And speaking of affirmative action (see previous post, below), a new American Bar Association poll supports Den Beste's thesis by showing that 69% of Americans believe the need for AA in college admissions will end within 25 years. The usual grain-of-salt arguments must be made for these results, given that it's a telephone survey of slightly over 1000 respondents, with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percent.
Other findings:
Seventy percent of respondents said they agree with Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who wrote in June that although the Constitution allows race to be a factor in college admissions now, there should be no need for that consideration in a quarter-century.
The survey...also found 88 percent of respondents think the nation has made substantial or some progress eliminating discrimination in public school since the Supreme Court's 1954 ruling desegregating ruling...
Supporters of affirmative action say a variety of factors, including inadequate public education in many minority neighborhoods, means that minorities often do not score as well on standardized tests and other measures that colleges use to screen applicants.
This may be true, but such supporters almost never offer an explanation as to how lowering standards for minority college admissions will make up for the inadequate public education that the minority students in question have received. What makes more sense - for an elite college to admit a minority student who is not academically prepared, for the sake of "diversity"; or for a community college to admit that same student and teach them on the level at which they are currently performing, so that they may make genuine improvements?
It continues to amaze me that AA supporters do not see the dangers inherent in admitting students to colleges for which they are not prepared, nor do they see the part that AA plays in allowing inadequate public schools to remain inadequate.
Posted by kswygert at August 11, 2003 11:07 AM