Posted on 01/13/2012 2:44:23 PM PST by reaganaut1
DURHAM — Black students at Duke University are angry over a university research paper that found African-American undergraduates at the school are disproportionally more likely to switch from tough majors to easier ones.
“The implications and intentions of this research at the hands of our very own prestigious faculty, seemingly without a genuine concern for proactively furthering the well-being of the black community is hurtful and alienating,” wrote the officers of Duke’s Black Student Alliance in an email sent to the state NAACP.
The letter from Nana Asante, president of the alliance, challenged the faculty members involved in the research and the university administration to consider “what image has this … report portrayed to the rest of the country, namely our peer institutions, about Duke and its black students?”
The unpublished report, “What Happens After Enrollment? An Analysis of the Time Path of Racial Differences in GPA and Major Choice,” looked at the Duke freshman classes that matriculated in 2001 and 2002, in their first, second and fourth years of college.
It found that among students who initially expressed an interest in majoring in economics, engineering and the natural sciences, 54 percent of black men and 51 percent of black women ended up switching to the humanities or another social science.
By comparison, 33 percent of white women and just 8 percent of white men made the switch to majors that are considered less rigorous, require less study and have easier grading standards.
According to the paper, 68 percent of Duke’s black students but less than 55 percent of white students ended up majoring in the humanities or social sciences other than economics.
(Excerpt) Read more at heraldsun.com ...
The bottom line is the PICTURES. There MUST be enough BLACKS to fill out the pictures - without them in the pictures, Duke would be considered a RACIST institution.
So the blacks show up, let themselves get in the pictures, then either transfer to something much easier, or simply drop out.
Nothing special with Duke, EVERY college that’s linked to the federal government does the same - or they are TOAST.
One needs to be reasonably bright to perform in any rigorously taught discipline. That said, the sciences mainly require precision and discipline, with the significant exception of studies that press out into the nether regions of mathematics, where most people hit the wall long before reaching the cutting edge. Most scientists, however, don't operate at that level.
In my overlong academic career, the flat-out smartest person I ever met was doing political philosophy, rigorously. When I last had contact with him, he was taking a year out -- and a year, for him, was probably enough -- to learn classical Greek so he could read Plato and Aristotle in the original. He had not only read everything, he remembered it, and could abstract and analyze at the drop of a hat. In terms of mental gymnastics, he regularly left the rest of us standing in the dust. Brilliant man. Smarter than any mere scientist I've ever met.
Just postulating, but it could have really happened given the famous 88's "guilty" conviction without the benefit of fair trial escapade.
Ah!...So the “legacy” admission students ( likely white) have a similar pattern as the black affirmative action students! Hm?
My conclusion:
Both groups ( black and legacy students) enter with lower SAT/ACT and GPAs. This is due to less diligence in mastering mathematics and reading/writing skills in middle school and high school, poorer study habits, less discipline to postpone immediate wants, and lower general intelligence, or a combination of all.
I absolutely agree. Most scientists do not work on that level. One doesn't have to be “Mr. Universe” to lift a ten pound bag of sugar. The same is true in most sciences, you need to be smart enough, not the next Einstein.
I’m reminded of the time I was given the topic of affirmative action as a subject for a paper in an ethics course.
I interviewed a prof who taught at a particular university.
He clashed with administration over his harsh grading policy.
He did not back down and argued he was doing his students a favor.
How were they going to make it in the real world if they were coddled?
Why should he give them inferior training when he knew the students in other universities were more competitive?
They didn’t find his arguments convincing, and his skin color was the wrong pigment anyway.
He came away from the experience very saddened.
The students would not be aware their education was inferior.
They would get hired based on quotas and then struggle in the workplace.
They would then attribute their poor evaluations to racism.
I WANT THE TRUTH.
You can’t handle the truth.
Aint that the truth.
In life (real life—life outside of academia) nobody gives you anything, you have to EARN it
...........................................................
Unless you get an Affirmative Action Gubmint job.
Not only do they drop out of tough subjects, but they whine when it’s talked about. When will we get a break.
When I graduated from University back in 1995 there wasn’t a single black student in any of the Engineering classes that I took.
A-N-G-R-Y B-L-A-C-K W-O-M-A-N
This observation hasn’t been lost by those who major in the more difficult programs. Especially when quotas are handed out, denying qualified grad students access to the institutions of higher learning, while the same institutions are unable to even attract any under-qualified black applicants.
but the differance is I think whites generally acknowledge that blacks are great athletes, asians are very smart, etc etc...
there is no shame in admitting that somebody else is more talented or more intelligent...
there is important work in this world for all...
This report and its accompanying “black outrage” will lead universities to further hand out “social grades” and “social degrees”, the way government high schools hand out “social promotions” and “social diplomas”.
“They’re black (shrug), so just push them through.”
I cannot believe that more blacks aren’t shouting to the rooftops to eradicate any and all vestiges of “affirmative action”. Instead, most just sit there and take that insulting slap in the face from white liberals, and then demand even more. I do not understand it.
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