Here’s another thing — Scalia is not a young man. What if this leads to so much controversy that he suffers a stroke or heart attack?
Conservative, patriotic influence in the SCOTUS is FRAGILE, paper-thin. It’s really absurd, but here we are.
Scalia is wrong in the sense that the ‘problem’ has been addressed and now there are slower track curricula, or majors, more so than slower track universities. And most all universities have made slower track majors available for slower track students with a wide variety of “______ studies” majors available.
And general dumbing down and grade inflation has created further ‘opportunities’ for slower track students. The problem has progressed beyond whether a particular student is qualified to attend a supposedly faster track school.
Scalia was correct but he stated it in a way that when quoted out of context does look really bad. He’s a judge not a politician, but when you say “African-Americans” would do better at a “slower-track” school, without qualifying which particular group of African-Americans you’re talking about, you sound like a racist. What he meant was that affirmative action causes those African-Americans who would’ve probably done well at U of T to go to Harvard and Yale and those who would’ve done better at El Paso to end up at U of T. That’s a plain truth borne out by the numbers. But it’s not true that African-Americans are somehow congenitally incapable of succeeding at U of T. That’s a also plainly false borne out by however many black students have succeeded there and at other even more competitive places nationally.
Between this and calling Cruz a maniac, Trump is going to lose a few points.
For a number of years I was a counselor, then Associate Psychologist in Jr. High Schools and High Schools and Junior College. In general, I agree with Justice Scalia, but again, it differs accounting to the individual student so a blanket decision cannot be made.
In a Jr. High School, a new black student enrolled, let us call her Mary. This was in the NASA area south of Houston. The female student's father was an engineer at NASA. They had come from California to NASA. This female black student was intelligent, spoke well, dressed appropriately, and came with excellent grades from the various schools she had attended as her father had moved around quite a bit in his jobs. No matter where she lived in these moving times, she did very well in school. After she had been there for a while, she came to my office and cried. The black girl students shunned her and called her, "Whitey". These black students came from a lower economic area and were a gang of their own. Mary did not fit in their gang so they ridiculed her. It was possible with her grades, she could be Valedictorian when she graduated high school. I have no doubt she would do well at the University of Texas should she choose to go there. I seriously doubt any of the gang of black girls would have even considered going to a college.
What makes the difference between black students and white students (also green and and purple students)? Mostly it is the family for all students. If the parents encourage education, the child is more likely to do well to the best of their ability. If the parents see no reason for education, the child is likely to dislike having to go to school and will not do well.
Junior colleges are the best placement for a student who does not have high scores in high school whether the child has purple or green skin. It is also much more economical for parents who do not have extensive money to send the child to a four year university. If the student does well during those two years, then there is reason to transfer to a four year university. Junior College is excellent to get required subjects, such as English and Math mastered. These colleges are smaller, more centralized, and give students more individual attention and the ability to choose subjects they are interested in and schedule them according to their learning needs, such as signing up for two or three courses or less or more - however many they think they can handle and do well.
I was an associate psychologist/counselor for special needs students at a Jr. College. This Junior College also had a fine occupational program, with a two year certificate to allow the student to become a welder, plumber, construction worker, and other programs to train them to work at oil refining companies and chemical companies in the gulf coast area, many of them very close to that college. Students would be hired as soon as they completed one of those two year programs.
An example of a "learning disabled" student at that junior college:
This male student, let's call him John. He knew he had trouble learning. After every class, every day, he would make an appointment with the instructor and stay with the instructor until he knew/understood every concept the instructor covered in that class that day. He did this religiously every day with every instructor. At some point, I was asked to see the Dean of Education. The Dean told me John was driving his instructors nuts by having to meet with him/her every day. I laughed, good for John! What a great kid! He knew he had to learn and he was determined to do it. I had no doubt John had a great future in front of him. Junior College was the place he needed to be at that time, not a big four year university where he would get lost in the crowd.
So, I agree, with reservations, with Scalia. Four year universities do not fit all students and certainly not those who have had lesser grades in high school for whatever reason.
Rush talked about Scalia’s comments on Friday (I think). Rush hit pretty hard on those who criticized Scalia for it. I wonder if he’ll weigh in on this. Somehow I doubt it.
Thomas Sowell has said the same sort of thing, where university “diversity” programs, in their race to enroll Blacks into their programs, don’t give a damn that most simply aren’t prepared for the sort of work required of them.
The incident of Blacks dropping out of many of these “top” universities is glossed over, and the students would have done better going to less “prestigious” universities.
Mark
Fail.