“Because the truth is, we all know it: Discrimination still exists in America,” Mr. Biden told reporters in the Roosevelt Room.
Biden is correct. Discrimination still exists in America, and he likes it that way.
NYT: Racial Gaming in Admissions
NYT: Racial Gaming in Admissions
One of my Asian-American students asked if I believed in reverse discrimination. I told him there is no such thing as reverse discrimination, there is just discrimination, and elite colleges do it to Asian-American students all the time.
Good colleges don’t want to let in Asians, she felt, because they already had too many — and if she seemed too Asian, she wouldn’t get in. She rattled off a list of Asian and Asian American friends from her church with stellar extracurriculars and sterling test scores who she said had been rejected from even their safety schools.
Openly discriminating is a terrible thing, I don’t know how these universities live with themselves.
The Chinese and Korean kids wanted to know how to make their application materials seem less Chinese or Korean. The rich white kids wanted to know ways to seem less rich and less white. The Black kids wanted to make sure they came across as Black enough. Ditto for the Latino and Middle Eastern kids.
Oh, that’s how they live with themselves. They believe discrimination is fine, as long as it benefits brown people.
Let me be clear that I am not an opponent of affirmative action. I don’t think I would have gotten into Haverford College as an undergraduate if it had not been for affirmative action, and the same is probably true of my Ph.D. program at New York University and the professorship I now hold at Bates College.
There, the author of this opinion piece is clear. Discrimination is fine with him, as long as he benefits from it. Racial discrimination is bullshit, and shouldn’t be a consideration. Race and ethnic heritage should be removed from all admission forms.
Despite recent talk about affirmative action policies based on class rather than race, I am skeptical that would increase racial diversity.
Racial diversity should not even be a goal. Martin Luther King Jr. never asked for that. It does make sense to try to elevate students from modest means to an elite college. I don’t accept that LeBron James’s kid is operating under an oppressive burden compared to a White kid from Parma.
And amid this great tornado of race chatter, if you take a moment to plug your ears and look around, you will probably begin to notice fewer and fewer brown and Black kids reading on the quad and, down the line, fewer and fewer brown and Black doctors in the maternity wards.
I don’t care what color my doctor is, as long as he knows his shit because I’m not a racist. Anyone who goes around saying they only want to see White doctors would be quickly labelled a racist. I wouldn’t argue with that.
Perhaps Brown and Black kids will spend more time reading on the quad if they know they are competing on merit. It is certainly plausible that low income Black kids don’t care much about education because everyone around them says it doesn’t matter.
Let’s take a moment to thank President Trump for getting some non-racists on the Supreme Court.