About a month ago, well before the recent scandal of Jayson Blair, the New York Times’s diversity-hire reporter, had come to light, I discussed (here) an article in the NYT that obviously went to great lengths to present “diversity” at the University of Michigan in a favorable light.
A minority student who had been quoted in the NYT article subsequently sent me a fascinating email complaining about how the author had ignored or distorted the student’s comments. I requested permission to reprint the student’s email in full but never heard back and so I did not do so. But now, although I will still not identify my correspondent, I think it is important to quote some of the comments about this student’s experience with and response to the NYT author.
This student’s experience tends to reinforce a conclusion that has been gaining currency in the press, which is that the Blair affair suggests that the editorial culture of the NYT may have been pervasively corrupted by its devotion to “diversity.” Mickey Kaus has written that “evidence is now emerging that the New York Times did, in fact, explicitly relax its standards when it hired Jayson Blair,” and the Washington Post observed in an article today, for example, that it “is a portrait of a wide-ranging management failure as well, as the Times’s top editors failed to heed one red flag after another while promoting Blair to national reporter.”
Some excerpts from the Michigan student’s email to me:
First, the reporter who wrote the story containing my quote obviously had her own agenda: to display diversity at the University of Michgan as affirmative action’s saving grace. That Ms. Wilogren had an agenda was readily apparent from the moment I met her as she continued to virtually force students to recall some event during their law school careers where they offered some unique view of the world. Whether such anectdotal evidence is of any probative value as to the virtues of race-preferential policies is highly doubtful, but this was what Ms. Wilogren desired.
Second, Ms. Wilogren left out what I believed to be the more interesting portions of our dialogue….
Third, I also pointed out to Ms. Wilogren that in my view, race-preferential policies actually hinder the academic and social development of African Americans. I explained to Ms. Wilogren that the problems that plague African American’s today are not caused by racism or oppression. While racist individuals continue to and will always exist, today such individuals are found mainly at the margins of society. Furthermore, any institutional racism that takes place today seems to be de minimis at best, and accordingly has a slight–if any–affect on Black progress. I explained to Ms. Wilogren that the problems facing Black Americans today are the result of traits of anti-intellectualism that are ubiquitous in African-American culture.
Fourth, … [t]he view I expressed … was independent of issues of race or diversity. It was merely an expression of common sense; an expression of my opinion that conclusory statements with no evidentiary basis have no place in academia. This has nothing to do with race. However, given Ms. Wilogren’s agenda, and hence her careful editing of most people’s quotes, a completely different message was conveyed.
Fifth, I do not deny that Michigan’s race-preferential admissions policies enabled me to gain admittance…. It may be hypocritical, but I disagree with the use of such policies notwithstanding my belief that I am a direct beneficiary of said policies….
Since a vigorous pursuit of “diversity” usually requires lowering standards for the preferred groups, it is not really surprising when the alleged beneficiaries of the double standard do not perform up to par. Nor is it so surprising that a newspaper’s emphatic management, editorial, and administrative commitments would color the content of its reporting, as evidently happened with this story. The NYT’s devotion to “diversity,” in short, appears to have colored far more than Jayson Blair’s stories.
(a) The student who emailed you sounds incredibly bright.
(b)Time has a wrinkle that’s new on Jayson Blair: He got caught when he plagiarized a San Antonio Express story by a Mexican-American reporter who was a fellow NY Times intern in 1998. She also was offered a job, but instead went back home to Texas to help her mother after her father’s sudden death. She taught English for awhile, then got a break at the San Antonio paper. So Blair was stealing from someone he knew.
Joanne – This student did indeed impress as quite bright. In fact, some material I omitted out of the email mentioned grades, accomplishments, etc. One of the worst effects of preferences is that they stigmatize the beneficiaries, often quite unfairly. I mentioned that in an email reply I sent, of which this is an excerpt:
>>>
I think your message not only makes abundantly clear but actually provides graphic evidence of how unfair it is for anyone to assume that none of the beneficiaries of racial preferences deserve to be where they are. Let me emphasize that this unfairness is rampant on both sides of the ideological divide. As I, and indeed most critics of preferences, are quick to emphasize, the preferences themselves are built on and re-inforce the stereotype of minorities being un- or at least under-qualified. But my ideological colleagues and I do not recognize often enough, or at least we do not publicly acknowledge often enough, something that is just as true: many minority applicants, apparently such as yourself, who would not have been admitted to elite schools without preferences have demonstrated that they are more than capable of doing first-rate work, have in fact done first-rate work, and we are all better off for it. Opposing preferences, as I do, should not lead anyone to deny that obvious truth, just as that truth, in my opinion, is not weighty enough to justify the preferences.
Here’s the sad thing:
“Fifth, I do not deny that Michigan’s race-preferential admissions policies enabled me to gain admittance….”
After reading this very polished and literate e-mail, I cannot believe that this student could not have got into school on his/her own merit. But the student believes that he or she could not have. The depth of self-doubt caused by racial preference is grievous.
More NY Times diversity dealings
John Rosenberg at Discriminations has an outstanding post quoting a young minority student at the University of Michigan complaining about