Posted on 12/15/2015 2:10:05 PM PST by jazusamo
Defenders of racial preferences are good at two things: ignoring the real-world consequences of their policies, and attacking anyone who notices the consequences.
At the recent argument in Fisher v. University of Texas at Austin, Justice Scalia asked a question that illustrated that the victims of racial preferences in college admissions include not only the people denied admission because they are not the preferred race, but also the people preferences are designed to help.
At oral argument, Justice Scalia said:
There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well. One of the briefs pointed out that most of the black scientists in this country don't come from schools like the University of Texas.
Justice Scalia pointed out something known as "mismatch." It is the common-sense notion that if you are admitted to a school where you would not have been accepted except for your skin color, you might not do as well as the other students who were admitted on credentials alone.
Mismatch is an outcome consistent with life. Were I to be handed a slot in the 2016 Masters, I would finish in last place by dozens of strokes.
If common sense alone isn't good enough, data support the mismatch theory. Gail Heriot details some of the research on the subject, and has her own paper published by the Heritage Foundation explaining mismatch in greater detail.
In essence, when applicants are thrown into a college or law school where they wouldn't otherwise qualify, they do worse and drop out at greater rates. This means fewer, not more, minority doctors, lawyers, and engineers. Mismatch also conveniently creates a culture of grievance on campus, where a segment of the student population struggles in substantial part because of racial preferences.
That Justice Scalia mentioned this troublesome fact caused the racial grievance industry to become unhinged. They did what they do whenever someone questions the policy of government treating people differently because of the color of their skin: they attacked. As my friend Hans von Spakovsky (and co-author Elizabeth Slattery) noted:
The Left has whipped itself into a frenzy, but as these comments demonstrate, Scalia's critics have deliberately missed the point. Rather than look into the research Scalia was citing, they have launched scurrilous and false claims of racism. It's easier to engage in racial demagoguery than to address the problem head on, and Scalia highlighted a real problem -- academic mismatch.
The often vulgar Paul Campos at Salon ran with this headline:
"Scalia's raging hypocrisy: Encroaching senility, raging racism, or does he no longer give a f*ck? "
Chauncey Devega gets a two-fer at Salon by disparaging Justice Scalia and Donald Trump at the same time:
Is Justice Antonin Scalia auditioning for a job as Donald Trump's ghostwriter?
Devega calls the data on mismatch "pseudo scientific racism."
The racialist left like Devega and Campos cannot tolerate anyone questioning their orthodoxy, because there is too much money and power to be had by treating people differently based on skin color. Those who don't want to hear about mismatch are too busy conducting diversity training consulting for major corporations and earning fat salaries at 501(c)(3) organizations sowing racial grievance on campus.
I am reminded of an odd gathering from when I attended law school at the University of South Carolina a quarter-century ago. Some of us began to notice that groups of first-year black law students would gather without fanfare at the school at night in classrooms. Teaching at the front of the classroom was a third-year white law student who was on the law review.
After some discreet inquiries, we came to learn these were race-based tutoring sessions provided by the University of South Carolina School of Law.
Whites need not apply for help, even if they wanted it.
The sessions were almost certainly illegal, and were likely a byproduct of the mismatch that Justice Scalia alluded to in the Supreme Court last week. The tutoring sessions were designed to overcome the effects of mismatch by helping these students get through a very demanding first year of law school. Naturally, those of us without the right skin color organized our own study sessions without the benefit of the government provided tutors.
Some might think that a state law school in South Carolina had a special obligation to enhance the crop of minority lawyers 25 years after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Perhaps. But the mismatch created by race preferences were something the law school did not wish to be discussed, and something in 2015 many still don't want to be discussed. The nasty reaction to Justice Scalia demonstrates how damaging the truth can be to years of treating people differently because of their race.
Why is it that all RATs have the same look. That is they are bald, and have a beard! They all remind me of my last visit to the baboon cage at the zoo in that their countenances look like the “south end” of that primate.
Ha!
A good observation, Campos would look right at home in a baboon cage.
I’ve found myself wondering something like that myself.
These people can’t grasp that Trump support isn’t going anywhere.
He’s not perfect and none of us expect him to be.
We’ve held our noses and voted for decades.
This year it’s our turn.
Someone else can hold their nose for a change. And if that doesn’t suite them, they cut their nose off to spite their face.
They appear to be gleeful about that choice at this time.
The sports analogy is a good one. Imagine what professional sports would be like if players were picked based on something other than their ability to play.
great analogy.
There is another thing. Lots of stories have to do with the “outsider†who is admitted to a school. There are, in fact, lots of white kids who are misfits, too.
People that can't hack it and end up failing at the top level might succeed at the next tier down - Tufts, rather than Harvard or MIT.
I don’t care if Trump moves up or down, but Cruz is going to win, so it doesn’t matter.
With all due respect to Justice Scalia, please consider the following. While I understand that this is a sensitive issue, all that Harvard Law School-indoctrinated ”constitutionalist” Scalia can argue concerning racial preferences in school admissions is the following imo.
Not only have the states never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate, tax, spend, or decide policy for intrastate schooling purposes, but the only race-related issue that the states have amended the Constitution to expressly protect is voting rights as evidenced by the 15th Amendment. So the Supremes actually have no constitutionally enumerated school admission protections to throw at any college though the 14th Amendment imo.
Also, regardless that post-FDR era activist justices have been using a wide interpretation of the Constitutons Commerce Clause (1.8.3) to justify the corrupt federal governments sticking its big nose into 10th Amendment-protected state power issues, a previous generation of state sovereignty-respecting justices had clarified that that the states have never delegated to the feds, expressly via the Constitution, the specific power to regulate INTRAstate commerce.
”State inspection laws, health laws, and laws for regulating the internal commerce of a State, and those which respect turnpike roads, ferries, &c. are not within the power granted to Congress [emphases added].” - Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, here is what was left of the 10th Amendment after FDRs thug justices watered it down in Wickard v. Filburn.
”In discussion and decision, the point of reference, instead of being what was ”necessary and proper” to the exercise by Congress of its granted power, was often some concept of sovereignty thought to be implicit [emphases added] in the status of statehood. Certain activities such as ”production,” ”manufacturing,” and ”mining” were occasionally said to be within the province of state governments and beyond the power of Congress under the Commerce Clause.” - Wickard v. Filburn, 1942.
FDRs justices had essentially reduced the 10th Amendment to a wives tale.
In the meantime the “elite” schools have dumbed the curriculum down so that some acceptable percentage of lesser students will get degrees. This was done by adding “studies” level courses that impart no useful skills or knowledge to the participants, producing kids with degrees from “elite” schools that are not fit to flip burgers.
I remember being at senior day at my daughter’s (non-elite state) college. One of the graduating football players was graduating with a degree in “leisure studies”. He was not a pro prospect. Bet he had to hire an agent just to sort through the 6 figure job offers.
Fact is, a degree in a useful subject from a non-elite school will lead to employment somewhere. A teaching degree from State U is more valuable than a degree in lesbian bondage studies from Yale any time, even if you have to go to community college first. High school counselors used to steer kids into paths that fit their abilities and interests - have they stopped doing this?
I agree. If Trump starts getting mid 50s to 60s polling support, it means nothing!
NOTHING!!!
So he’s close to 50% then? Just saying.
No, but he is pulling high 30s and low 40s.
That’s not all that far off...
I don’t think he’ll get to 50s or 60s, but it is possible I suppose.
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