"Without Passion or Prejudice" is a relatively short piece that captures what I've been trying to say to all of America -- and it includes my idea for how to turn the tide.
My prediction is that John will be wrong. Not actually wrong, but "wrong". Once the selective schools realize they've built their own Kobayashi Maru, they'll conclude that the only way to beat it is to change the rules - alter the simulation. If the problem is that the brown kids aren't graduating at the proper rates, let's just change the rules so that they will. Let's make the data fit our expectations by altering the requirements for those metrics. The problem will never be with the people, it will always be with the system. Since we can't change the people, let's just keep adjusting the system until we get what we expect no matter how genuinely unhelpful that system becomes.
Once we have the graduation rates in order, we'll have to do something about those 5/10+ year salaries where companies realize that the UC Berkeley stamp doesn't mean that much anymore, and the under-performing, but still graduating, kids are weeded out in the market to the lower-tier positions.
I agree with what you said, but I wouldn't characterize it as racist antiracism being "back" -- it's more like it's ramping up higher than it already was with no end in sight.
The University of California has been crowing that its admitted freshman class for 2021 is the "most diverse" ever. However, the actual figures won't be released for a while yet, so let's look at the figures for the years 2013 and 2020, shall we?
From 2013 to 2020, the percentage of black undergrads in the UC system went up from 3.7% to 4%. Not too impressive. If "representation" to match the population is what everyone seems to care about (and ignoring every other issue -- but it's what the diversity crowd seems to favor), that's not satisfactory. There are about 6% black people in California, so they're being represented at only about 2/3 their numbers in the population.
Let's see what happened with the Latino kids. They went from 19% of UC undergrads in 2013 to 25% in 2020, and Latino people make up about 38% of California's population. They made some gains, so that they too are represented at about 2/3 of their numbers in the population. Not great, but if representation at the levels in the population is a goal, at least that's moving in the right direction.
Now we turn to the groups that "everyone agrees" are OVER-represented at the UC, the pesky Asian and white kids.
From 2013 and 2020, the percentage of Asian undergraduates at the UCs went from 38% to 34%, whereas they represent 13% of the population.
Fun side note -- in this same time period, the percentage of international students tripled in the UC system, the vast majority of whom are from China, so while American Asian students -- you know, the ones who live here and whose parents pay taxes so they can attend their public schools -- are slightly less represented, we've had a huge increase in non-American Asian students. Is that "diverse"? Or not?
So...again, leaving aside the issue of whether the Asian American kids grew "less qualified" in the last seven years and whether they truly deserved to lose representation and be shut out -- and looking only at the stated goals of the diversity crowd, that the UC student body match the numbers in the population -- you'd say this is "progress."
Now for the worst of all -- the white kids. "Everyone knows" they get opportunities handed to them on a plate. They don't even have to work for it. Those rotten undeserving lazy white kids take far more than their share of resources, and we all agree they must simply make way for the "more diverse" UC of tomorrow.
From 2013 to 2020 white kids went from 30% of UC undergrads to 21%. And they represent 39% of California's population. In other words, while black and Latino kids are represented at about two-thirds their levels in the population, white kids' presence at UC is barely half of their levels in the population.
Wait WHAT now? What do you say? White kids are by far the _least_ represented racial group at the University of California? And that was _before_ the elimination of the SAT and the great "diversity gains" of 2021? White kids are more under-represented at the UC than even black and Latino kids? By FAR?
Contrary to the stereotype, the white kids are not all little Thurston Howell the 3rds. Their parents are not all shopping at Whole Foods and Lululemon and listening to NPR. These kids are not legacy students at Ivies. Their parents are not donating a library to buy their kids a spot.
These underrepresented white kids are the kids of bank tellers, fast food workers, office workers, public school teachers, supermarket cashiers. These are regular kids, from regular working class people of modest means, who are being shut out in large numbers, so that UC can talk about how "diverse" it is.
So how does that happen? And what does it mean? And what do we need to do?
To mention this issue at all is to be a horrible, racist, entitled white person who needs to sit down and stfu.
To mention it is pointless, too, because absolutely no one gives a shit.
“ Contrary to the stereotype, the white kids are not all little Thurston Howell the 3rds. Their parents are not all shopping at Whole Foods and Lululemon and listening to NPR. These kids are not legacy students at Ivies. Their parents are not donating a library to buy their kids a spot.”
Right, but still their racial ancestors benefited from slavery and redlining in America thus it is just. Well, at least according to the Church of the Awoken and *David French* (of all people). David French recently wrote a substack post on Sunday arguing that racial intergenerational guilt is biblical and just. If David French has even aligned with the Church of Awoken, it is a very bad omen.
From David French, a “libertarian conservative” who voted for Romney but I think voted for Biden this past election:
“
A pastor friend of mine recently reminded me of an intriguing and sobering story from 2 Samuel 21. During the reign of King David, Israel was afflicted with three years of famine. When David “sought the face of the Lord” regarding the crisis, God said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house.” (Saul had conducted a violent campaign against the Gibeonites, in violation of a covenant made with the Israelites many centuries before.)
Saul was king before David, and God was punishing Israel years after Saul’s regime because of Saul’s sin. It was the next king, David’s, responsibility to make things right. And so David turned to the remaining Gibeonites and said, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”
The Gibeonites’ request was harsh—to hand over seven of Saul’s descendants for execution. David fulfilled their request, and “God responded to the plea for the land.”
Note the underlying conception of justice here: Israel remained responsible for its former leader's sins, and they were required to make amends.“
If we want to understand what’s driving the racist anti racists, I think it is valuable to ponder that a Christian libertarian conservative is arguing that it was just for 7 descendants of Saul to be murdered for what Saul did in the past and that this is relevant to how white people should conceive of their situation today in relationship to slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining.
When “libertarian conservative” Christians are making backward moral arguments cherry picking degenerate passages from the Bible to justify intergenerational racial vengeance, we are probably not in a good spot culturally. Something more than pointing out that white people underrepresented in universities will be needed to change things. That is after all what they want, and I suspect having white kids go to UC San Diego instead of UCLA is not nearly sufficient to atone for slavery or the murder of Emmet Till in their minds.
Problem is, the white kids are not going to San Diego _or_ UCLA. Or maybe about half as many as there should be, assuming everyone is equally prepared.
I doubt it’s half, but whatever the disparity is, it’s not a problem for Awokeians. That is a feature, not a bug. Maybe if you threw in 7 white children to be a blood sacrifice for Emmet Till and a few million white slaves they would be satisfied. Maybe.
You bring up an excellent perspective with the story of David and the Gibeonites. I note that God keeps short accounts; the same generation was called to account for their own national sin. This may have been President Lincoln’s source for the line in his second inaugural address. As he noted, the nation paid dearly for the sin of chattel slavery.
And you think racial guilt for white people toward black people would end at the emancipation of slaves? Immediately after the civil war the KKK was nursed to life by the Democratic Party. It wasn’t until the 1960s that civil rights were solidified into the constitution. And of course, following that, every black person killed by a white cop adds to the debt. It won’t end unless their is a fundamental shift in perspective about collective racial guilt among more people. Unfortunately it seems there are still lots of people who think
collective racial guilt is justice. And they will even quote the Bible to support it.
The Democrats sabotage of Reconstruction had a lot to do with leaving the account unbalanced. Many former slaves understood the unique opportunity they were given, Frederick Douglas chief among them.
In the story of David and Gideon Jehovah punishes Israel immediately with a famine after what Saul does but then he isn’t satisfied until 7 descendants of David are sacrificed, not the same generation of Saul.
And if a Christian wants to find support for a longer accounting it’s not hard to find in the Bible. For example:
Exodus 20:5 “ The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
And of course there is the fall and the concept of original sin that is promoted in the New Testament. Women are still having pain in childbirth because of what Adam and Eve did.
Fortunately, there are some passages in the Bible that renounce inter generation guilt.
Ezekiel 18:20 “ The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”
The morality of intergenerational guilt is not something that the Bible alone can resolve for Christians. They must choose how to interpret it. Hopefully Christians in America choose to denounce it. Otherwise expect a long continuation of racial strife.
Really good piece, John. Sadly, this kind of critique can only be written by a person of color in our current society. The data is clear. One damaging impact of admitting unprepared individuals of color to elite universities is that many of them choose to major in black studies or other soft and accommodating fields of study. They leave the university with few career options.
I would love John to address the deficits for children of color that stem from elementary school and even before. I sat on a committee at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the 1980s to address the lack of qualified black candidates for medical school. We decided that any solution would have to go back to earlier childhood, which was well beyond our reach. It is a cultural problem and common in all individuals of lower socioeconomic status. Perplexing but in need of wise analysis.
This is a general problem, not specifically a racial one. I am the sort of person whose SATs would have allowed him to study anywhere. I might easily have gotten into a school that was beyond my depth, and washed out. I had a lot of catching up to do. (High school years spent in the South . . . ) Fortunately I was able to do some catching-up over the long haul, in what turned out to be very good schools (though under-rated by USNWR etc). As a result, I think, I got a good education, one that has made me happy life-long. It would have done the likes of me no service -- though of course I could not see this at the time -- to have started in an R1. Perhaps I am not alone in this respect.
OMG! You went to high school in the South? It's a wonder you can even tie your shoes.
Although I've heard a rumor that some kids in the South actually manage to make it into the Ivy League. I've also heard that entering Vanderbilt students have the same ACT scores as those entering Harvard and Yale. Duke would be in the upper half of the Ivy schools as well. Probably just fake news. Surely everyone in the South walks around barefoot.
Other than the cheap shot at schools in the South (I assume you're talking about public schools, although a lot of Ivy entrants come from private prep schools, anyway, North or South), I agree with your point 100 percent.
Hmm . . . I guess my off-hand remark could come off as stupid and elitist; a cheap shot. That was not my intention. (Indeed I often find myself in your shoes: arguing with fellow Californians who think that all Southerners just fell off the turnip truck.)
Perhaps I could clarify by one example. When I was in 11th grade (public school in Louisiana) they had to give coach something to do in the day, so he taught -- "taught" -- my American History class. Each day he would assign us pages to read silently in class, while the varsity 1st string gathered around his desk and worked out football plays. Final exam: write 100 words pertaining to American History. (The 50 states, half-way there; if one said "house," well, yeah, Americans did live in houses . . . so that answer got credit, too.) As a result I never heard about the Federalist Papers until university years. All the AP kids were way ahead of me -- even though I was college track, National Merit finalist, sterling SATs.
That's one example, but I could add others from high school & junior high years in Georgia and South Carolina. I started elementary school in Westchester County, continued through DoD school in Germany and a regular public school in Vancouver WA; so I had enough experience to see the contrast. I think I would have had a much better education had I continued in any of those places, rather than in the 4 schools into which, randomly, I was thrust in the South.
I do not think this implies that Southerners are stupid. I do think it is a fact that public schools in the South do not do as well on the whole as some of those elsewhere in the US.
My point in the original comment was meant to be that this was one of a number of factors in my life-history that might have deep-sixed me, had I started at a university out of my depth. And, this is a general problem -- but, there are variable pathways to an education, and one is not necessarily disadvantaged just because they don't go to an Ivy.
Haha, most of us who went to school in the South have similar football coach stories. I wasn't so much offended by the criticism as the casual, parenthetical, eye-rolling delivery. But like I said, I absolutely agree with your real point.
The modest college I attended was a good fit for me not because of academics, but because I was painfully shy and wouldn't have lasted at a major university. In retrospect, I suppose they were happy to have my ACT scores and I was happy to have a place I felt somewhat comfortable. I applied myself -- I had been a mediocre, uninterested student in high school -- and finished in three years. I took the GRE and had, I have since discovered, results on par with Ivy Leagues grad school admits. (I lacked a lot of other things, sure, but, hey, I did have the GRE scores!) It was a turning point in my life. Goldman Sachs didn't ring me up to interview, but that was never in the plan.
Coach stories aren’t limited to the south. I’m from rural Penna and we often saw the same thing. My four children; however, received excellent education in metro Atlanta in schools where parents expected a good education for their kids and their kids to apply themselves.
Good to know. I live in LA, where K12 is damned routinely ("failing schools" etc) but there are islands of exception too. And, on balance, in the same school where the coach "taught" us US History I had an excellent English teacher whose class got me college-ready for research and writing. (Something I have come to wish my own college students had gotten too.) In Georgia, my Geometry class got me ready to appreciate logic (way down the road). In that same school our student teacher in English introduced us to a little book called Shakespeare's Bawdy, and for me at least figuring out the sexy bits in Romeo and Juliet led me to a lifelong love of that Upstart Crow. (Not to mention -- as in your Atlanta example -- my parents were always ready to [as we used to say] open up that can of whup-ass should slacking occur.) I think it does go to show that one can put too much weight on academic reputation, and that good education can happen even in otherwise unlikely circumstances -- or, those which merely seem to be unlikely.
IMHO, there is one legimate way to include disadvantage in the admissions process: make an honest attempt to take into account the trajectory of a person. If someone was raised by highly-educated parents in an affluent community and went to high quality schools and ends up with similar objective "numbers" (however that is defined) to someone raised by a relatively-uneducated single mother in a low-income neighborhood who attended crappy schools, then we can say that the latter is more likely to go further in their education and career than the former. But those objective "numbers" (again, however they're defined, and if they can be defined in a way more predictive of success with new and better tools, then great) have to remain the fundamental way in which merit is determined.
On the other hand, I remember one of my favorite professors. He came from a poor background, went through Harvard with all sails out, and wanted to pass on his acquired advantages to his sons. They, alas, wanted to become a) a tennis bum b) an auto mechanic. How would such a metric work here: my prof was a poor candidate (but he had the ganas -- maybe for the very reason that on paper he was such a poor candidate?) while his sons (on paper) might have looked like such better candidates?
You bring up, in my opinion, a key point that seems to get overlooked. Some people don't choose to live a life of stress in exchange for a little more money and/or prestige. A modest, leisurely life (a school teacher, say, with summers off) vs a wealthy Wall Street trader with ten brilliant new hires every year gunning for his job. Who's to say the lower-stress path is the lesser one?
Seems like it fits right . . . if you judge the sort of "distance travelled" from circumstances of birth to quality of application, your professor deserved to get into Harvard, but his sons did not.
I go back to segregated state college days, Florida State and A&M. Even got arrested for visiting A&M! I've thought about that for years.
What do you think of the Darwinian adaptation theory that 400 years of punishing IQ as we conceive it has resulted in not only a lower "IQ" but also increased mechanisms for culturally hiding it? Any idea about how that might work?
It’s hard for me to relate to the issue of minorities and relaxed admissions to elite California schools, just because my experience was so different. It used to be (late 1970s) that if you attended/graduated from a junior college you could later be admitted to a four year college without taking the SAT, or in this state, it was the ACT. For me, since I waited several years after high school to go to college, jc was a good place to get my feet wet, brush up on my skills and get basic requirements out of the way. The jc I attended had open admissions and there were a lot of kids like me there, a mix of working class whites, blacks and Cuban Americans. That approach worked well for me, and I went on to a four year state university, and got my BA. Not sure how it works now. I agree with the basic point that preparing students of all colors for college-level classes (if they want to go to college), is the obviously right approach. It’s a little hard to believe that is not what most institutions beyond UC Berkeley are encouraging. How many colleges are actually fooling around with admissions criteria? Maybe more than I know. ???
Flanigan's article (to which McWhorter refers) affirms that this is still possible in CA: open admissions at community colleges, followed by admission to UC, without ever having to take the SATs.
Dee/Michael, This is a great point. I graduated from UCSD with a BS in Physics with honors. I transferred from a JC. There's no way I could have gotten into any UC from high school (maybe not even a state school either). I don't have an underprivileged excuse, I just slacked off in HS. The JC had a program called TAG (transfer admission guarantee). All I had to do was get a 3.2 GPA at the JC and was guaranteed entry into UCSD. Into the Physics department. No SAT considered, no essay, no race considered. The TAG program was a godsend for me and gave me 2nd chance. Also reduced so much stress applying to colleges in HS.
I do have a dog in this fight: I spent (a very good) sophomore year at Florida Keys Community College, Key West; and for the past 35 years or so have taught in various community colleges in southern CA. One of the things CC's do best is that they do offer second chances, and/or offer some chance at all to people whose life histories might otherwise force them to slip through the cracks.
Because CC's are open admissions, it is predictable that a lot of students will be admitted who are not college-ready, will not become so, and will also in the end slip through the cracks. There is a lot of wasteful attrition -- "higher ed red in tooth and claw," as it were. One way to look at this is that it balances against the provision of second chances and alternate pathways.
But I can recall a number of students over the years for whom it would have been a tragedy had they not gotten their chance via CC.
In my experience it is possible to get a quality education in a variety of settings -- not just in the USNWR darlings. I've spent time at UCLA. Right now my CC intro Phil class has about 20 students -- they have access to me, it's seminar-size. The same course at UCLA would be in an amphitheatre with maybe 300 students; students would only communicate with the prof via the intermediary of grad assistants. UCLA is a world-class university. Still one might argue, not the best for freshman/sophomore classes, at least not for everyone. But there are choices.
Given the supposed erudition of those promulgating this policy, it’s hard to believe they don’t see and understand the sophistry of their argument. Presuming they are cynically aware of what they are doing, their undermining the integrity of the selection process is the most egregious form of racism. They are judgmentally rejecting qualified students in favor of those less qualified, denying some opportunity and introducing others to a situation where they stand a good chancing of struggling or failing.
In the end, to justify their misbehavior, this devout “anti-racists” will very likely be forced to continue to erode education standards and the expectations placed on students. This will materially impact STEM studies, which are need to sustain and advance our economy, pushing more students to “soft” studies that are, arguably, not as scarce and are less marketable in an information economy.
Knowing their behavior is wrong, and taking these actions despite the inevitable harm to all those involved, pursuing this policy is an indictment of academia and the intellectual “elites” actively destroying it. Dr. McWhorter and Dr. Loury are two very notable exceptions (and there are, thankfully, others), and it is beyond disheartening how far things have devolved in my lifetime. That said, I derive hope from and am grateful for Dr. McWhorter’s challenging this unseemly orthodoxy, and I appreciate his unrelenting efforts to “right the ship” before it sinks.
If I were a cynic -- of course I am not! -- I might be tempted to read the whole CRT thing as a full-employment for minorities program. Equity: making sure that jobs are filled proportionately; (as McWhorter puts it) "(apparently “representative” means in lockstep with their proportion of the state population)". And doing so, first, by tinkering with admissions in higher ed. The fly in the ointment is, as you say, this in no way guarantees a proportion of graduates who have the expected aptitudes.
We all differ in attractiveness, athleticism, vocal resonance, height, eyesight, hearing, everything. But when it comes to cognitive ability, there are no differences.
As a Democrat and an educator, I can't stress that strongly enough.
You must vote for Democrats to stop racism. And you must support educators. The only thing standing between your child and top-tier scholastic excellence is money.
These shallow UC buffoons don't care about the students, just their fragile image in the eyes of the "cool kids". Each action to placate the woke mob sacrifices a bit of their integrity on the altar of smug moral superiority, but the Elect acolytes only solemnly nod and look on, preparing for their next assault (as John said) on these institutions as "racist" when the students don't get A's.
great point about testing too: why do "antiracists" just assume it's impossible to improve achievement among certain racial demographic groups? in my experience, the work that i did for the test improved my skills at large and (imo) helped me do better in college. That said i'm glad i didn't get into any fancy schools; joe-schmoe school was plenty enough.
I'd suggest folks muse on who really benefits from a “holistic” approach to admissions rather than one focused on meritocratic standards like GPAs and SAT scores. Does a minority kid raised by a single parent from a poor performing school in crime-ridden neighborhood benefit as much relative to a UMC white kid from a good school with lots of extra-curriculars, as the white kid does relative to a middle-income Asian kid?
The University system is reacting to the realities of a problem not of their making, which is that the demographics of the students that are prepared for entrance at at an elite University don't match the demographics of the educational system as a whole. K-12 Education is consistently failing students of all colors, and trying to apply a corrective at the end of a 12 or 13 year process is too little, too late. That being said, this new change will almost certainly make things worse for students coming from the worst schools. But hey, it's easy to market as virtuous to those that don't want to get into the details.
You are too kind to academia. They are the primary architect of the failed systems which produce these failing students. This is true both in the school systems and the social science systems. I expect the “help” won’t stop coming any time soon.
"Without Passion or Prejudice" is a relatively short piece that captures what I've been trying to say to all of America -- and it includes my idea for how to turn the tide.
However impossible it may seem -- it can be done.
As Tom Hanks said in Apollo 13 about landing on the moon: "It's not a miracle, we just decided to go": https://onevoicebecametwo.life/2021/08/03/without-passion-or-prejudice/
My prediction is that John will be wrong. Not actually wrong, but "wrong". Once the selective schools realize they've built their own Kobayashi Maru, they'll conclude that the only way to beat it is to change the rules - alter the simulation. If the problem is that the brown kids aren't graduating at the proper rates, let's just change the rules so that they will. Let's make the data fit our expectations by altering the requirements for those metrics. The problem will never be with the people, it will always be with the system. Since we can't change the people, let's just keep adjusting the system until we get what we expect no matter how genuinely unhelpful that system becomes.
Once we have the graduation rates in order, we'll have to do something about those 5/10+ year salaries where companies realize that the UC Berkeley stamp doesn't mean that much anymore, and the under-performing, but still graduating, kids are weeded out in the market to the lower-tier positions.
That Kobayashi Maru problem is pretty easy to handle. UC Berkeley, et al, will smear the companies as racist for realizing.
I agree with what you said, but I wouldn't characterize it as racist antiracism being "back" -- it's more like it's ramping up higher than it already was with no end in sight.
The University of California has been crowing that its admitted freshman class for 2021 is the "most diverse" ever. However, the actual figures won't be released for a while yet, so let's look at the figures for the years 2013 and 2020, shall we?
From 2013 to 2020, the percentage of black undergrads in the UC system went up from 3.7% to 4%. Not too impressive. If "representation" to match the population is what everyone seems to care about (and ignoring every other issue -- but it's what the diversity crowd seems to favor), that's not satisfactory. There are about 6% black people in California, so they're being represented at only about 2/3 their numbers in the population.
Let's see what happened with the Latino kids. They went from 19% of UC undergrads in 2013 to 25% in 2020, and Latino people make up about 38% of California's population. They made some gains, so that they too are represented at about 2/3 of their numbers in the population. Not great, but if representation at the levels in the population is a goal, at least that's moving in the right direction.
Now we turn to the groups that "everyone agrees" are OVER-represented at the UC, the pesky Asian and white kids.
From 2013 and 2020, the percentage of Asian undergraduates at the UCs went from 38% to 34%, whereas they represent 13% of the population.
Fun side note -- in this same time period, the percentage of international students tripled in the UC system, the vast majority of whom are from China, so while American Asian students -- you know, the ones who live here and whose parents pay taxes so they can attend their public schools -- are slightly less represented, we've had a huge increase in non-American Asian students. Is that "diverse"? Or not?
So...again, leaving aside the issue of whether the Asian American kids grew "less qualified" in the last seven years and whether they truly deserved to lose representation and be shut out -- and looking only at the stated goals of the diversity crowd, that the UC student body match the numbers in the population -- you'd say this is "progress."
Now for the worst of all -- the white kids. "Everyone knows" they get opportunities handed to them on a plate. They don't even have to work for it. Those rotten undeserving lazy white kids take far more than their share of resources, and we all agree they must simply make way for the "more diverse" UC of tomorrow.
From 2013 to 2020 white kids went from 30% of UC undergrads to 21%. And they represent 39% of California's population. In other words, while black and Latino kids are represented at about two-thirds their levels in the population, white kids' presence at UC is barely half of their levels in the population.
Wait WHAT now? What do you say? White kids are by far the _least_ represented racial group at the University of California? And that was _before_ the elimination of the SAT and the great "diversity gains" of 2021? White kids are more under-represented at the UC than even black and Latino kids? By FAR?
Contrary to the stereotype, the white kids are not all little Thurston Howell the 3rds. Their parents are not all shopping at Whole Foods and Lululemon and listening to NPR. These kids are not legacy students at Ivies. Their parents are not donating a library to buy their kids a spot.
These underrepresented white kids are the kids of bank tellers, fast food workers, office workers, public school teachers, supermarket cashiers. These are regular kids, from regular working class people of modest means, who are being shut out in large numbers, so that UC can talk about how "diverse" it is.
So how does that happen? And what does it mean? And what do we need to do?
To mention this issue at all is to be a horrible, racist, entitled white person who needs to sit down and stfu.
To mention it is pointless, too, because absolutely no one gives a shit.
“ Contrary to the stereotype, the white kids are not all little Thurston Howell the 3rds. Their parents are not all shopping at Whole Foods and Lululemon and listening to NPR. These kids are not legacy students at Ivies. Their parents are not donating a library to buy their kids a spot.”
Right, but still their racial ancestors benefited from slavery and redlining in America thus it is just. Well, at least according to the Church of the Awoken and *David French* (of all people). David French recently wrote a substack post on Sunday arguing that racial intergenerational guilt is biblical and just. If David French has even aligned with the Church of Awoken, it is a very bad omen.
From David French, a “libertarian conservative” who voted for Romney but I think voted for Biden this past election:
“
A pastor friend of mine recently reminded me of an intriguing and sobering story from 2 Samuel 21. During the reign of King David, Israel was afflicted with three years of famine. When David “sought the face of the Lord” regarding the crisis, God said, “There is bloodguilt on Saul and on his house.” (Saul had conducted a violent campaign against the Gibeonites, in violation of a covenant made with the Israelites many centuries before.)
Saul was king before David, and God was punishing Israel years after Saul’s regime because of Saul’s sin. It was the next king, David’s, responsibility to make things right. And so David turned to the remaining Gibeonites and said, “What shall I do for you? And how shall I make atonement, that you may bless the heritage of the Lord?”
The Gibeonites’ request was harsh—to hand over seven of Saul’s descendants for execution. David fulfilled their request, and “God responded to the plea for the land.”
Note the underlying conception of justice here: Israel remained responsible for its former leader's sins, and they were required to make amends.“
If we want to understand what’s driving the racist anti racists, I think it is valuable to ponder that a Christian libertarian conservative is arguing that it was just for 7 descendants of Saul to be murdered for what Saul did in the past and that this is relevant to how white people should conceive of their situation today in relationship to slavery, Jim Crow, and redlining.
When “libertarian conservative” Christians are making backward moral arguments cherry picking degenerate passages from the Bible to justify intergenerational racial vengeance, we are probably not in a good spot culturally. Something more than pointing out that white people underrepresented in universities will be needed to change things. That is after all what they want, and I suspect having white kids go to UC San Diego instead of UCLA is not nearly sufficient to atone for slavery or the murder of Emmet Till in their minds.
Problem is, the white kids are not going to San Diego _or_ UCLA. Or maybe about half as many as there should be, assuming everyone is equally prepared.
I doubt it’s half, but whatever the disparity is, it’s not a problem for Awokeians. That is a feature, not a bug. Maybe if you threw in 7 white children to be a blood sacrifice for Emmet Till and a few million white slaves they would be satisfied. Maybe.
You bring up an excellent perspective with the story of David and the Gibeonites. I note that God keeps short accounts; the same generation was called to account for their own national sin. This may have been President Lincoln’s source for the line in his second inaugural address. As he noted, the nation paid dearly for the sin of chattel slavery.
And you think racial guilt for white people toward black people would end at the emancipation of slaves? Immediately after the civil war the KKK was nursed to life by the Democratic Party. It wasn’t until the 1960s that civil rights were solidified into the constitution. And of course, following that, every black person killed by a white cop adds to the debt. It won’t end unless their is a fundamental shift in perspective about collective racial guilt among more people. Unfortunately it seems there are still lots of people who think
collective racial guilt is justice. And they will even quote the Bible to support it.
The Democrats sabotage of Reconstruction had a lot to do with leaving the account unbalanced. Many former slaves understood the unique opportunity they were given, Frederick Douglas chief among them.
In the story of David and Gideon Jehovah punishes Israel immediately with a famine after what Saul does but then he isn’t satisfied until 7 descendants of David are sacrificed, not the same generation of Saul.
And if a Christian wants to find support for a longer accounting it’s not hard to find in the Bible. For example:
Exodus 20:5 “ The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
And of course there is the fall and the concept of original sin that is promoted in the New Testament. Women are still having pain in childbirth because of what Adam and Eve did.
Fortunately, there are some passages in the Bible that renounce inter generation guilt.
Ezekiel 18:20 “ The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father, nor the father suffer for the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon himself.”
The morality of intergenerational guilt is not something that the Bible alone can resolve for Christians. They must choose how to interpret it. Hopefully Christians in America choose to denounce it. Otherwise expect a long continuation of racial strife.
Very good, as usual.
Really good piece, John. Sadly, this kind of critique can only be written by a person of color in our current society. The data is clear. One damaging impact of admitting unprepared individuals of color to elite universities is that many of them choose to major in black studies or other soft and accommodating fields of study. They leave the university with few career options.
I would love John to address the deficits for children of color that stem from elementary school and even before. I sat on a committee at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in the 1980s to address the lack of qualified black candidates for medical school. We decided that any solution would have to go back to earlier childhood, which was well beyond our reach. It is a cultural problem and common in all individuals of lower socioeconomic status. Perplexing but in need of wise analysis.
This is a general problem, not specifically a racial one. I am the sort of person whose SATs would have allowed him to study anywhere. I might easily have gotten into a school that was beyond my depth, and washed out. I had a lot of catching up to do. (High school years spent in the South . . . ) Fortunately I was able to do some catching-up over the long haul, in what turned out to be very good schools (though under-rated by USNWR etc). As a result, I think, I got a good education, one that has made me happy life-long. It would have done the likes of me no service -- though of course I could not see this at the time -- to have started in an R1. Perhaps I am not alone in this respect.
OMG! You went to high school in the South? It's a wonder you can even tie your shoes.
Although I've heard a rumor that some kids in the South actually manage to make it into the Ivy League. I've also heard that entering Vanderbilt students have the same ACT scores as those entering Harvard and Yale. Duke would be in the upper half of the Ivy schools as well. Probably just fake news. Surely everyone in the South walks around barefoot.
Other than the cheap shot at schools in the South (I assume you're talking about public schools, although a lot of Ivy entrants come from private prep schools, anyway, North or South), I agree with your point 100 percent.
Hmm . . . I guess my off-hand remark could come off as stupid and elitist; a cheap shot. That was not my intention. (Indeed I often find myself in your shoes: arguing with fellow Californians who think that all Southerners just fell off the turnip truck.)
Perhaps I could clarify by one example. When I was in 11th grade (public school in Louisiana) they had to give coach something to do in the day, so he taught -- "taught" -- my American History class. Each day he would assign us pages to read silently in class, while the varsity 1st string gathered around his desk and worked out football plays. Final exam: write 100 words pertaining to American History. (The 50 states, half-way there; if one said "house," well, yeah, Americans did live in houses . . . so that answer got credit, too.) As a result I never heard about the Federalist Papers until university years. All the AP kids were way ahead of me -- even though I was college track, National Merit finalist, sterling SATs.
That's one example, but I could add others from high school & junior high years in Georgia and South Carolina. I started elementary school in Westchester County, continued through DoD school in Germany and a regular public school in Vancouver WA; so I had enough experience to see the contrast. I think I would have had a much better education had I continued in any of those places, rather than in the 4 schools into which, randomly, I was thrust in the South.
I do not think this implies that Southerners are stupid. I do think it is a fact that public schools in the South do not do as well on the whole as some of those elsewhere in the US.
My point in the original comment was meant to be that this was one of a number of factors in my life-history that might have deep-sixed me, had I started at a university out of my depth. And, this is a general problem -- but, there are variable pathways to an education, and one is not necessarily disadvantaged just because they don't go to an Ivy.
Haha, most of us who went to school in the South have similar football coach stories. I wasn't so much offended by the criticism as the casual, parenthetical, eye-rolling delivery. But like I said, I absolutely agree with your real point.
The modest college I attended was a good fit for me not because of academics, but because I was painfully shy and wouldn't have lasted at a major university. In retrospect, I suppose they were happy to have my ACT scores and I was happy to have a place I felt somewhat comfortable. I applied myself -- I had been a mediocre, uninterested student in high school -- and finished in three years. I took the GRE and had, I have since discovered, results on par with Ivy Leagues grad school admits. (I lacked a lot of other things, sure, but, hey, I did have the GRE scores!) It was a turning point in my life. Goldman Sachs didn't ring me up to interview, but that was never in the plan.
Coach stories aren’t limited to the south. I’m from rural Penna and we often saw the same thing. My four children; however, received excellent education in metro Atlanta in schools where parents expected a good education for their kids and their kids to apply themselves.
Good to know. I live in LA, where K12 is damned routinely ("failing schools" etc) but there are islands of exception too. And, on balance, in the same school where the coach "taught" us US History I had an excellent English teacher whose class got me college-ready for research and writing. (Something I have come to wish my own college students had gotten too.) In Georgia, my Geometry class got me ready to appreciate logic (way down the road). In that same school our student teacher in English introduced us to a little book called Shakespeare's Bawdy, and for me at least figuring out the sexy bits in Romeo and Juliet led me to a lifelong love of that Upstart Crow. (Not to mention -- as in your Atlanta example -- my parents were always ready to [as we used to say] open up that can of whup-ass should slacking occur.) I think it does go to show that one can put too much weight on academic reputation, and that good education can happen even in otherwise unlikely circumstances -- or, those which merely seem to be unlikely.
IMHO, there is one legimate way to include disadvantage in the admissions process: make an honest attempt to take into account the trajectory of a person. If someone was raised by highly-educated parents in an affluent community and went to high quality schools and ends up with similar objective "numbers" (however that is defined) to someone raised by a relatively-uneducated single mother in a low-income neighborhood who attended crappy schools, then we can say that the latter is more likely to go further in their education and career than the former. But those objective "numbers" (again, however they're defined, and if they can be defined in a way more predictive of success with new and better tools, then great) have to remain the fundamental way in which merit is determined.
On the other hand, I remember one of my favorite professors. He came from a poor background, went through Harvard with all sails out, and wanted to pass on his acquired advantages to his sons. They, alas, wanted to become a) a tennis bum b) an auto mechanic. How would such a metric work here: my prof was a poor candidate (but he had the ganas -- maybe for the very reason that on paper he was such a poor candidate?) while his sons (on paper) might have looked like such better candidates?
You bring up, in my opinion, a key point that seems to get overlooked. Some people don't choose to live a life of stress in exchange for a little more money and/or prestige. A modest, leisurely life (a school teacher, say, with summers off) vs a wealthy Wall Street trader with ten brilliant new hires every year gunning for his job. Who's to say the lower-stress path is the lesser one?
Time is money too. And just how many yachts can one person ski behind?
Seems like it fits right . . . if you judge the sort of "distance travelled" from circumstances of birth to quality of application, your professor deserved to get into Harvard, but his sons did not.
I go back to segregated state college days, Florida State and A&M. Even got arrested for visiting A&M! I've thought about that for years.
What do you think of the Darwinian adaptation theory that 400 years of punishing IQ as we conceive it has resulted in not only a lower "IQ" but also increased mechanisms for culturally hiding it? Any idea about how that might work?
p.s. The orange tee gets many compliments!
Every time I see antiracist I first mistakenly read it antichrist. I'm not that wrong.
Touche! To borrow (however perversely) from Orwell I like to think of myself as an ante-antiracist. You know, pre-postcivilrights.
It’s hard for me to relate to the issue of minorities and relaxed admissions to elite California schools, just because my experience was so different. It used to be (late 1970s) that if you attended/graduated from a junior college you could later be admitted to a four year college without taking the SAT, or in this state, it was the ACT. For me, since I waited several years after high school to go to college, jc was a good place to get my feet wet, brush up on my skills and get basic requirements out of the way. The jc I attended had open admissions and there were a lot of kids like me there, a mix of working class whites, blacks and Cuban Americans. That approach worked well for me, and I went on to a four year state university, and got my BA. Not sure how it works now. I agree with the basic point that preparing students of all colors for college-level classes (if they want to go to college), is the obviously right approach. It’s a little hard to believe that is not what most institutions beyond UC Berkeley are encouraging. How many colleges are actually fooling around with admissions criteria? Maybe more than I know. ???
Flanigan's article (to which McWhorter refers) affirms that this is still possible in CA: open admissions at community colleges, followed by admission to UC, without ever having to take the SATs.
Dee/Michael, This is a great point. I graduated from UCSD with a BS in Physics with honors. I transferred from a JC. There's no way I could have gotten into any UC from high school (maybe not even a state school either). I don't have an underprivileged excuse, I just slacked off in HS. The JC had a program called TAG (transfer admission guarantee). All I had to do was get a 3.2 GPA at the JC and was guaranteed entry into UCSD. Into the Physics department. No SAT considered, no essay, no race considered. The TAG program was a godsend for me and gave me 2nd chance. Also reduced so much stress applying to colleges in HS.
I graduated in 2004.
This is a very heartening tale!
I do have a dog in this fight: I spent (a very good) sophomore year at Florida Keys Community College, Key West; and for the past 35 years or so have taught in various community colleges in southern CA. One of the things CC's do best is that they do offer second chances, and/or offer some chance at all to people whose life histories might otherwise force them to slip through the cracks.
Because CC's are open admissions, it is predictable that a lot of students will be admitted who are not college-ready, will not become so, and will also in the end slip through the cracks. There is a lot of wasteful attrition -- "higher ed red in tooth and claw," as it were. One way to look at this is that it balances against the provision of second chances and alternate pathways.
But I can recall a number of students over the years for whom it would have been a tragedy had they not gotten their chance via CC.
In my experience it is possible to get a quality education in a variety of settings -- not just in the USNWR darlings. I've spent time at UCLA. Right now my CC intro Phil class has about 20 students -- they have access to me, it's seminar-size. The same course at UCLA would be in an amphitheatre with maybe 300 students; students would only communicate with the prof via the intermediary of grad assistants. UCLA is a world-class university. Still one might argue, not the best for freshman/sophomore classes, at least not for everyone. But there are choices.
It would appear that the only thing missing in your life is a grievance.
Well done.
I try to keep Sinatra in mind: "living well is the best revenge."
Given the supposed erudition of those promulgating this policy, it’s hard to believe they don’t see and understand the sophistry of their argument. Presuming they are cynically aware of what they are doing, their undermining the integrity of the selection process is the most egregious form of racism. They are judgmentally rejecting qualified students in favor of those less qualified, denying some opportunity and introducing others to a situation where they stand a good chancing of struggling or failing.
In the end, to justify their misbehavior, this devout “anti-racists” will very likely be forced to continue to erode education standards and the expectations placed on students. This will materially impact STEM studies, which are need to sustain and advance our economy, pushing more students to “soft” studies that are, arguably, not as scarce and are less marketable in an information economy.
Knowing their behavior is wrong, and taking these actions despite the inevitable harm to all those involved, pursuing this policy is an indictment of academia and the intellectual “elites” actively destroying it. Dr. McWhorter and Dr. Loury are two very notable exceptions (and there are, thankfully, others), and it is beyond disheartening how far things have devolved in my lifetime. That said, I derive hope from and am grateful for Dr. McWhorter’s challenging this unseemly orthodoxy, and I appreciate his unrelenting efforts to “right the ship” before it sinks.
If I were a cynic -- of course I am not! -- I might be tempted to read the whole CRT thing as a full-employment for minorities program. Equity: making sure that jobs are filled proportionately; (as McWhorter puts it) "(apparently “representative” means in lockstep with their proportion of the state population)". And doing so, first, by tinkering with admissions in higher ed. The fly in the ointment is, as you say, this in no way guarantees a proportion of graduates who have the expected aptitudes.
We all differ in attractiveness, athleticism, vocal resonance, height, eyesight, hearing, everything. But when it comes to cognitive ability, there are no differences.
As a Democrat and an educator, I can't stress that strongly enough.
You must vote for Democrats to stop racism. And you must support educators. The only thing standing between your child and top-tier scholastic excellence is money.
This is sarcasm, right?
Hmmm....sounds like you went to UCB and were in the Ed Dept.
As a college professor I think, no, that is not true. We are not all equal in cognitive ability.
One can only pray that we're not all equal to the lowest common denominator . . .
Equity will get us there.
Excellent writing. You tell em John!
These shallow UC buffoons don't care about the students, just their fragile image in the eyes of the "cool kids". Each action to placate the woke mob sacrifices a bit of their integrity on the altar of smug moral superiority, but the Elect acolytes only solemnly nod and look on, preparing for their next assault (as John said) on these institutions as "racist" when the students don't get A's.
great point about testing too: why do "antiracists" just assume it's impossible to improve achievement among certain racial demographic groups? in my experience, the work that i did for the test improved my skills at large and (imo) helped me do better in college. That said i'm glad i didn't get into any fancy schools; joe-schmoe school was plenty enough.
White Progressives used to breed brown people for brawn, now they breed for spunk? We’ve come a long way, baby.
I'd suggest folks muse on who really benefits from a “holistic” approach to admissions rather than one focused on meritocratic standards like GPAs and SAT scores. Does a minority kid raised by a single parent from a poor performing school in crime-ridden neighborhood benefit as much relative to a UMC white kid from a good school with lots of extra-curriculars, as the white kid does relative to a middle-income Asian kid?
Word.
The University system is reacting to the realities of a problem not of their making, which is that the demographics of the students that are prepared for entrance at at an elite University don't match the demographics of the educational system as a whole. K-12 Education is consistently failing students of all colors, and trying to apply a corrective at the end of a 12 or 13 year process is too little, too late. That being said, this new change will almost certainly make things worse for students coming from the worst schools. But hey, it's easy to market as virtuous to those that don't want to get into the details.
You are too kind to academia. They are the primary architect of the failed systems which produce these failing students. This is true both in the school systems and the social science systems. I expect the “help” won’t stop coming any time soon.