The Last Refuge of Pure Meritocracy (Cal Tech)

James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal ^ | November 6, 2020 | Walt Gardner

[karpov]

Racial consideration for college admissions hearkens back to Grutter v. Bollinger, the landmark decision by the Supreme Court in 2003. It held that affirmative action programs can pass muster as long as they are “narrowly tailored” in order to achieve the “compelling interest” of promoting diversity on college campuses.

Colleges across the country have since repeatedly cited the ruling as the basis for their use of “holistic” admissions. But the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division isn’t buying that claim from Yale, saying they let skin color play an inordinate role in admissions.

It charges that Yale, Harvard, and others are really using holistic admissions as a guise to circumvent the high court’s guidelines. To do nothing in light of the available data, therefore, is to “permit our institutions to foster stereotypes, bitterness, and division,” said Eric Dreiband, an assistant attorney general for the Civil Rights Division.

The latest lawsuit against Yale, coupled with the defeat of Prop 16 in California, which would have repealed the state’s 24-year-old ban on affirmative action in public colleges and universities, signals that the battle over race and college admissions is destined for the Supreme Court. The court’s new conservative composition will likely make race irrelevant in college admissions in the years ahead, said Edward Blum, visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and president of Students for Fair Admission.

If so, what would higher education in this country look like? We already have the answer at the California Institute of Technology.

All that matters at Cal Tech is a proven record of aptitude to handle rigorous academic work. As a result, racial diversity is noticeably absent.

[HighSierra5]

When you’re trying to land a space probe on a moon of Saturn,you want the best engineers and scientists regardless of color. Those are billion dollar missions

[ArtDodger]

Recently, Cal Tech head hunted a promising student. One of those super bright youngsters destined for great things, who happened to be black.
Cal Tech wined and dined him, offering all sorts of goodies. The young man turned down the offer and went somewhere else. His choice. In parting, though, he wrote a letter to the deans of the school telling them why he chose not to go there, saying there weren’t enough of ‘his own kind’ attending the school.
This seems to have had a profound effect on the deans, who have prompted some radical changes to the school’s admissions process. Now they are going to bring in more blacks, regardless of their qualifications, jus to have ‘friends’ available for the smart students they head hunt.