Posted on 12/06/2002 2:26:16 PM PST by Jean S
For decades colleges and universities have been choosing their students on the basis of skin color, but that may change soon.
On Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced it would take up two cases involving the University of Michigan’s admissions policy.
In one case, Stephanie Gratz, a young white woman seeking admission as a Michigan undergraduate, was turned down—despite having higher grades and test scores than most of the black students who were admitted—because the school holds whites and Asians to a much higher standard than it does blacks. In the second case, another white student, Barbara Grutter, applied for admission to the university’s law school and was turned down despite having test scores and grades that would have guaranteed her admission if she were black.
In both instances, the university claimed what it did was justified by the need to achieve "diversity" among its students.
The Gratz and Grutter examples are no mere flukes, nor do they represent only a minor advantage for black students in the admission’s process. When my Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) analyzed admissions standards at the University of Michigan’s flagship campus in Ann Arbor, we discovered that the median SAT scores for black students who were admitted to the school were 230 points lower than for whites. What’s more, their high school grades lagged nearly a half point (on a four-point scale) behind those of whites. From the data we obtained under a freedom of information request, we calculated that the odds of being admitted if you were a black student with the same qualifications as a white applicant were 174 to 1.
Sadly, the University of Michigan isn’t alone in applying such racial double standards. CEO has published studies of admissions policies at 47 public colleges and universities and found that virtually all highly competitive schools admit blacks with significantly lower grades and test scores, and many (though not all) admit Hispanic students with somewhat lower qualifications. These schools have sent a very clear—and, I believe, racist—message to all students: We don’t expect black and Hispanic students to measure up, so we’re giving them a pass, while we expect only the best grades and test scores from whites and Asians.
Isn’t this racism, pure and simple? Former Rutgers president Francis Lawrence in 1995 told a faculty meeting, "The average SAT [score] for African-Americans is 750. Do we set standards in the future so we don’t admit anybody? Or do we deal with a disadvantaged population that doesn’t have that genetic, hereditary background to have a higher average?" Lawrence nearly lost his job over the ensuing flap, but because he was such a staunch liberal and defender of affirmative action, he didn’t.
The Supreme Court should consider what effect racial double standards have, not only on the whites and Asians who are passed over, but on the blacks and Hispanics who benefit from them. The University of Michigan, for example, admits more black students under its affirmative action program than it might if colorblind standards were applied, but many marginal black students at Michigan fail to graduate. CEO found that almost 90% of white students graduated within six years, but only about two-thirds of black students did. We saw similar patterns nearly everywhere.
The irony is that many of the black students who gained admission through racial preferences at Michigan and other highly competitive schools could easily have gained admission on their own merit at slightly less competitive schools. They wouldn’t have landed out on the street, as some college administrators imply, but at good schools where their grades and test scores were the same as their white and Asian peers—and where they would be poised not only to succeed but even excel.
Ever since the Supreme Court handed down its Gordian knot-like decision in the Bakke racial quota case in 1978, colleges and universities have been trying to socially engineer their student enrollment to reflect some ideal racial balance. It’s time the court put an end to this mischief once and for all and got back to the original goal of the civil rights movement. No person should be denied opportunity because of the color of his or her skin.
________________
Ms. Chavez, a nationally syndicated columnist, is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity.
That would mean that all men are created equal! Minorities can't have that.
Some of them are more equal than others.
Why is it mischief? The latest genetic research says we all originated from a single female somewhere in East Africa a few million years ago. Do college applications restrict how far back you have to go to prove you have some "black" heritage?
A friend of mine has long worked in the admissions dept of a well known medical school. She says that many years ago, in the Sixties, more than 90% of the applicants were white males, as were the acceptees, and the school never ever even accepted half of the applicants, and never accepted anybody below [a certain level, call it X] on the MCAT.
Now, she says, barely 30% of the applicants are white males, of which 15 are so bright they are "God," while the other 15 are below the "X" standard that would have gotten them in in the Sixties.
White females are some 45% of the applicants, and half or more of those too are below what would have been accepted in the Sixties.
The remainder [25%] are Asian, mostly women, with a few men, and these are "mostly well qualified, would have been admitted in the Sixties, but not quite God."
Blacks and Hispanics rarely apply beyond a token individual here and there, and those are so poor academically as to make the committee doubt they could follow the program and graduate. Some are taken in anyway.
Overall, the school which has not enlarged, now accepts over 70% of all persons who apply, and over half of those now accepted would NOT have been accepted in the Sixties, and entirely for academic reasons since the school never had discriminated by race or sex.
In the resulting student body, some fifth are white males who so run circles around any other students [esp in verbal, English skills] as to renew legends of race/sex superiority and envy and hate, while there is another fifth who are females, half Asian and half white, who would have been accepted in the Sixties and who can with effort get the MD degree...
while the other 60% are basically persons [of whatEVER race and sex] that would not have been admitted in the Sixties, it is very doubtful they will quite really make the true grade [60's quality]
and the school which once graduated well over 90% of those admitted, now has to face the fact that it [ought to, but cannot politically do it] flunk 40 or 50% of the admittees out....and in fact over 20% of the admittees do flunk out or withdraw on their own.
MEANWHILE, White Males who are well qualified but Short of "God" Level, who once made up some 80% of the enrollment, have disappeared from the enrollment pool! "We don't ever even HEAR from them."
I do not think this bodes well for the quality of medicine, nor for the prospects of very good but short of supreme, white males.
They will still do well money-wise in real estate or plumbing, I suppose, but would have become doctors in the Sixties, but now have no hope.
They may only be 95th [not 99] percentile on MCAT, but they are smart enough to know how the cards are stacked.
"When I think back on all that Crap I learned in High School...
Its a Wonders I can Think at All...
But my lack of education hasn't hurt me none;
I CAN READ THE WRITING ON THE WALL!
As Dylan sang, After Twenty Years of Education, Got Me on the Day shift at Wal Mart.
For white males, unless they are already rich or politically connected, their college will never help them, they would be better off just becoming a plumbing contractor now.
Like my plumber told me, if you was a woman and fancy, I'd charge you $150. For you, it's $15. All I did was turn a wrench wunst."
And why not? They would be better off spending the money on a new pickup truck. Or converting to Islam, which still LOVES white males, or at least certain parts of them.
Any standard sociological study can give you something on this by race, or you could (shhh!) look into forbidden works like the Bell Curve...Losing Ground...
The studies are there, done by the sociology students (lesbian females, mostly) and with elaborate math/stat technique, abundantly demonstrating the folly of AA so thoroughly that they always try to hide their own research, when they haven't completely falsified it in the first place.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.