#SCOUTS upholds #Michigan statute banning use of race in #college admissions. I am decidedly ambivalent on the issue. I fully support the idea that diversity is an important component of the #highered experience and that colleges should do what they can to recruit and retain students from under-represented and historically disadvantaged groups. I also fully sympathize with the notion that otherwise qualified applicants should not be pushed aside to permit less qualified applicants into a school. Such a policy is manifestly unfair to BOTH the qualified applicant and to the unqualified applicant (every comprehensive longitudinal study on the issue has revealed that admitting minority students into schools where they dont meet the at-large academic standards substantially DECREASES the number of minority students who graduate both from the school itself and from college in general. Conversely placing students - regardless of race - in schools where they meet the at-large academic standards increases the school-specific graduation rate and the overall graduation rate). What has gone unstated in any of this is the incredibly poor job that the vast majority of colleges do in recruiting, retaining and mentoring minority applicants - particularly those from outside the upper middle classes. The affirmative action process has allowed colleges to be, well, lazy in screening applicants - a magic box is checked, standards are lowered, everybody cheers Diversity Achieved and nobody considers the consequences. The fact of the matter is that there are more than enough well-qualified African-American candidates to populate the University of Michigan ..and the University of Maryland, and Duke and Yale, etc. The problem is, colleges have not devoted the resources necessary to go out and find these kids. And, yes, they have the money to do so ... they just prefer to spend it on the salaries of more and more administrators or on green initiatives or on rock-climbing walls in the spa-like gymnasia that have sprouted up in campuses all across the nation. So if you want to see more people of color on college campuses - a worthwhile goal to be sure - then put the onus on the administrators. Call upon them do be better at their jobs, more prudent in their use of financial resources, more proactive in their academic recruiting and less eager to build more buildings and hire more deans. And dont get mad at the Supreme Court - the decision was well-reasoned and based upon a reasonable interpretation of the Constitution. Get mad instead at the explosion of administrative expenses that consume the resources of colleges, diminish their academic quality - particularly at the undergraduate level - and result in admission practices that leave much to be desired. supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/12-682_j4ek.pdf
Posted on: Tue, 22 Apr 2014 21:33:49 +0000
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