Thursday, February 22, 2007

Why I hate Affirmative Action

 It perpetuates a racisism that only hurts those it claims to protect.

Read Mychal Massie:

The 10-ton pink elephant in the middle of the room they choose to ignore is that students who are in no way intellectually prepared are not helped when top-tier schools (especially the law schools, engineering schools and schools of medicine) lower admission standards under the misguided diversity rubric of "in order to have a representative student environment – the school needs two from column 'A,' three from column 'B,'" and so forth – instead of making the student environment representative of academic excellence: race, color, creed be damned.

Few pay attention to the harm done to minority students who have repeatedly been told the world is out to get them after they drop out or flunk out of schools they weren't qualified to attend to start with.

There is a monumental difference between being cut from a Division I athletic team because of skill level and failing one's classes due to inability to perform academically. One is the rude awakening that you're not going to make your fortune scoring touchdowns or hitting home runs – the other is the damning effect of Pygmalion, i.e., "secretly knowing they were in over their heads and not able to admit same."

I have repeatedly argued that the level of bigotry inherent in diversity should be glaringly obvious. It is a perverse form of Hitlerian motivations vis-à-vis attempted social engineering for no other reason than to have a color-coded campus matrix.

No one is suggesting that certain "colors" of children should lower their expectations – quite the opposite. I am advocating that they elevate their expectations by preparing for success through the rigorous weight training of the mind and of their marketable abilities. The answer to the question of how to do this is as simple as the nose on one's face. It is the one thing that diversity zealots decry most – that is hard work, study and preparation.