Archive for October, 2009
…Ohio State University (OSU) intends to cast a “deeper and wider net” to admit more black students. Does this mean the school will lower standards to admit more black students? The former is commendable; the latter is known as racial preferences.
OSU is reaching out to black students in 15 inner-city high schools in select cities to bring diversity to the campus. (Source) Not a bad idea. How the idea is executed will determine whether it’s bad.
Admissions officers will facilitate the process by helping prospective students file applications, and OSU is waiving the application fee. According to the article, the school will work with students “with high academic abilities…” Excellent! “…and aspirations.” Hmmm…is aspirations code for racial preferences?
The percentage of black freshmen at OSU dropped after the Supreme Court restricted race-based admissions in 2003, and the school presumably is looking for ways to attract blacks without lowering standards or discriminating against non-blacks. (The presumption probably is unwarranted, but I’m giving OSU the benefit of the doubt.) But OSU offers race-based scholarships. Doesn’t that run afoul of the law?
The Supreme Court decided two racial preferences cases in 2003. In Gratz v. Bollinger, the court held that the University of Michigan’s racial quota admissions system wasn’t narrowly tailored to achieve the desired skin deep-only diversity, and this use of race (point system) violated the Equal Protection clause. In other words, schools may use race to admit students, as long as the process is narrowly tailored, whatever that means. In Grutter v. Bollinger, the court held that the University of Michigan’s law school racial preference policy was narrowly tailored to pass Equal Protection muster and furthered the “compelling interest” of the government to bestow racial diversity benefits upon students. To admit lesser qualified black students, the law school considers “soft variables” in addition to grades and scores.
Back to The Ohio State University. The school could attract more “underrepresented” minorities by offering scholarships based on socio-economic status rather than race. They’d achieve their racial diversity ends while helping all students, regardless of race. Right?
Naïve, I know. Idealistic, too.
Filed under: Diversity, Quotas, Socioeconomic AA | |Comments off
What right-leaning “person of color” among us can’t relate to Ruben Navarrette’s latest column, Ugly Racial Litmus Test?
I’ve noticed a phenomenon articulated by John McWhorter in Authentically Black: Essays for the Silent Black Majority. He wrote about a “double consciousness” whereby blacks speak of empowerment and individual responsibility in private, but they play the victim in front of whites and constantly remind them of America’s “racist” ways. Whites, says McWhorter, must be kept “on the hook.”
The black person who refuses to hold this attitude faces “intra-racial” charges of self-hater, hater of black people, and the like. Ironically, the racial authenticity of the black person who opposes lowering standards for blacks and insists blacks can and should compete against everyone also is questioned.
The Hispanic Navarrette faces similar charges. “Some people of color have this ridiculous and destructive habit of judging each other’s racial and ethnic authenticity,” he writes. “It’s both comical and sad, since the people who do it often have deep insecurities about their racial and ethnic credentials.”
Navarrette, who says he opposes lowering standards for racial minorities, has been called a sellout, a Republican thug, a coconut (similar to “Oreo”), and a fake Hispanic “all, no doubt, to the delight of white liberals who prefer that Latinos like me refrain from thinking for ourselves.”
Navarrette mentions a CNN segment in which Syracuse University professor Boyce Watkins referred to FOX News analyst Juan Williams as a “happy Negro.” I had the misfortune of being the person Watkins was sparring against during that segment. He purportedly was upset because Bill O’Reilly made a comment on his radio show about how well-behaved patrons were in a black-owned restaurant, where he dined with Al Sharpton. A media storm ensued, and O’Reilly was called ignorant and a racist.
Detractors tend to leave out the conversation’s context. O’Reilly and Juan Williams were discussing the contrast between how television plays up negative stereotypes about blacks and what O’Reilly experienced in the restaurant. He made the point that whites who don’t interact much with blacks may believe all or most blacks play to type.
Out of the entire conversation, this sentence stirred up the media storm: “There wasn’t one person in Sylvia’s who was screaming, ‘M-Fer, I want more iced tea.’”
I agreed to appear on CNN to criticize the media-created storm, not necessarily to defend O’Reilly. After Watkins made his “happy Negro” remark, I promptly admonished him and accused him of doing the same thing he’d accused O’Reilly of doing.
But in the scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. People will believe what they want to believe and say what they want to say. The best way to deal with the name-calling is to develop a very thick skin. If you strongly believe your principles and values are right, and you feel compelled to share them, you’ll need courage to face the consequences.
Filed under: General | |Comments off
California legislators ought to carry a copy of the state constitution in their pockets and refer to it when writing laws. It’s a useful guide, laying out what the people have a right to do and what the government shall not do. For example, Article I, Section 31 reads in part:
“The State shall not discriminate against, or grant preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the operation of public employment, public education, or public contracting.”
Thirteen years ago, 54 percent of voters passed Proposition 209, which added this language to the state’s constitution. But legislators either are unaware or they just don’t care. The latest attempt to circumvent the law is requiring race- and sex-based quotas in contracting. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who swore to uphold the constitution, signed into law a bill that directs state departments to award government contracts to the lowest responsible bidder subcontracting 15 percent of the work to minority-owned businesses and five percent to female-owned businesses. The contractor who fails to do so will be rejected, even if he’s the lowest bidder.
Read the rest at Townhall.
Filed under: Column, Judiciary, Quotas, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
A teacher named Patrick Welsh, frustrated by his all-black class’s performance on a test, asked, “Why don’t you guys study like the kids from Africa?” (Source)
Bold, yes? That’s what frustration can do to you. One student said, “It’s because they have fathers who kick their butts and make them study.” Another said, “You ask the class, just ask how many of us have our fathers living with us.”
According to Welsh, no one raised his/her hand.
Speculating about why racial preferences exist isn’t brain surgery. Whether arguing for compensatory justice or skin deep-only diversity, the truth is that in 2009, racial preferences exist because generally, blacks score lower on standardized tests than everyone else.
Embarrassed and probably feeling a little guilty, people use all kind of justifications for lowering standards to accommodate blacks. Before we can begin to tackle the issue, however, we must understand that family structure impacts performance.
“My students knew intuitively that the reason they were lagging academically had nothing to do with race, which is the too-handy explanation for the achievement gap in Alexandria,” Welsh writes in the Washington Post. “And it wasn’t because the school system had failed them. They knew that excuses about a lack of resources and access just didn’t wash at the new, state-of-the-art, $100 million T.C. Williams, where every student is given a laptop and where there is open enrollment in Advanced Placement and honors courses. Rather, it was because their parents just weren’t there for them — at least not in the same way that parents of kids who were doing well tended to be.”
The kids admit what academics try to avoid. Children with no father in the home perceive the lack of discipline and respectful fear an authoritative male instills. I agree with Welsh to a certain extent. He believes focusing on race is too simple, and that family support and involvement are important. And focusing on race can stigmatize black students, but it can’t be ignored. Three quarters of black babies in the U.S. are born into fatherless homes. Black students disproportionately are without residential fathers. For better or for worse, race must be part of the discussion.
It’s not the children’s fault. The blame rests solely on the parents. It will take a sub-cultural shift away from a 75 percent out-of-wedlock pregnancy rate toward stable, two-parent (preferably married) homes to improve the condition of these chidlren. As the article notes, school superintendents “have little control” over these issues.
What can the government do about fatherlessness? Practically speaking, nothing. Individuals must turn the tide.
Addendum: The Center for Equal Opportunity’s Roger Clegg blogs:
“Of course, [Patrick Welsh is] not alone, and there are more and more nonconservatives who are coming around to this view. Problem is, the problem isn’t getting any better. And it is still the case that this problem is unique among social pathologies, in that — unlike crime, drug abuse, dropping out of school, etc. — there remain a nontrivial number of folks who don’t see the problem as a problem at all.”
John Rosenberg of Discriminations echoes my view about the role race plays in this scenario, again, for better or for worse:
“The color of a father’s skin does not cause his absence from his family, nor does the color of a mother’s skin determine how strict she is about homework. Still, Welsh goes overboard in attempting to dissociate race altogether from the dysfunctional educational behavior he observes, if for no other reason than that there the percentage of black children in single-parent families is three times higher than whites. It is true that damaged families, not race, stack the deck against black kids raised in single families, but it is not true that their difficulty ‘has nothing to do with race.’”
Filed under: Achievement Gap | |1 Comment
Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water…
A black firefighter in New Haven, Connecticut, said the scoring on the promotions test (the same one at issue in Ricci v. DeStefano) was unfair. (Source)
As you may recall, the city of New Haven threw out the results of a promotions test because no blacks scored high enough to qualify. The city claimed that had it certified the test results, black firefighters likely would have sued under the disparate impact theory. In a 5-4 decision, the court ruled against the city, holding that New Haven violated Title VII of the Civil Rights Act when it discarded the results.
New Haven’s disparate impact lawsuit fear is confirmed. Michael Briscoe is suing city hall, claiming the test had a disparate impact on blacks. He contends that giving more weight to the written part of the test over the oral is a disadvantage to blacks. The written portion of the test is weighted 60 percent; the oral 40 percent. Briscoe scored higher on the oral than any other test taker. Good for him, but he scored too low on the written portion.
“Had the ratio of the sections been switched, Briscoe would have been one of the top candidates, according to the lawsuit.”
But the ratio hadn’t been switched. Briscoe loses.
Speaking only for myself, personally, me, and no one else, such a suit is embarrassing, as was the previous suit before the Supreme Court. Never would I claim, implicitly or explicitly, that blacks shouldn’t be expected to score well on written civil service tests or held to the same standard as everyone else. Call it pride.
Filed under: Judiciary | |Comments off
Thirteen years after California amended the state constitution to bar the government from discriminating against or preferring individuals or groups in admissions, contracting, and hiring, on the basis of race and sex, courts still are eradicating discriminatory provisions from the code. Proposition 209 passed with 54 percent of the vote.
Earlier this week, Sacramento Superior Court ruled part of the state health professional scholarship program unconstitutional. On the books before Proposition 209, Health and Safety Code Sections 128330(g) and 128345 read in part:
“‘Underrepresented groups’ means African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic-Americans, or other persons underrepresented in medicine, dentistry, nursing, or other health professions as determined by the board.”
Read the rest at Townhall.
Filed under: Column | |Comments off
The American Civil Rights Institute’s Ward Connerly is headed to the University of Arizona to talk about the Arizona Civil Rights Initiative (AzCRI) on October 28, from 4-5:30 p.m. See this page for more details.
The 2008 effort to add AzCRI to the state ballot failed after the campaign ran out of time to validate some 6,000 signatures. The proposed amendment would have barred the state government from discriminating against or granting preferences to any person on group based on race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in government hiring, contracting, and admissions.
Filed under: AzCRI, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Americans of Asian descent account for about 12 percent of California’s population, yet they account for 40 percent of all undergraduates at the University of California at Los Angeles, 43 percent at Berkeley, 50 percent at San Diego, and 54 percent at Irvine.
The American Civil Rights Institute’s (ACRI) Ward Connerly has written about UC’s efforts to “tinker” with admissions. A UC administrator told him “unless the university took steps to ‘guide’ admissions decisions, UC would be dominated by Asians. When I asked, ‘What would be wrong with that?’ I got an answer that speaks volumes about the underlying philosophy at many universities with regard to Asian enrollment.
“The UC administrator told me that Asians are ‘too dull – they study, study, study.’ He then said, ‘If you ever say I said this, I will have to deny it.’ I won’t betray the individual’s anonymity because to do so would put him in a world of trouble. Yet, it is time to confront the not-so-subtle hand of discrimination against Asians that masquerades as ‘building diversity’ at many campuses.”
UCLA professor Mitchell Chang noted the “dull” stereotype. Students of Asian descent may be “disproportionately less likely to participate in certain kinds of extracurricular activities,” and the admissions committee may be biased against “academic nerd” types. (Source)
It should come as no surprise that elite schools discriminate against students of Asian descent. Princeton University released a study that showed these students were much more likely to be rejected than other students. A black student with 1150s and a white student with 1460s had the same chances of getting in as an Asian student with 1600s, top scores. Download the 11-page Power Point study (PDF).
Is this an indication of elite schools keeping numbers down because Asians are “too dull – they study, study, study,” or because these students would overrun schools but for lower standards for preferred minorities, and, as it turns out, whites? Even more damning is this (emphasis added):
“He also found some indications that while rich students make up an increasingly large share of the entering freshman classes, the top private schools appeared to be giving admissions edges to low-income minorities, but not necessarily low-income white students.”
So much for class-based affirmative action, which would help lower income students of any race. The numbers bear out the truth: schools significantly are lowering standards for blacks, moderately for whites, and not at all for Asians. But this practice may change. Three years ago, an Asian student with perfect SAT scores filed a complaint alleging that Princeton discriminated against him by rejecting his application. The article reports that the Department of Education is investigating Princeton.
Spokesman Cass Cliatt said, “Princeton considers factors such as interest in and demonstrated commitment to a particular field of study or extracurricular activity, exceptional skills and talents, experiences and background, status as an alumni child or Princeton faculty or staff child, athletic achievement, musical or artistic talent, geographic or socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, any unique circumstances, and a range of other factors.”
Terms like “experiences and background” and “any unique circumstances” typically refer to noncognitive factors designed to give preferred minorities with lower grades and scores an admissions boost.
Nevertheless, the study shows that whites are given an edge as well. The question is, will Americans of Asian descent rise up against this practice?
Filed under: Diversity, Socioeconomic AA, UC, Ward Connerly | |Comments off
Last summer, I blogged about Professor Bruce Fleming, a Naval Academy professor who exposed the school’s two-tiered, race-based admissions scheme. An excerpt from Fleming’s article:
“A vote of ‘qualified’ for a white applicant doesn’t mean s/he’s coming, only that he or she can compete to win the “slate” of up to 10 nominations that (most typically) a Congress(wo)man draws up. That means that nine ‘qualified’ white applicants are rejected. SAT scores below 600 or C grades almost always produce a vote of ‘not qualified’ for white applicants.
“Not so for an applicant who self-identifies as one of the minorities who are our ‘number one priority.’ For them, another set of rules apply. Their cases are briefed separately to the board, and SAT scores to the mid-500s with quite a few Cs in classes (and no visible athletics or leadership) typically produce a vote of “qualified” for them, with direct admission to Annapolis. They’re in, and are given a pro forma nomination to make it legit.”
In fact, evidence shows both the Military Academy and the Naval Academy hold black applicants to lower standards.
Fleming claims he was denied a raise as retaliation for writing about the academy’s two-tiered admissions process. He said the faculty committee recommended a raise, but so far he hasn’t received an increase. Fleming contends his department head told him he doesn’t “act like a role model,” because, one assumes, he publicly criticized the school’s lower standard, skin-deep diversity efforts. (Source)
Fleming filed the complaint with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
(Photo credit: Kim Hairston, The Sun)
Filed under: Diversity | |Comments off
Edward Blum examines the six-year old Supreme Court case, Grutter v. Bollinger, where the court barred racial quotas but allowed some racial considerations in admissions in the name of skin deep-only diversity. A similar case in Texas is winding its way through the system. If it reaches the country’s highest court, Grutter’s “fuzzy” law may get some much-needed clarification. From Minding the Campus:
“The Grutter opinion was significant in that it held that the creation of a racially diverse student body was so beneficial to the educational experience of everyone that there was a ‘compelling state interest’ to lower the admissions bar for some applicants, and raise it for others.”
Without offering proof or even a logically sound rationale, the Supreme Court decided that racial discrimination was okay after all. Admitting white applicants with lower grades and scores over blacks with higher grades and scores would be untenable.
Blum notes that the court created “fuzzy” law by allowing racial considerations, yet placing a heavy burden on schools that consider race. The court’s politically expedient opinion has left schools that care about observing the law in a quandary. Skin color diversity is a “compelling state interest” that justifies discrimination and lowering standards, but racial considerations must be “narrowly tailored” to achieve the end.
What exactly did they mean?
“[T]he opinion unequivocally specifies that narrow tailoring requires that, before putting a thumb on the race scales, a school must pursue a ’serious, good faith consideration of workable race-neutral alternatives that will achieve the diversity [it] seeks.’…How much, or how little, serious consideration of race-neutral alternatives must be made is undefined, which has allowed college administrators to operate unrestrained when it comes to their school’s race preferences. Even the president of the Association of American Law Schools noted in a recent law review article that most colleges and universities have not paid as much attention to this part of the Grutter opinion.’”
Colleges and universities will pay attention if Fisher v. University of Texas ends up in the Supreme Court. Blum provides background on the state’s Top Ten Percent plan, which guaranteed admissions to state schools to any student graduating in the top 10 percent of their Texas high school class. The plan did exactly what it was designed to do: increase minority enrollment. Once the Supreme Court gave schools the go-ahead to consider race, however, Texas reverted to explicit racial preferences.
The plaintiffs in Fisher, denied admission to UT, contend that the plan was an example of a race-neutral admissions approach discussed in Grutter, and they would have been admitted had Texas not resumed race-based admissions. A lower court judge ruled against the plaintiffs, and the case is on appeal.
“The prospects for the plaintiffs at the high court look promising,” Blum writes. “Justice O’Connor, the author of Grutter, has been replaced by the more conservative Justice Alito. Justice Kennedy, the swing vote today on many high-profile, hot-button cases, dissented in Grutter and it is not unreasonable to expect him to look at UT-Austin’s reintroduction of race preferences with a good degree of skepticism. As well he should.”
The court gave itself and tax-supported schools wiggle room in Grutter. Instead of banning race-based discrimination and preferences outright for the odious policies they are, the court gave schools permission to continue the contentious practice of expecting less from blacks and more from everyone else.
Some call that progress.
Filed under: Diversity, Judiciary | |Comments off
« Previous Entries||
