As you may recall, the One Florida Initiative was a reaction to Ward Connerly’s campaign to end government racial preferences in the state 10 years ago. Former Governor Jeb Bush issued an executive order to bar race-based preferences in government hiring, contracting, and admissions.
(Hiring, contracting, and admitting individuals without regard to race seems a reasonable way to eliminate racial discrimination. In fact, civil service tests were implemented to prevent political favoritism or assessments based on other than qualifications. Unfortunately, the country has moved backward. The reality is that the government favors certain applicants based on the color of their skin.)
To avoid backlash from the civil rights industry, Bush created the Talented 20 program as part of One Florida, which guarantees admissions to Florida students graduating in the top 20 percent of their high schools.
Bush’s avoidance tactic failed , because the NAACP complained about the program, concerned that Talented 20 would reduce the numbers of black students. The program would benefit all students, not just blacks, therefore…
The Orlando Sentinel published a story last week about One Florida’s “mixed results.” An excerpt:
In 1999, a bit more than 20 percent of the state’s high-school graduates were black, as were 17.5 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, the last year for which a racial breakdown is available, blacks accounted for 19.5 percent of high-school graduates — but only 14.9 percent of university freshmen.
Similarly, in 1999, Hispanics made up 14.7 percent of high-school graduates and 13.8 percent of university freshmen. By 2008, Hispanics were 21.4 percent of graduates and 19.1 percent of the freshmen class, a wider gap.
By contrast, white and Asian students were overrepresented among college freshmen in 1999 — and still were in 2008, according to the Sentinel’s analysis. For example, white students comprised roughly 60 percent of high-school graduates and university freshmen in 1999; by 2008, they were 54 percent of high-school graduates — and 58 percent of university freshmen.
According to the article, the number of high school graduates increased faster than freshman enrollment. As a result, graduates face more competition. Preferred minority enrollment dropped every year. Therefore, the argument goes, Florida must admit more under-qualified preferred minorities in place of more qualified whites and non-preferred minority Asians.
As I’ve said and written many times, the academic achievement gap is not evidence of racism, structural or otherwise, and provides no justification for discriminating against individuals based on the color of their skin. The focus should be on the other end: encouraging parents and students before school age and at the grade school level to work harder and value education in practice, not just conversation.
Lowering standards for preferred minority underperformance is a sort of perverse reward, don’t you think?
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