Click the link to the story; it's excerpted, but it doesn't say that it is.
Posted on 03/23/2005 2:14:33 PM PST by Crackingham
If you want to see how the diversity movement is eroding the critical thinking skills of college students, just pick up a copy of your local college newspaper. Recently, I picked up a copy of the UNCW Seahawk. I’m still recovering.
In the Seahawk “To the Editor” section, I read a letter entitled “Get over it – diversity is good for you.” The testy (not to mention condescending) author of the letter was responding to another letter writer who opposed lower admission standards as a means of increasing black enrollment.
The response said, in part, “You assume we would have to lower UNCW's standards of academic excellence to allow a higher entry of minority students - insinuating that there aren't a large amount of minority students that meet the standard set at UNCW.”
Re-read that statement and think about it for a moment. A student defending our diversity program, which already uses lower admissions standards for minorities, is saying; 1) we don’t have to lower academic standards to allow more minority students, and 2) there are already large numbers of minority students that meet university standards.
This kind of logic often appears when white liberals try to help minorities. They know that every time the “help” takes the form of lowering standards, they are contributing to negative stereotypes of the group they claim to assist. That makes them feel bad, so they remind us that their ideas are not really necessary. They are just “good for us all.”
bump. Thanks for posting this story.
Diversity is Perversity.
"How can a law class have an informed discussion about, for example, crack cocaine, if there are no African-American students in the class...?"
It would only take an editorial snip or two to find such statements attributable to some Imperial Wizard.
Who?
UNCW must really hate Mike Adams...and that's a good thing.
A student is just another commodity, albeit produced in an educational institution, as opposed to an automobile produced in a auto plant.
Education costs are rising and the quality of the product is declining. Most product manufacturers (in the real world) strive to produce the best product at the best price. If not, they don't last long.
The market place will not long be fooled by inferior products, regardless who produces them. Ford Motor Company is not going to hire an inferior engineer and they sure aren't going to put a social studies major into a design position.
Ugh, the problem is not "diversity" but how people choose to support it. Diversity IS good, but inappropriately supporting it is what's bad. Oversimplification of the issue on both sides doesn't help useful debate.
For example, affirmative action is insulting to minorities and shouldn't be employed, but only in situations where racism really has been eradicated and minorities have had equal opportunity to achieve. Unfortunately that's not the case in all places in the US. That's why local people should make these decisions.
No need to excerpt Mike Adams columns...
It's even worse than this, when you think of it. Universities up their "desireability" by doing two things; having many students apply (which ups their attractiveness), then taking a "select" percentage in the form of acceptance (markets their "tough" and "selective" standards). Within this quotient, minority students beating at their doors for the priviledge of learning at their knees increases both the above perceptions in their favor.
The unspoken problem (well, at least by the general public; Thomas Sowell in "Inside American Education" speaks clearly on it) is that students normally qualified for a second-tier school are now being accepted to the first rank. This applies especially to minority students, many of whom have not had the more rigorous training in K-12 as have had more qualified applicants. Yet they apply, and are accepted --- the net result being a lower percentage of minority students graduating, and then facing a world which suspects they've gotten a break because they're not white.
Coming back to that lower percentage graduation rate, Sowell illustrates how - as compared to pre-Affirmative Action when iirc about 5-7% of student body were minority but with a healthy 80%+ graduation rate in 4 years - minorities now may comprise about 15-30% of the student body, but graduation rate over 4 & 5 years has slipped to 5% of that total.
Am probably off with the actual numbers, but the gist is correct. In any case, do the math: Pre-AA, 80% of 7 meant 5 outstanding grads; current environment, 5% of 30 means 3 grads and with a stigma likely to hang on them until their job performance dispels it.
The only winner here is the University, which has admitted many more minorities (serving their image as a diversity-champion) and is pretty much getting funding from govt/private for this "noble" practice - while the kids who could have gotten an excellent education from a lower (but still very good...) rated school now flunk out more often... and they're paying 40K a year to boot for this!
To call this insane is to inadequately express the stupidity of this situation.
Click the link to the story; it's excerpted, but it doesn't say that it is.
No, any forced decision is bad (inappropriate is a good term too). The problem is that to have diversity and deal with situations normally involving merit, a bar is selected and maintained at a level where there are numerous candidates over the bar. Then the "diversity" minded selection can choose a minority or a homosexual, or a transdresser, or a handicapped individual or a women, or possibly a person with multiple criteria met. Thus "diversity" can be acheived while "standards" are met. The problem is that the "standards being met" are not the highest standard. What the selection acheives is an equal number of women, (for example) and men when an all male team might have been what a true merit selection would have acheived. (Lets assume the job being selected was for a fire rescue worker) Now we have a staff where the men can carry the heavy load, and pull out the heavy hoses and the women can interview the bystanders. Thanks for lowering the standards. This was one example, but the situation holds where ever "diversity" is a principle criterion.
While the university may think they are one of the winners, because they get to show ratios that match some government standard for goodness, in actuality the stronger students have to "carry" some of the barely qualified candidates. This is done by having classes base some or all of their grading on group efforts. This was started in K-12 so all students know what I am talking about. The idea is that each group has different skills and points of view, so a group effort merits a group grade for each participant. (Some schools also have the groups evaluate each oter on the level of effort expended.) But the group divides up the effort in some way, usually with the strongest student taking the main task and the other group members contributing what they can. Some contributions include artwork, organization, fact checking, binding, and copying. These are not all learning contributions. So the students lose, and the university graduates fewer highly skilled students.
Another way the standards are lowered for the university is when alternate course work is allowed to be substituted for degree credit. Instead of classic literature, readers can select the writings of minorities or people with similar political philosophies. Thus they can get through a university education without reading half the books that used to constitute a solid "liberal education".
My point is exactly that-- but you're still mistaking the bad method with the entire idea of diversity in general. What I dislike is how people too often just oversimplify and just say "diversity is bad!" when really we're talking about the methods used to appreciate or achieve it.
In the example you describe, that's a misrepresentation of "diversity" in the first place. Diversity can be achieved without lowering standards. Furthemore, the reasons behind when affirmative action is considered good involves when the standards are actually inaccurate because of discrimination. This would be the case where applicants from severely disadvantaged backgrounds, say someone who was raised in a ghetto with lots of other disadvantages, has achieved a lot, but still hasn't met standardized test scores or something. Now these cases in my opinion are not as common as some believe, but on the other hand there are also lots of people where this is the case. I find it bad policy to make sweeping generalizations about whether affirmative-action-like regulations are god or bad for everyone in all cases. And I find it bad thinking and communication when people just say "diversity is bad" and leave it at that.
You have the diversity jargon down pat. My sister was one of the selection committee who would argue that the standard bar was set exactly where it needed to be and created a pool of "equally qualified candidates" from which to choose the minority person from.
I believe we agree that this is the "inappropriate" method of acheiving forced diversity. Inappropriate because the only final criteria was that a minority be selected. The appropriate method would be for the "best qualified candidate" whom ever this was to be of the "right" minority with "best" candidate being determined by test AND evaluation and said evaluation could look at hardships faced and overcome.
Now comes the problem. with a bunch of hard criteria, like grades, acheivement in outside activities, and test scores on equally administered tests I see that the diversity team is going to implement a very subjective criterion and allow this subjective criterion to trump the other criteria. Again the "inappropriate" bells are going off. Because however the candidate is selected the same criteria must hold for each. I can't tell you how many points on a standard test should be awarded for growing up black instead of white. (You can't either so don't go there) The candidate who is selected will be tainted as all affirimative action selectees are tainted today.
Besides, if a white came from a poor family and managed to score well on the test, this should count as much as a black candidate who grew up poor and did not score as well on the test. I hope you see my point that "diversity" is a crock. All we owe to the future generation of candidates is an honest color blind assessment of the potential that each has. To do more to equalize past discrimination is folly. Sorry I vote against diversity. It cannot be applied appropriately.
if a white came from a poor family and managed to score well on the test, this should count as much as a black candidate who grew up poor and did not score as well on the test.
and most everything else you're saying, until you start saying that "diversity" itself is the problem, is a crock. Consider this an argument of semantics, but I think it's largely inaccurate and offensive to just say "diversity" in general is bad, when you're really only talking about the methods people try to force it.
Diversity is bad because of the methods used to force it.
OK?
No, not ok. That's like saying peace is bad because of the methods used to achieve it. Total oversimplification... I feel like this is a lost thread...
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