Posted on 01/14/2015 6:58:30 AM PST by Academiadotorg
Every now and then, academics drop their guard and reveal that one or another of the shibboleths that the modern academic world holds dear is—a sham. “The loud debate over affirmative action is a distraction that obscures the real problem, because right now affirmative action simply mirrors the values of the current view of meritocracy,” Harvard law professor Lani Guinier wrote in The Chronicle Review on January 9, 2015. “Students at elite colleges who are the beneficiaries of affirmative action tend to be either the children of immigrants or the children of upper-middle-class parents of color, children who have been sent to fine prep schools just like the upper-middle-class white students.”
“The result? Our nation’s colleges, universities, and graduate schools use affirmative-action-based practices to admit students who test well, and then pride themselves on their cosmetic diversity.” Her essay in The Chronicle Review is excerpted from her new book, The Tyranny of the Meritocracy: Democratizing Higher Education in America.
Guinier was, early in her career, an assistant counsel with the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In many ways, she is one of the ultimate insiders in politics and academe.
She almost became even more of one. “While President Clinton and virtually every member of his senior staff spent last week intent on getting the Administration's budget bill passed, storm clouds were gathering over Lani Guinier's nomination to head the Justice Department's civil rights division,” Gwen Ifill reported in The New York Times on June 4, 1993. “They were ignored.”
“But by the time the President met with Ms. Guinier for more than an hour on Thursday evening, several officials had told him that she could not be confirmed by the Senate.”
“At that meeting, which he later called heartbreaking, Mr. Clinton did not tell Ms. Guinier of his decision to withdraw her nomination. Instead, he placed calls to her and to Attorney General Janet Reno after first meeting with senior aides to tell them of the decision.” “Fifteen minutes later Mr. Clinton made the withdrawal public, appearing in the White House briefing room to read from a statement that had been prepared before the meeting with Ms. Guinier began, and that he had edited.” “There had been warnings for weeks that Ms. Guinier's nomination might run into trouble. Before her name was even formally submitted on April 29, both the President and the Attorney General had been alerted to the unusual nature of her legal writings, officials said today.”
I read what she said, but I think she meant something different. She wants the bottom of the barrel scraped racially and put up on top, whether they can stay there or not. Her problem is that the minorities helped by preferences are in themselves “privileged.” Hell, this makes them almost white!
Well, if you think about it, they don’t want to admit people like Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, do they?
Lani Guinier was also candid in her testimony to Congress when Clinton nominated her for Asst. Attorney General. She didn’t hide anything or make Gruber-like circumlocutions to “explain what she really meant”.
I admire her honesty, even though I disagree with her on many issues. She would probably be a great neighbor or co-worker.
It is also a form of "racial profiling" that the left pretends to hate so much. White students are unfairly profiled as privileged and undeserving of their achievements.
Fine, the kids went to good schools. The question remains: Would they have got into the elite colleges without affirmative action?
Many great students who wanted to go to Harvard have to settle for Duke, Michigan, or Berkeley.
“affirmative action” was a clever con. They wrapped it in a name that no one could object to. We later found out that it was discrimination, and that was illegal and unconstitutional. (passing a law that violates our rights does not make it a valid law)
Lani Guinier !
Pushed out by Clinton after it was noticed that she supported cumulative voting (CV).
CV was the law in the land of Lincoln for over 100 years.
IMO CV was a good thing for slowing down the the process in Springfield; less governing.
Then Pat Quinn, yes that one, was going to save the taxpayers all this money!!! The Cutback was from three to two reps from each district and no more bullet votes.
You had three votes to place and could put all three on one rep(bullet),or other combinations.
After the Cutback the reps gave themselves a 50% raise from the ‘savings’!
Such a deal!
All things racial are so shop-worn that it’s utterly idiotic to even think about any more.
Really, when will this idiocy end ?
It’s such an obvious ploy for corruption.
All races all along have been played for fools by those who really rule and their dopey minions, politicians, apostate churches, academicians, big business, infotainment, etc.
The minions keep hackin’ away.
It’s all nothing but a huge, steaming pile of twisted logic.
Monumentally stupid.
This sheeple is through being riled up by anything.
I just don’t care any more about new world order headlines and academics that are intellectual whores.
I think I’m among a growing crowd of sheeple.
My focus is happily on Christ.
May God rain down temporal judgement upon his enemies.
Every interaction with the government is a game or one sort or another. These universities have figured out how to make their diversity quotas come out right, while at the same time keep up their academic standing. In itself, this is commendable. The fact that it has to be done is deplorable.
When I got hired by a Fortune 50 company the HR orientation was interesting. The presenter was proud to proclaim that they were an Equal Opportunity employer AND an Affirmative Action employer. I raised my hand and asked her which one they were. I explained to her that they couldn’t be both. She hadn’t really thought about it before. I eventually got her to admit that they would have hired a black of equal qualifications over me if one had applied. That answered my question.
Correct.
What a concept. Parents who love their children and work to help them succeed, have children that are more successful. Clearly this is bad and must be stamped out.
For some people it may be worth it to be able to go through life telling everyone they went to Harvard. In terms of academic quality, Berkeley and Michigan are right up there and may be better than Harvard in some fields.
Duke is a fine university but not quite as highly rated (although it has been a while since I have looked at any ratings--the last time I looked, in my field Berkeley and Harvard were in the top five, Michigan may have been too or was very close, but Duke was somewhere like #15 nationally).
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