Posted on 01/14/2006 6:25:01 AM PST by bornacatholic
Apart from the question of abortion, the centerpiece of the Democrats' opposition to Samuel Alito's confirmation to the Supreme Court is his membership, more than twenty years ago, in "Concerned Alumni of Princeton," or "CAP," which the AP describes as "an organization that opposed the admission of women and minorities at Princeton University."
Now the fact that so-called "news" organizations are reporting lefty slurs of this sort as if they were simply, uncontroversially true is bad enough. But even worse is what this sorry episode reveals about the left's delusional obsession with the spectre of white Christian male supremacy in the academy.
UPDATE - 13th January: Some slower, cleaner statistics:
Hillel, the invaluable Jewish student organization, has detailed info on Jewish enrollment at American Universities.
U.S.CollegeSearch has statistics on minority enrollment, and on male/female ratios, at any American college you might care to shake a stick at.
After a long day of crunching their numbers, I can only conclude that the academic hegemony of white gentile males (hereafter WGM's) is just as dead as I thought it was. Of the top 30 schools in the U.S. News & World Report survey, not one suffers from a majority of WGM's. Only three schools have more than their fair share of same: Wake Forest, CalTech, and Notre Dame (heh!).
Meanwhile, WGM's are significantly underrepresented, compared to the American population as a whole, at no fewer than 17 of the top 30. To wit: Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Emory, Harvard, M.I.T., Northwestern, Penn, Stanford, Tufts, U.C.Berkeley, U.C.L.A., U. of Michigan, U. of North Carolina, U.S.C., Washington U. and Yale.
Need I say more?
First, as to the slur:
The Democrats and the media have so far failed to produce a single piece of evidence that CAP, as an organization, ever "opposed the admission" of "minorities." And that is no small matter. Single sex schools are one thing - but single race schools are quite another. To oppose racial integration is far, far more "out of the mainstream" than to oppose an all-male school going coed. So this part of the charge against CAP cries out for proof - and doesn't get it. All we do get are selective quotations from a couple of magazine pieces, which we are given no reason to believe that Alito ever saw or knew about, where some old CAP duffer waxes nostalgic about the halcyon days of the upper-crusty/WASPy Princeton of yore.
No doubt CAP, as an organization, opposed affirmative action and objected to its alleged unfairness and dubious consequences. Most conservatives do, after all. But to oppose affirmative action simply is not "to oppose the admission of minorities," tout court.
Second, as to the delusional obsession:
Back in the early years of the last century, the ivy league was indeed a bastion of white Christian - or, more precisely, WASP - male privilege. Jewish admissions were limited by quotas. Members of racial minorities were hardly to be found. Women were excluded altogether from some of the most elite schools.
But by the 1970's, all that was just a memory. The anti-Jewish quotas had fallen in the 1960's. SAT standards had been relaxed for African American applicants, sometimes by hundreds of points, in an attempt to achieve "parity" with their representation in the overall population. The few remaining all-male schools hardly threatened women, who were already well on the way to their present day domination of the undergraduate population.
Did I say "domination?"
Yes, I did. As has been widely reported lately - though not so widely appreciated - about 58% of entering college students are now women. Since women graduate at higher rates then men, the proportion of female to male college graduates is now about 60-40.
With that in mind, let's do a bit of quick and dirty back-of-the-envelope arithmetic:
The representation of Jews at America's most prestigious institutions of higher education, based purely on merit, varies from school to school, but generally runs about 20% of the undergraduate population. In recent years, the number of Asian Americans attending the same institutions has greatly increased, and now makes up about another 20% of the total.
Though affirmative action has not yet succeeded in achieving parity for African American and Hispanic students, it's about half way there: these two groups each account for about 5-10% of undergraduates, for a total of around 15%.
That leaves about 45% of the student body. If 60% of those who graduate are women, then only about 18% of the graduates of our most elite schools today are white Christian males - and that's without subtracting the various smaller minorities.
But white Christian males make up well over 30% of the American population.
So, believe it or not, white Christian males are almost as underrepresented at America's top schools today, compared to their representation in the overall population, as African Americans and Hispanics. And if the proponents of affirmative action ever achieve their goal of parity for the latter two groups, then white Christian males will end up even more severely underrepresented. But question such parity as a legitimate policy goal, and many on the left will immediately banish one to outer racist darkness. Been there. Done that.
In sum: the idea that white Christian (let alone WASP) male supremacy in the academy is some sort of real, live threat to the future of women and children and other living things, the last vestiges of which must be stamped out without mercy, is just crazy. Just absolutely crazy.
Indeed, one might well ask, if the underrepresentation in the academy of women and racial minorities forty years ago was unjust, then why isn't the underrepresentation of white Christian males today? And why is the left doing everything in its power to increase that underrepresentation?
Finally, returning to the case of Samuel Alito for a moment, one might well also ask why the Democrats are so obsessed with his alleged lack of purity in a struggle that effectively ended decades ago, to the exclusion of any concern at all for the very real, very live inequities brought about by their own victory in that struggle.
Mote, meet beam.
But they don't see a problem with the congressional black caucus who refused to admit a white congressman.
Of course it is and yet that is okay.
Well, since Monday is the national celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr., let us remind ourselves that he dreamt of a time when in America a man would be judged not by the color of his skin, but by the content of his character.
Dr King was speaking not only to those who say "No, you're black, you're not acceptable", but also to those who would say, "We need a black, or women, or hispanic, or you name it, for this position because we have too many white males, etc, etc." Both statements are inherently rascist. The problem today is that the liberals will just not see the truth in that.
I should say some liberals. I think the vast majority of the democrat leadership doesn't believe or practice equality, but use it to garner votes to get/stay in power. Their words alone should not judge them, but their actions as well. Ted Kennedy's membership in the Owl club, Feinstein's pistol, John Kerry's (or his family's) many gated, protected mansions, for example.
Kennedy used an article that was SATIRE for his accusations.
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012824.php
snip
Dinesh D'Souza was the editor of Prospect at the time, and he confirms that the article, by H. W. Crocker III, now an editor for Regnery Books, was a satire:
The essay may not have been funny, D'Souza acknowledges, but Kennedy read from it as if it had been serious instead of an attempt at humor.
"I think left-wing groups have been feeding Senator Kennedy snippets and he has been mindlessly reciting them," D'Souza said. "It was a satire."
Hey, no fair mentioning the Owls' club. Remember, Liberals are moralizers not moral actors.
And that's fine by me. They deserve it.
keep it up!
It should be it's own thread.
And I'm sending it to Drudge, Rush, Sen. Specter, Sessions, etc.
then post it~
The Congressional Black Caucus refused to accept J.C. Watts, another BLACK, but a Republican Black.
I will. How about "Kennedy lied. Women cried."
LOL
Kennedy drived, a woman died.
Excellent article. Thanks for posting it!
"Kennedy lied. Women cried".
"The Democrat Party died".
(I wish.)
I guess they just aren't as tolerant as Republicans.
It's a stand alone thread now; what a great find by Powerline and MEG33.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/payne200601131703.asp
Conservative Concerns
Then and now.
By Henry Payne
As a Princeton senior in 1984, I met the editor of Prospect, a magazine published by a conservative group called the Concerned Alumni of Princeton (CAP). He was a minority — an Indian immigrant named Dinesh D'Souza. The following year, his ex-Dartmouth College colleague, Laura Ingraham, succeeded him as editor. Fast forward 22 years to this week's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing room where committee Democrats declared Supreme Court nominee Sam Alito a bigot.
snip
Example:
on their weary and seemingly endless questioning of Judge Alito on his views on Executive Power, does anyone remember hearing any of these concerns expressed during the Clinton years? As I wrote in another thread here where a poster had stated:
"You know, every dem Senator and most the dem witnesses seem to be obsessed with the idea that they have to pull power away from the executive branch."
Did they speak out about that issue when Clinton was issuing a record number of Executive Orders?
A search of the topic of Clinton Executive Orders is revealing, including this one
Why weren't Kennedy et al complaining about this extensive overreaching of Executive power?
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