Remember Bruce Fleming? I’ve blogged about him a few times. The U.S. Naval Academy professor went public about the school’s two-tiered, race-based admissions system. An excerpt from an article that has since expired on the news site:
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.
Some time after publicly criticizing the academy, Fleming said he was denied a raise as retaliation. The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the Naval Academy will pay Fleming a settlement after investigators at the U.S. Office of Special Counsel found evidence that he was denied a raise as retaliation for exposing the school’s lower-standards-for-minorities admissions scheme.
An excerpt from an Associated Press article:
“But Fleming told the Associated Press that midshipmen who struggle are given easier coursework or unlimited tutoring, breeding resentment among students who expected to get a first-rate education along with their military training. The environment is particularly toxic for talented black midshipmen, he said, because they are perceived by some classmates as less-qualified.
“‘My students are disillusioned beyond belief,’ Fleming said. ‘They see people being coddled for political reasons or racial reasons or sports reasons.’
“The result, he said, is a watered-down officer corps that weakens the military. Navy leaders haven’t fully articulated their reasoning for wanting more minority officers, he said.”
Very few people seemed concerned about racial minorities who can and do compete with the general pool of students. How frustrating it must be for competitive blacks who attend schools with “affirmative action” policies.
Given the country’s historic ill-treatment of blacks, justified by their perceived inferiority, one would think blacks in the 21st century would raise heck about the very idea of government-mandated special treatment based on perceived inferiority, let alone the practice.
One would be wrong.
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Have we learned nothing? Now these nefarious goings-on have hit the academies. Obviously, this is bad for the school. Just treat everybody the same with the same standards and it will go well. No one wants to treated at a different standard, no matter the color. And everyone wants to know that the free education taxpayers are providing to these kids isn’t being wasted on people who didn’t have the qualifications and are struggling , with the higher possibility of dropping out and taking a space that someone else with the qualifications (regardless of color) could have taken. Just get sensible, people!
Why does this surprise anyone? Is it just because it is a naval academy? This has been happening at colleges and universities across the country for years! Quotas, making sure a campus looks ethnically diverse, trying to show that we are all equal EXCEPT that they give BONUS points to ANYONE that is NOT white or AMERICAN! I am real sick and tired of being considered a second class citizen in MY country and it makes me sick that a person that is brave enough to come forward with this type of statement is then ridiculed for doing so.
Nancy, it’s going to take people like you getting fed up AND demanding that their legislators do something to stop it.
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