Posted on 09/11/2018 5:10:11 PM PDT by narses
George Will’s column today references a brief that my U.S. Civil Rights Commission colleagues Gail Heriot, Todd Gaziano, and I have filed with the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Fisher v. University of Texas. The Fisher case presents the Court with an opportunity to revisit the constitutionality of racial preferences in college admissions.
Our brief makes the point that an increasing number of studies show that racial preferences actually harm their intended beneficiaries. Black and Hispanic students admitted to colleges due to preferences are far more likely to flunk out or rank at the bottom of their respective classes than their white and Asian comparatives. This is particularly true for students in science, technology, engineering, math, and law.
The phenomenon is due in large part to the “mismatch effect.” A recent Center for Equal Opportunity study showed that at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, black and Hispanic applicants were more than 500 times more likely to be admitted over similarly qualified white or Asian applicants. Thus, black and Hispanic admittees were more likely to be below the college’s median qualification level than white and Asian admittees — leading to profound performance disparities between the former and latter cohorts.
Racial preferences are not only harmful, they’re costly. Just a few weeks ago, University of Wisconsin–Madison professor of economics emeritus W. Lee Hansen estimated the cost of maintaining that institution’s diversity apparatus is $40 million per year (the salaries of college “diversity officers” alone can be several times the starting salaries of professors). Not surprisingly, as noted last week by Heather Mac Donald on this page, the staggering cost of the diversity bureaucracy contributes to the rising cost of tuition. Consequently, all students (or their guarantors/creditors) are paying more money/incurring greater debt so that preferred minority students will have a higher probability of flunking out.
More than two months ago in this space, I challenged University of Wisconsin officials to debate their assertion that their admissions policy complies with the “guidelines handed down by the U.S. Supreme Court.” I stated that they could send two, three, or however many professors they needed to defend their claim and they could choose any neutral they wished to score the debate. I’d even spot them 20 points on a 100 point scale.
I’ve gotten no response. Therefore, I hereby extend the same challenge to any university in the country currently employing racial and ethnic preferences. My only stipulation is that the neutral be neutral.
Look forward to hearing from you.
We have understood this risk for over 4 decades, but it’s too much for some to admit. That one or a few might succeed should not cause us to destroy the hopes and dreams of many others lifted above their capability.
“the salaries of college “diversity officers” alone can be several times the starting salaries of professors”
I’d like to get one of those gigs. Probably not as remunerative ($300,000) as Moochelle Obama’s no-show job at the University of Chicago Hospitals, but I probably wouldn’t have to break much of a sweat making demands that more PHDs be handed out to minority students in physics.
Affirmative Action also negatively impacts minorities who earn their place in universities and businesses.
Their achievements become suspect because it is assumed they benefited from Affirmative Action.
And when they do graduate they often are carried by their non minority co workers. My husband is a machinist. It’s not brain surgery. His company insisted on hiring a black machinist
So the guy they hired has evolved into a gopher. He can’t do the work. He knows it and is perfectly happy making journeyman wages for fetching tools and holding flashlights.
Add to that the costs of hiring unqualified people to VP and Manager levels in business world.
A lot of these token hires can’t even carry on basic conversations, much less do their jobs.
from my management time in Sacramento.
Every black was insisting on being called African american. State changed the labels. So the white guy across the hall claimed African american. he was born of Italian parents in Africa. They were Italians working in Kenya or one oath eastern countries. In meeting eh explained, I’m the only real african american in here and heads exploded.
Management meeting to discuss sighing mexican women who were unqualified. Just change the standards you see. I pointe out since the asian population state wide was 3.5% and we had 9.7% asian in Hdq, we had to hire fewer asians and more whites. Heads exposed. When you point out the implications of AA that other people get held back, there is no justification. We had AA since 1967and now is the time for just equality straight up
Affirmative Action is a disaster to both students and budgets.
The impact on me is that every black and Hispanic with any university degree is inferior
The root cause of it is that blacks are incompatible to western civilization. When they can’t be extracted, the civilization has to be compromised. The outcome is affirmative action
In keeping with your racial quota example, R.E.Hazard construction in San Diego was accosted by an Affirmative Action compliance inspection. He was accused of not have the right percentages of black and hispanic employees. He called them all to an assembly with the compliance inspector present. Upon counting his staff and accounting by race, he observed that he actually had too many blacks and hispanics. It would be necessary to fire the excess. The inspector was exposed as a fool and dismissed from the company property. Nobody was fired.
yeah facts and numbers can work against the social justice army
That’s an oversimplification; the real problem with affirmative action is that it puts preferred minorities in slots (in both school and the workplace) beyond their abilities, instead of a position where they could do well. For example, the applicant who is qualified for community college is bumped up to the state school, and the applicant that is qualified for the state school is bumped up to the Ivy League - and in both cases they usually fail - as a white person also would - but are given “minority Cs” (as opposed to “gentleman’s Cs”) and pushed through. The same dynamic then flows through the workplace, and with the same result: failure, and another cover-up.
In the end, you have preferred minorities who assume racism is holding them back (because they have the same papers as their white & Asian co-workers), and you have companies forced to double costs while they continue paying a competent, qualified worker to get the job done. Race relations are strained further, and a toxic work environment is maintained.
In the end, it helps nobody; it re-distributes wealth at a disastrous cost to the recipient and those around him/her.
“The impact on me is that every black and Hispanic with any university degree is inferior”
I’d use the word “suspect” - and include women in that category. Affirmative action policies at my job have been a welcome excuse to stop working unpaid overtime; they don’t (for more money/higher titles), so I don’t - and nobody can do a damned thing about it.
b, bu, but, fairness; you racist !
So it is common for the Affirmative Action student to flunk out after one to two years.
So the University, against their better judgement, allowed this student to rack up $20,000 - $60,000 is debt knowing there was a better than 50% chance they would fail.
So who is responsible for paying the debt?
The failed student, or the complicit University?
Hoe about that affirmative action air traffic controller?
What’s the potential “cost” of that?
When I was in school many would spend at least one year taking “remedial classes” - high school classes without which white and Asian guys wouldn’t have been admitted. They earned no credits for them, and were in a segregated building. Most never moved beyond that; they dropped out before “real college”.
L8r
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