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How real is devotion to AA?
A survey of students, faculty and administrators has now made it possible, even in The New York Times, to make the obvious point that “diversity” in higher education lowers standards and satisfaction for just about everybody. Even the administrators who defend diversity programs so loudly don’t like them much — 47.7 percent oppose them, and of those willing to admit they have an effect on academic standards 15 out of 16 believe the effect is negative. The problem with “diversity” is not simply that less qualified people have to be let in, looked after, and
advanced. Even if qualifications were equal in the abstract, people with less in common find it harder to work
together toward complex common goals. At one time people at Yale had some idea what a Yale man was. The idea might
have been good, bad or somewhere in between, but it helped orient the institution to something something with more
human content than prestige, grants, careers, and PC. That idea has been lost,
and with it the notion of an education with a value not solely measurable by money and position.
Comments
Well, it’s exceedingly odd that the Times would publish this study criticizing racial preferences, because in the same issue of the Times there is an article by Linda Greenhouse saying that the entire establishment has filed briefs with the Supreme Court in the University of Michigan case saying that affirmative action is essential to the functioning of American society, and that because of these views, the tide has now shifted in favor of the University of Michigan. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/30/weekinreview/30GREE.html Posted by: Lawrence Auster on March 30, 2003 11:56 PMIn the past three or so years, some intellectuals on the left have increasingly viewed AA as a tactical blunder best left unpursued for the moment. They are few in number and let it be said this group does not object to AA in principle. Their object arises from the fear that AA will generate a political backlash from whites in the less cosmopolitan quarters of rural and suburban America. The NYT may be trying to stradle both sides of the fence. Posted by: Jason Eubanks on March 31, 2003 2:55 AM“In the past three or so years, some intellectuals on the left have increasingly viewed AA as a tactical blunder best left unpursued for the moment.” Jason, I think the explanation is more likely to be found in concern over circulation. Someone’s telling the Times behind closed doors that their usual diet of unrelieved extreme way-out radical leftism is NOT the way to keep readership numbers up. Posted by: Unadorned on March 31, 2003 9:19 AM |