By: Roger Clegg, Ctr for Equal Opportunity

Roger Clegg, Ctr for Equal Opportunity — Tue, 11 Dec 2012 13:10:49 +0000

The issue in the University of Texas case is whether it ought to be legal for universities to engage in racial discrimination in admissions. Even if you think such discrimination has some educational benefits (which is dubious), you then have to consider all the costs of such discrimination: It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination; it creates resentment; it stigmatizes the so-called beneficiaries in the eyes of their classmates, teachers, and themselves, as well as future employers, clients, and patients; it mismatches African Americans and Latinos with institutions, setting them up for failure; it fosters a victim mindset, removes the incentive for academic excellence, and encourages separatism; it compromises the academic mission of the university and lowers the overall academic quality of the student body; it creates pressure to discriminate in grading and graduation; it breeds hypocrisy within the school and encourages a scofflaw attitude among college officials; it papers over the real social problem of why so many African Americans and Latinos are academically uncompetitive; and it gets states and schools involved in unsavory activities like deciding which racial and ethnic minorities will be favored and which ones not, and how much blood is needed to establish group membership – an untenable legal regime as America becomes an increasingly multiracial, multiethnic society and as individual Americans are themselves more and more likely to be multiracial and multiethnic (starting with our president).

Comments on: CU weighs in on campus diversity and the use of affirmative action

By: Roger Clegg, Ctr for Equal Opportunity