end enriched Physics. The retraction of the paper instead makes the “debate” one-sided and sterile even more so given the uncalled for additional institutional response by Dr. Wang’s employer.
If a paper gets retracted, it is pulled from online and future printed copies. It is a terrible embarrassment, because it indicates that the problem could not be solved by issuing a correction. Papers will be retracted due to either errors, unreproducible results, or deliberate misconduct. There may also be political motivation. It can have a terrible ripple effect, impacting researchers who cite the study, or God forbid, base their own research upon it. A lot of time and money gets wasted.
Often, the retraction is noted with the reasons for its retraction, a rebuttal to the article, and the article itself is listed as a reference.
You can use the link in the reference at the retraction notice to find the original white paper, but it will have a watermark plastered across it that it has been retracted. There can still be vigorous debate.
Here is the retracted white paper:
https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1161/JAHA.120.015959
Nobody needs special treatment for anything. Special treatment is the problem
Amen. Use whatever criteria you like in admissions; as long as it isn’t race, gender, religion or national origin.
Ivy League Schools also practice affirmative action on behalf of wealthy, White, and well connected applicants via alumni preference.
That too should be done away with.
Bill, right now that’s about the ‘only’ thing that’s keeping Whites in the Ivy League.
Rubbish.
They could try studying
The IQ differences between Asian and white are not where their performance edge lies. They have an edge but the differences is not all that significant. Moreover there is some evidence that the white IQ distribution is flatter, meaning, more across the whole range and less concentrated at the mean. I do not have the references to support that nor the time to dig it out. It is also probably not that consequential in either direction.
The big difference is the WORK ETHIC.
According to Malcolm Gladwell, the rice cultivating cultures which require work 360 days a year, as opposed to 9 moth agriculture cultures, have the edge in getting homework done on a regular basis.
Work and practice, regular and diligent work, practice, and lots of it, is key to high performance in any sort of skill.
IQ is just a capacity, it is work and practice that unlock the potential
Malcolm Gladwell does mention iq in his book “Outliers” and does mention and discuss Richard Lynn’s work — but he makes the case for PRACTICE
White people, my people, need to WORK HARDER. Dont be WEAK. WORK. Dont be LAZY. This is timeless wisdom for those who heed it.
Never think democrats won’t do anything to take power.
Democrats planted false stories in effort to derail Biden investigations, Grassley says
‘This is the behavior of cowards,’ Grassley said in forceful speech to colleagues
One of the longest serving members of Congress in a scathing speech on Wednesday accused Democrats of resorting to dirty tricks in order to derail investigations into Joe and Hunter Biden’s dealings with Ukraine. “This is the behavior of cowards. And it has to stop,” Sen. Chuck Grassley declared. __JTN
Kurtz– The Puritan virtues worked well.
Not as well as the New Amsterdam values.
They were funny pants.
Autocorrect again. Were should be wore.
Kurtz, ‘I’m one of the whitest people to have ever walked earth, and I’m not your “people”.
Book– I am sure that Kurtz used the term in the same phylogenetic sense that Eric Holder used in Congress when he referred to “my people’.
If you are white then Kurtz’ usage is as correct as Holder’s.
If it troubles you then you can identify as black as Rachel Dolezal does. That worked for awhile.
Heck, you could identify as Rachel Dolezal for that matter.
Minorities within a population, especially those who have faced calculated and persistent discrimination from the majority, have little to zero choice but to identify with their fellows as a means of defense or advancement. Unlike Kurtz, and others here, I have not somehow convinced myself that being white in America makes me a victim requiring leveraging shrinking power, when the opposite is clearly true. The seats of governmental and corporate power are overwhelmingly white in the US, as are the better jobs, neighborhoods, and economic classes. My people are fellow Americans of any color, and their advancement benefits me. This is not a zero sum game, and none of us can win dividing shrinking spoils.
Book– This is not a zero sum game, and none of us can win dividing shrinking spoils.
***
You sound like President Trump. Perhaps you should take this message to Holder, Obama and Sharpton.
Young, you and Kurtz , Cindy, and antonio spend much of your time here trying to divide Americans on race and so does Trump.
Tell that to the “Brotha’s”, Book.
Your glaring lack of street sense is showing…..again.
Just another guilty dog barking.
How many Caucasians have matriculated at the University of Tokyo?
Citation please.
very funny,. if i had to look I would start with Richard Lynn’s IQ research. get started george, there’s a lot to read.
Mr. K, the “citation please” was for Bill’s edict:
“Amen. Use whatever criteria you like in admissions; as long as it isn’t race, gender, religion or national origin.”
I wonder where the Constitution mandates his decrees.
I really do. Answer: Nowhere. This is another communist attempting to brutally impose the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”
None of the communist ——– is in the Constitution or Bill of Rights.
Ya know what is? Freedom and Self-Reliance.
totally, imagine the audacity of proclaiming it “law” that I can’t “discriminate” in the most basic human activities. like hell i can’t.
im discriminating in favor of my family every single day and I wont quit till i die. that’s a tie of blood and I will honor other ties of blood too
no piece of paper of any kind is going to stop me I tell you that.
I reject the creedal notion stuff.
Here’s what i think about “creeds”
If Americans cannot discriminate, Americans cannot be free.
Americans enjoy the freedom of thought, speech, belief, religion, propagation, press, assembly, disassembly and every other conceivable natural and God-given right, freedom, privilege and immunity per the 9th Amendment.
The Constitution provides maximal freedom to individuals while it severely limits and restricts government to its sole charge of merely providing infrastructure and security in order to facilitate the maximal freedom of individuals.
Oh, wait.
That’s precisely what the communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs) want;
one great big Utopian padded room.
The SPLC hates his guts so he must have done pretty good work.
That regarding Richard Lynn.
Mad treehouse builder.
A close friend of mine has two sisters. Both are physicians who excelled in all areas of High School, University, and extracurricular activities. They were admitted to med school at one of the most prestigious East Coast schools. Their comments on the issue of admissions that determine who gets to be a doctor and who doesn’t focused primarily on an observation they made as some of their undergraduate class mates didn’t make the cut. The observation went something like this. There are so many sufficiently qualified applicants but so few spots that only the top tier of the top tier are accepted and they are not necessarily going to be the best doctors. Academic brilliance does not always make for the best in any discipline. Consequently many applicants were denied who were so close but not above the next in line up the ladder. They added that much of what makes a good doctor, or any profession, is learned en route and demands an acquired passion and tenacity as well as a basic brilliance. This equates to an understanding that ethnicity, race, and other elements can be factored into the determining of who gets a spot. If there is a dearth of African American doctors but enough Black applicants close but not at the absolute top of their class, perhaps race should be a factor. The bottom line is that the top five percent that make it could very well indistinguishable from the top ten or even fifteen percent. As well, there are yet to be developed advantages and passions that might be stronger in some than others irrespective of academic brilliance. In the end, the status quo is a dangerous sinkhole.
Issac– Thoughtful and I think largely correct analysis. The problem is that I know some black physicians who are well below acceptable are being pushed through. I learned that from a black physician friend who was an attending in a residency program and was overruled when she recommended that one black resident should be held back and another eliminated from the program. Do you think it helps minority patients to have less qualified physicians caring for them?
On your other point, by accident I was thinking about the same issue earlier today. The smartest people and the best test takers do not necessarily become the best doctors. They don’t really begin to become doctors until they reach their clinicals in the third year and begin to have direct contact with patients. At that point they begin almost to develop medicine as an art, creating and growing skills that can only come from doing. In fact, you have probably heard your friends sisters say, “see one, do one”. They learn by doing and it calls on different abilities than those used for test taking or studying biochem. One doctor told me of a time a lady came into the exam room with her daughter saying “my daughter is sick.” The doctor took one look and said ” your daughter is fine; she has a cold, but you are sick. Get on the exam table. ” One look. They can’t teach that in a text book. It takes lots of actual contact with patients to develop that art. Predicting who can do that must be very difficult.
Racial discrimination is wrong, period.
It doesn’t matter who it helps or who it hinders.
Citation please.
Are you a preacher or a dictator? Your name isn’t Lincoln, is it, Bill Lincoln?
Racial discrimination is wrong, period.
It doesn’t matter who it helps or who it hinders.
So you oppose affirmative action?
– – Private educational institutions, alone, arbitrarily and without interference, may claim and exercise dominion over the entirety of the relevant private property, and they may matriculate based on criteria they alone engender.
– – Voters may regulate local public schools in any manner they approve and public schools may matriculate based on any and all criteria they engender.
The Constitution provides the right to claim and exercise dominion over private property, without qualification and absolutely.
The Constitution does not mandate school matriculation criteria and voters are not mandated, regulated or restricted in any way regarding the operation of public schools.
No court may “interpret” into a school the personal ideological positions of the court, and no court may amend the Constitution in any way – no court may usurp the power of the voters, no court may decide without a constitutional basis, no court may “legislate from the bench,” and “…courts…must…declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void.”
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“Education is not mentioned in the Constitution of the United States, and for good reason. The Founders wanted most aspects of life managed by those who were closest to them, either by state or local government or by families, businesses, and other elements of civil society. Certainly, they saw no role for the federal government in education.”
– Cato Institute
____________
“Private property is that dominion which one man claims and exercises over the external things of the world, in exclusion of every other individual.”
– James Madison
______________
“[A] limited Constitution … can be preserved in practice no other way than through the medium of courts of justice, whose duty it must be to declare all acts contrary to the manifest tenor of the Constitution void. Without this, all the reservations of particular rights or privileges would amount to nothing … To deny this would be to affirm … that men acting by virtue of powers may do not only what their powers do not authorize, but what they forbid.”
– Alexander Hamilton
Issac:
You said, “They added that much of what makes a good doctor, or any profession, is learned en route and demands an acquired passion and tenacity as well as a basic brilliance.” This is true. But why does this truth prove your next statement, “This equates to an understanding that ethnicity, race, and other elements can be factored into the determining of who gets a spot?”
What is it about any specific race that indicates “acquired passion,” “tenacity”, or “basic brilliance?” None of those things are defined by any race. Rather, they are found in individuals of all races.
In my own experience in the life sciences, it has been my observation that Affirmative Action lowered the bar significantly. It led to a very high college dropout rate, as totally unprepared students could not handle the workload. There has also been the proliferation of fluff majors that are completely unmarketable in the jobs market. Majors such as basketweaving, surfing (yes, that is an actual major), gender studies, and other majors that are really more like hobbies. People have been getting into extraordinary debt only to discover they are unhireable.
I recall one professor confided to me that he had to teach the same intro class as if it had two different audiences – the students of all races who got in on merit, and those AA students who were completely lost, and were going to drop out. Indeed, there were quite a few seats empty by the end of the quarter. If you were waitlisted, you actually had a decent shot of getting in, as those who were doomed to fail dropped it.
Affirmative Action also ruins the reputation of the recipients. If you had a neurosurgeon, and discovered that he got through college on Affirmative Action, you’d have to wonder how far the bar was lowered. If there was no AA, and you had a black neurosurgeon who graduated from a prestigious medical school, you would know, without doubt, that he earned that degree on merit.
It has been argued that if an AA student can’t do the work, they won’t graduate. That’s true. But they are forever saddled with the reputation that the bar had to be lowered for them to get in.
Jonathan Turley’s article is not about affirmative action. It is about the claim that Professor Norman Wang has a right “to express [his views] without punishment or retaliation.”
REGARDING ABOVE:
Asians dominate the University of California system where they are 39% of the student population.
This article, from the Los Angeles Daily News, features various charts to illustrate Asian domination. Said article is from 2 years ago. This year the U C system decided to drop SAT’s. This move was largely interpreted as an effort to achieve more diversity (and possibly less Asian domination).
https://www.dailynews.com/2018/03/08/whites-dominate-california-college-faculties-while-students-are-more-diverse-study-shows/
The Republicans in California have a future spelled out for them– if they’re not completely stupid. It’s almost a no brainer.
California taxpayers educated half of Taiwan and Hong Kong.
The communistic welfare state “free stuff” flows freely (literally) around the globe.
I want my money back…generations of money back.
And how about them salaries – “money for nothin'” – that can’t continue – the band is playing on aboard the Titanic!
__________________________________________________________________________________________
“California State University Chancellor Timothy White’s base salary will increase 2.5 percent to $450,345, according to the CSU’s 2018 executive compensation summary. After the across-the-board raise, the average CSU executive will make $333,447 per year in salary for a total of $9.6 million.Feb 6, 2018.”
– The State Hornet
_______________
“Napolitano earns a base pay of $570,000, ranking 73rd among 268 public college leaders tracked by the Chronicle of Higher Education. The average base pay of UC chancellors is about $500,000, compared with about $670,000 for public college peers in the Assn. of American Universities.May 18, 2020”
– LA Times
Since they removed a minority from his position because of his viewpoints, they obviously don’t really care about diversity–it’s conformity of thought that’s important.
Born in Pittsburgh in 1943; raised in and lived in the Pittsburgh area until 2000. Worked for Pitt in the late 1960s while attending Duquesne University School of Law. Two of my siblings earned undergrad degrees from Pitt. Cared for by UPMC MDs and hospitals for many years – as were my parents and, now, one of my siblings. Like so many other places of “learning,” it now cares more about unchallenged diversity of student bodies than effectively using its educational resources and offering quality patient care. What is next, Pitt? Will UPMC hospitals adopt affirmative action programs for patients and admit them based on race, sex, skin color, etc.? Will UPMC’s MD offices pre-screen patients for care and treat only those who fit its affirmative action programs? Now, all I can say: SHAME ON PITT!
“What was lost sight of was that the evil of the past, whether of slavery or of Jim Crow, was evil not because it was done by whites to blacks, but because it was done by some human beings to other human beings. The purpose of the law (1964 Civil Rights Act) was to end evil acts, not continue them in the guise of ‘affirmative action’. Harry V Jaffa)
These guys nail it.
https://youtu.be/cP1VXhwM2n8
they are the best!
“good doctors for all patients.”
Hmmm, sounds like All Lives Matter.
That was a sure trigger point for all of the BLM acolytes of color who are addicted to their victim status due to inherent laziness, and their white liberal enablers, who want them to stay addicted, weak, lazy, and dependent.
Dr. Turley I have a large amount of respect for you. Our politics are different but our basic beliefs seem to be in agreement. I just wanted to say #1: thank you for your hard work and for putting yourself and your reputation “out there” where you are open to large amounts of blow-back from those on the left. #2: Unfortunately sir, you today are the exception, no longer the rule. This saddens me greatly, but I am still grateful for all your work no matter what side of the ‘aisle’ it comes from.
Dr Turley, the lack of dialog on any issue makes us a poorer society. Many years ago students with a weak academic standing, but who had great athletic potential for a college sport, were given the opportunity to go to a prep-school, to better prepare them for the requirements of further academic success at a higher level. From your description of the article by Dr. Wang , he has identified that some students are entering programs, possibly needing some additional academic foundation, before moving into the full program. I believe that both the desire for diversity and the importance of ultimate expertise in a specialty can be, in part, dealt with by providing the students needing this extra foundation, the mentor ship and opportunity to be prepared for the rigors of this line of study. A semester or two of “Pre-School” may be what the Doctor ordered.
The level that this additional foundation needs to be worked on is either pre-school or kindergarten and then it needs to be sustained all the way through at least high school. University is way too late in the process because it takes years to build a solid student.
You need to look at how very very few African-American people are in any position or authority – or any position at all really – in the Trump administration. Look at most every picture he posts on his twitter feed of meeting with people. All white males, with very few exceptions. Look at the Republican caucus in Congress. Look at all of their interns and staff. The people who don’t think we need affirmative action most are the ones who invariably choose white males for everything almost all the time. (Maybe they choose a few young attractive white women, like FoxNews or the Trump communications staff; but that is the extent of their diversity)
Indeed, you are right, it is amazing how few Whites and Asians are in the NBA and the NFL, certainly a case for affirmative action. I see 33% of Jewish Americans on the Supreme Court, yet not even one German American despite their 10 times greater share of the general population; you will agree that we have a clear case of systemic discrimination here. And to top it off, I have been victim of violent crime three times, and every time it was a young black male, despite their overall miniscule numbers. What are we to do about that? I am sure you have the remedy.
Fuehrer33, you’re the same troll who aspires to keep this blog a safe space for stupid people.
Well, if you don’t have an argument you resort to insults
You missed the point. The article criticizes not the respective positions people have on affirmative-action, but rather that they could lose their jobs and livelihood or suffer other professional damage due to having positions that challenge the status quo. Consider the statement that you just made – should you lose your job over it if it is contrary to your employer? That’s the issue.
Who cares?
What’s your point?