Free Republic

The most consequential falsehood in American public policy today is the idea that any racial disparity in any institution is by definition the result of racial discrimination. If a cancer research lab, for example, does not have 13 percent black oncologists—the black share of the national population—it is by definition a racist lab that discriminates against competitively qualified black oncologists; if an airline company doesn’t have 13 percent black pilots, it is by definition a racist airline company that discriminates against competitively qualified black pilots; and if a prison population contains more than 13 percent black prisoners, our law enforcement...

If you want to seek a redress of some grievance, most people start with a lawsuit. This is partially responsible for the fact that in 2023 there are 1.33 million attorneys in America and only 1.08 million doctors. What happens when people figure out how to use these lawsuits not just for a redress of grievance but to attack others? Take, for example, the case of Acheson Hotels, LLC v. Laufer. In this case, Acheson Hotels claims that Deborah Laufer filed a lawsuit against them not because she was harmed by their hotel but because she is an activist using...

Daniel Alman from Squirrel Hill@DanielAlmanPGH I support meritocracy because I want bridge engineers who are good at math, doctors who don't butcher their patients, and college presidents who don't commit plagiarism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_International_University_pedestrian_bridge_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_the_University_of_California_v._Bakke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claudine_Gay #ClaudineGay #Harvard #DEI #Woke

The United States Supreme Court’s affirmative action ruling sparked a raft of shrieking rhetoric from the usual Florida suspects last week, but those voices are 24 years too late, and as it turns out, they don’t have much to shriek about. In 1999, during then-Governor Jeb Bush’s first months in office, Florida embarked on the same journey away from race-based admissions quotas upon which the entire nation is now about to embark.A quick survey of Florida’s most respected colleges and universities, seeking answers on how the court ruling might impact their admissions practices, yielded an almost universally identical answer: it...

A judge unsealed identities of anonymous "John Does" in Ghislaine Maxwell litigation. Several names were of Jeffrey Epstein victims, not powerful associates. One, a subject of "intense media coverage," was allowed to remain anonymous and pursue an appeal. A judge agreed to make public the names of several "John Does" who tried to keep their identities secret in the long-running litigation between Jeffrey Epstein's associate Ghislaine Maxwell and Virginia Giuffre, an Epstein victim. One of them, however — identified as "John Doe 183" in court filings — will remain anonymous despite being the subject of "intense media coverage" and was...

In 1958, British sociologist Michael Young coined the term "meritocracy" in his satirical novel, called "The Rise of the Meritocracy." Its point was simple: When intelligence and effort are selected by any society as the basis for success or failure, those with such merit begin to comprise their own class. That class hardens into an elite that brooks no dissent and stratifies society. As Young would say in 2001, "It is good sense to appoint individual people to jobs on their merit. It is the opposite when those who are judged to have merit of a particular kind harden into...

We take it for granted that people are free to use their abilities as they choose, and as a result, society as a whole benefits from their work and innovations. Progress depends on this. Today our lives are vastly better than those of our distant ancestors because individuals were free to try new ideas. For most of human history, however, there was little or no freedom for people to advance through work and innovation. Our societies were arranged in strict hierarchies where individual accomplishment wasn’t encouraged. Everyone had a place and was expected to do just as his forebears had...

Two Asians in America (one a defector from Communist North Korea) discuss the "attack on merit" and how Asian-Americans are crucial to preserving meritocracy in the U.S. They discuss "critical race ideology" and how Asian-Americans are being discriminated against in favor of Blacks and Hispanics who are being given preferential treatment because of race, not merit. The preference for "equity" over "equality" has spilled over from academia and is now infecting corporations and other areas (even such things as music), where Asians are being made to feel "ashamed of their race" and "merit" in general. Kenny Xu also brings up...

Meritocracy has become a leading social ideal. Politicians across the ideological spectrum continually return to the theme that the rewards of life—money, power, jobs, university admission—should be distributed according to skill and effort. The most common metaphor is the ‘even playing field’ upon which players can rise to the position that fits their merit. Conceptually and morally, meritocracy is presented as the opposite of systems such as hereditary aristocracy, in which one’s social position is determined by the lottery of birth. Under meritocracy, wealth and advantage are merit’s rightful compensation, not the fortuitous windfall of external events. Most people don’t...

The core meritocratic idea -- that tasks should be assigned to those most qualified to accomplish them -- is, and has been for some time, under attack. That attack, predictably in the current identity politics-obsessed climate, has been based on race and sex. Just recently, for example, the CEO of United Airlines proudly announced that United’s new goal for its stable of pilots and co-pilots is that it reflect the demography of United’s passengers. So if a certain percentage passengers are women, and a certain percentage are black, then the occupants of United’s cockpits should reflect those percentages. The CEO...

Late last month, in a fit of woke rebellion, the New York City Department of Education’s Panel for Education Policy (PEP), voted down the contract for the city’s gifted and talented (G&T) test. The test is given every year to students entering Kindergarten to third grade who are interested in enrolling in a districtwide or citywide G&T program. This program has been enormously successful and has benefited many Gotham children. Previously, Mayor Bill de Blasio (D - New York City) and Chancellor Richard Carranza (D - Dystopia), never shy to virtue signal, announced they were going to sacrifice gifted children...

The Jefferson fiasco underscores how activist school leaders and alumni, from California to Massachusetts, are conspiring to recklessly overhaul school policies, education standards, and curriculum this year.FAIRFAX COUNTY, Va. – After a crusade by educational arsonists targeting the nation’s No. 1 high school, America’s meritocracy is about to go up in flames. The Fairfax County School Board is set to vote Thursday night to gut the race-blind, merit-based admissions testing process at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology. T.J. is a state-chartered magnet school legislated to serve academically gifted and advanced students. The school board plans to replace...

It’s just the flu, bro. A few times on this thread I said that there was no way football would be cancelled in the fall. But now we see that some college conferences have actually done the unthinkable - they cancelled the season. Most of the conferences that cancelled are in Dem regions, but not all. They know Trump is supporting the idea of letting athletes play so that left the leftists with no choice but to cancel football. - Not to get too far off track but the following true statement helps to explain what the leftists are doing...

Affirmative action” means hiring people because they can’t do the job well. Near-synonyms are “diversity,” meaning groups that cannot do the job well, and “inclusiveness,” which means seeking people who you know cannot do the job well. These underpin American society, and have ruined education. For some time the sciences seemed less susceptible to the prevailing enstupidation because mathematics would present an impenetrable barrier to the the insufficiently bright. This, astonishingly, is changing. The sciences are being dumbed down to–are you surprised?–spare the feelings of included affirmative diversity. As a matter of observable–if, to many, unwelcome–fact, virtually all of the...

From the very beginnings of American history, the concept of merit has enjoyed a certain pride of place. It found a welcoming home in a new republican nation that, from its inception, had sought to proscribe the titles of nobility and other hereditary distinctions of social and political rank, as well as practices such as primogeniture and entail that had long been characteristic of European aristocratic society. But even the most equality-affirming republic would need to generate a pool of talented and effective leaders, a leadership class recruited and empowered for public service. How to find appropriate means by which...

In Carly Fiorina’s interview with Katie Couric from May, Fiorina went on and on about how if you don’t have a room full of “diversity” when making an important decision, you will not get the decision right. For Fiorina, it’s all about hiring women (and of course anyone else who isn’t a straight white male), and she goes on at length insisting that women in top positions absolutely and necessarily equates to merit; guarantees merit — the same thing Hillary Clinton just said, by the way. I had been inclined very favorably toward Fiorina, especially because of her ability to...

Hoping to shed its reputation for offering little more than dead-end jobs, Wal-Mart, the nation’s biggest private employer, is giving raises to nearly a half-million workers and offering what it says are more opportunities for advancement. Wal-Mart told The Associated Press that as part of $1 billion its spending to change the way it trains and pays workers, the company will give raises to nearly 40 percent of its 1.3 million U.S. employees in the next six months. In addition to raises, Wal-Mart said it plans to make changes to how workers are scheduled and add training programs for sales...

“You know, it’s almost a life motto (‘Well-behaved women rarely make history’). If you read the book (My Beloved World), you know I’m very law abiding. But I make it very clear that, like all people, there are exceptions. I like driving fast. I’m a pure New Yorker and I jaywalk. None of us is perfect. Sometimes you have to do the unexpected.” […] “In the United States, certain segments of society played with quotas for a number of years. What ended up happening is that the larger population got angry. And the Supreme Court ultimately said that quotas were...

Americans love sports, as evidenced by the fact that the Super Bowl last Sunday was the most watched television event in history. While the game was a blowout and boring because of it, people didn’t tune in to see a tie, they watched to see one team beat the other, unambiguously. But sports, at least on the professional level, are just about the last bastion of meritocracy left in the country, and the damage its loss will bring to the future is immeasurable. There were controversies this week in Silver Spring, Maryland, and with comedian Jerry Seinfeld that will have...

Through most of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Protestant Establishment sat atop the American power structure. A relatively small network of white Protestant men dominated the universities, the world of finance, the local country clubs and even high government service. Over the past half–century, a more diverse and meritocratic elite has replaced the Protestant Establishment. People are more likely to rise on the basis of grades, test scores, effort and performance.