Some influential Democrats are calling for universities that receive federal funding to release information on "the economic status and race" of legacy admits. Stuart Taylor Jr. believes that federally-funded universities should do this for all preferential-admissions programs:
This would shed light on who benefits and who does not, on the nature and magnitude of the preferences, and on how much they compromise academic standards. The questionnaire could go something like the following.
Please provide data showing:
Any preferences in admissions or financial aid based on family relationships with alumni, alumnae, or donors; status as a recruited athlete; state or region of residence; economic status; or membership in any racial group, disaggregated into specific groups.
For each preferred category, and for each racial group of applicants, (including unpreferred racial groups): all written and unwritten policies as to the weight given to the preferred characteristic; the median high school grade point average and SAT (or ACT) score; and the percentage admitted.
For each preferred category and each racial group of admitted applicants: the percentage receiving financial aid, median amount received, and median family income, to the extent available; the numbers of Caucasians, Asians, Hispanics, African-Americans, and Native Americans; the median high school GPA and median SAT (or ACT) score; the median college GPA of enrolled students; and the percentage who graduate within six years.
Problem is, this would allow us to compare the "legacy" issue to the "racial preference" issue directly - and Mr. Taylor is certain that universities do not want the public to know that information:
It would also expose the stunning magnitude of the racial preferences -- which are far greater than the legacy preferences -- used by all (or almost all) selective institutions, and who benefits from them...
Dozens of surveys over three decades have consistently shown that more than two-thirds of Americans -- and, in many polls, lopsided majorities of African-Americans -- oppose racial preferences...On no other issue have elected officials and establishment leaders succeeded in implementing so pervasively a policy that the public rejects so overwhelmingly.
What accounts for this success? A large part of the explanation is that racial preferences have lived on lies and on concealment of how "affirmative action" actually works...
Most Americans don't realize that the racial preferences at the University of Michigan Law School, upheld by the Supreme Court last June in Grutter v. Bollinger, are worth more than 1 full point of college GPA -- catapulting black and Hispanic applicants with just-below-B averages over otherwise similar whites and Asians with straight A's. Or that the average SAT scores of the preferentially admitted black students at most elite colleges are 150 to 200 points below the average white and Asian scores. Or that this SAT gap understates the academic gap, because black students do less well in college, on average, than do white and Asian classmates with the same SAT scores. Or that most recipients of racial preferences, unlike most legacies, end up in the bottom third of their classes and have far higher dropout rates than other groups. Or that, according to a study of 28 highly selective colleges by two leading supporters of preferences, some 85 percent of preferentially admitted minorities are from middle- and upper-class families.
In other words, not only are the achievement gaps between those admitted for "diversity" and the general student body larger than generally perceived, but those quotas don't help working-class kids of any race.
Andrew Sullivan linked to this article, and received this email:
"Have spent many years in the elite environs of higher ed and can tell you that whatever you think you know about admissions, it's tens time [sic] worse. The 'minority' admissions rarely graduate and few even get to be sophs.
All the administration wants is to meet their quota of freshman accepted for admission.
What it does to those poor kids is criminal. They're so disoriented, totally fish out of water. They don't have a clue how to behave, how to dress, how to talk, how to read and write at the level of the freshmen accepted at the competitive northeast institutions. It's truly pathetic. Their classmates spend vacations skiing, going to their cottages at the beach, traveling, they have their own cars, their own plastic, etc. As far as the quota kids are concerned, they may as well be from outer space.
The reaction is to act up and act tough further alienating themselves. It's an awful system."
I'll say. I agreen entirely with one of Mr. Taylor's suggested benefits of making this system public:
A second benefit might be to focus attention on the real crisis in minority education: The average black 17-year-old is academically less prepared for college than the average white or Asian 8th-grader.
Of course John of Discriminations had something to say about this as well. Oh, and don't miss his discussion of an interesting racial preferences conundrum, and his exposure of a William & Mary Sociology professor for the overly-"sensitive" twit that she is. God help any student who takes a class from her; if they're not professional victims when they enter, they will be by the time they leave.
Posted by kswygert at February 3, 2004 02:22 PM