Black Privilege -- Affirmative Action -- Does No Favors For Many Black Students Admitted Under It
I blogged about this recently but I thought this American Spectator Thomas Sowell piece -- from the perspective of a person who's been a professor -- is worth a read:
The case before the High Court is whether the use of race as a basis for admitting students to the University of Texas at Austin is a violation of the 14th Amendment's requirement for government institutions to provide "equal protection of the laws" to all.Affirmative action is supposed to be a benefit to black and other minority students admitted with lower academic qualifications than some white students who are rejected. But Justice Scalia questioned whether being admitted to an institution geared to students with higher-powered academic records was a real benefit.
Despite much media spin, the issue is not whether blacks in general should be admitted to higher ranked or lower ranked institutions. The issue is whether a given black student, with given academic qualifications, should be admitted to a college or university where he would not be admitted if he were white.
Much empirical research over the years has confirmed Justice Scalia's concern that admitting black students to institutions for which their academic preparation is not sufficient can be making them worse off instead of better off.
I became painfully aware of this problem more than 40 years ago, when I was teaching at Cornell University, and discovered that half the black students there were on some form of academic probation.
These students were not stupid or uneducable. On the contrary, the average black student at Cornell at that time scored at the 75th percentile on scholastic tests. Their academic qualifications were better than those of three-quarters of all American students who took those tests.
Why were they in trouble at Cornell, then? Because the average Cornell student in the liberal arts college at that time scored at the 99th percentile. The classes taught there -- including mine -- moved at a speed geared to the verbal and mathematical level of the top one percent of American students.
The average white student would have been wiped out at Cornell. But the average white student was unlikely to be admitted to Cornell, in the first place. Nor was a white student who scored at the 75th percentile.
That was a "favor" reserved for black students. This "favor" turned black students who would have been successful at most American colleges and universities into failures at Cornell.
...Justice Scalia was not talking about sending black students to substandard colleges and universities to get an inferior education. You may in fact get a much better education at an institution that teaches at a pace that you can handle and master. In later life, no one is going to care how fast you learned something, so long as you know it.
A little something that seems to be forgotten in this debate about who succeeds at big name universities; you don't have to start at an upper tier university to finish at one.
I know of several students who did not have top-of-the-class grades in high school, who did their first year earned GPAs close to 4.0, transferred to excellent private and "Public Ivy" level universities and graduated with honors. Saved themselves a boatload on loans and, in case no one has noticed, the only name on your diploma is the school you graduated from.
Of course they had to deal with the elitist fools who looked down their noses at anyone who spent any time at a community college, but, they have already outpaced many of their friends who just had to go to Whatsamatta U. for all four years.
alittlesense at December 18, 2015 5:41 AM
The people that do not see the injustice in placing someone in an environment that they are unprepared for should be called out but don't hold your breath.
Too many feel that grading, competing, and being judged on your performance is a BAD thing.
Since this includes most MSM, liberals, and soccer Moms it ain't gonna happen. Try to have an honest discussion and "white privilege" pops up like a jack-in-the box.
(Clowns on the left and jokers on the right ...)
Bob in Texas at December 18, 2015 6:51 AM
I have long said that this phenomenon of taking money from kids who can't succeed at a school should be called "fleecing," and it mystifies me that people insist on calling it "justice."
Jamie at December 18, 2015 8:22 AM
The legal argument underpinning discrimination in college admissions is interesting. Essentially the claim is that non-minority students benefit by having a 'diverse' environment at school. Therefor to benefit the majority (whites and asians) it is ok to lower standards for the minority (black and hispanics). That this ends up harming the minority doesn't matter. The whole point of admitting them was to improve someone else's learning environment.
Personally I don't buy any of this. I've yet to see the benefits of a 'diverse' campus. Especially in this day and age the concept that someone may have a different skin tone than you should not be shocking or novel. I also reject the concept it is ok to hurt someone to benefit someone else based solely on physical appearance.
Ben at December 18, 2015 8:34 AM
The real problem is we're trying to fix a deficit in the elementary and secondary education systems by forcing colleges to treat all secondary education as equal. That way, we can pretend the issue is racism and sexism in college admissions and not an inadequate public education system or apathetic public school students.
If our public education system is not preparing students for the "real world" or for college - despite giving them a diploma - then we won't fix that issue by shoehorning inadequately prepared students into a competitive college environment.
Conan the Grammarian at December 18, 2015 9:26 AM
The issue is whether a given black student, with given academic qualifications, should be admitted to a college or university where he would not be admitted if he were white.
No, he should not. Because making decisions about who gets admitted and who does not based on race is the definition of racism. And we hates our racism, yes we do.
Steve Danielss at December 18, 2015 10:11 AM
"Because making decisions about who gets admitted and who does not based on race is the definition of racism."
No, 'favoring whites' is the definition of racism.
Favoring blacks is Social Justice.
dee nile at December 18, 2015 11:45 AM
"Black Privilege"
That is a spot on definition of "affirmative" action.
And, while not every white person enjoys so called "white" privilege; it sure is true that every black person can take advantage of this "black privilege."
charles at December 18, 2015 1:08 PM
The way it was explained to me when I was on the graduate student council was that our university wanted a finger in every pie, they wanted to create the leaders in every discipline and in every community. Apparently the institution I got my Masters from is hell bent on world domination or something.
So an art student would be held to different standards than an engineering student.... maybe the test scores would be lower, but they would have a portfolio.
So you needed to figure out what pile your application would potentially go into and be the best of that.
They wanted to have the best radical black activist and the best driven asian student and the best vegan white hippie and the best math nerd and the best climate scientist and the best theatre chick etc. etc. etc
Seemed less about diversity and more about providing the world with leaders across the board.
Sadly, not everyone who graduated ended up being such a leader, but hey. Some did.
NicoleK at December 18, 2015 1:35 PM
"Seemed less about diversity and more about providing the world with leaders across the board."
This is BS.
Yes, when elite colleges were forced out of the business of giving a top tier education to people who were academically advanced enough to take it:
This *leadership* trope was what the social justice functionaries latched on to as their reason for existence and the progressive dumbing down of their entire non stem curriculum.
Beats having academic standards that you actually have to enforce. You might lose a lot of students, and their government backed loan money if you did that....
Isab at December 18, 2015 3:33 PM
You can tell the argument is among the insane when nobody points out that PRIVILEGES are EARNED.
Radwaste at December 18, 2015 8:00 PM
Ask if they want a great lawyer or a barely passed cause it was lawyer.
Bob in texas at December 19, 2015 4:48 AM
"was hard"
(Sigh)
Bob in Texas at December 19, 2015 7:27 AM
"was hard"
(Sigh)
Now limp?
Steve Danielss at December 19, 2015 10:11 AM
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