I have commented more than once (see here and here for recent examples) that if defenders of racial preferences really believed their rhetoric about diversity being absolutely essential to the mission of higher education, they could achieve it without the necessity of racial double standards simply by lowering their admissions standards for everyone and conducting a lottery among those who are qualified.
Now comes reader Harry Williams who emailed a copy of a letter appearing in today’s Chicago Tribune by Rolf Weil, president emeritus of Roosevelt University in Chicago. By now you will have guessed what he, smart fellow that he obviously is, suggests:
In selective institutions of higher education and particularly in professional schools, admission standards are frequently set at very high levels because of limited space and high educational costs. As a result, minorities would be significantly underrepresented if it were not for affirmative action programs, which, in effect, create reverse discrimination.
There are no easy solutions to the problem of creating diversity without discrimination. One approach that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been tried involves the use of a sophisticated lottery system. Under this approach traditional admission standards would be lowered to the minimum level required to meet quality standards for an institution. If that scheme would, as one might expect, result in many more applicants than can be admitted, a lottery could be used to select the students who would be accepted. Statistically, if several hundred students are involved, it can be predicted that diversity would be achieved and there would be no discrimination.
Sounds like a good idea to me, at least if diversity is as essential as claimed.
Wonderful, the next time you have brain surgery remember the guy about to open up your skull is there because he won a lottery. Somehow this dog won’t hunt.
Thomas,
Well, why not? If underrepresented-minority students are being admitted to Med School X if they’re above some particular academic-credential floor (a combination of grades, MCATs, quality of college/university &c.), then presumably Med School X is convinced that a person with such credentials can handle the curriculum and emerge on the other side as a qualified doctor.
Of course, this will only achieve the level of diversity of the now larger pool of acceptable candidates. If the minority applicants in this pool is a smaller percentage of the total than the desired level of diversity at the university, then this approach will not produce the desired results.
Matthew,
If “the desired results” means a racial distribution identical to that of the state population, then of course it won’t. But the message would still be powerful: “meet this level of achievement and your chance of admission will be *exactly* the same as that rich kid’s with the private tutor and the legacy.”
This seems like the best idea I’ve heard so far.
Well. Except for fixing the lousy primary and secondary schools. (A-hahahahaha! I crack me up!)
We all know what the answer to this debate is – maintaining the same educational standards in predominantly minority urban and rural area schools, the same as suburbia. The largest impact on a child’s education is encouragement at an early age, good teachers, facilities and a dedication to improvement of standards in low income school districts by the fat beaurocrats with kids in suburb schools. This is a devil-child of the marginalization that exists of individuals of certain ethnicity aka blacks.