The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (JBHE) has a large advertisement in the print edition of Tuesday’s Washington Post (alas, not online; in print, STYLE Section, p. C2) arguing that the sky will fall if “race-conscious admissions” are banned at medical schools.
[For the record, let me note that I am on record —here, for example — arguing that “race-conscious” is a euphemism. My problem is not with policies that are “conscious” of race; it is with policies that reward or punish on the basis of race.]
The ad presents a chart showing the increase in numbers of blacks in medical school since 1950, and argues that the rising number is attributable only to affirmative action. This strikes me as fair commentary, whether or not the point is completely accurate.
Next, the ad asserts
that under a strict race-neutral admissions system, black enrollments in American medical schools would drop from the current 8 percent of all students to under 2 percent of total enrollments.
This is both interesting and revealing, for it confirms that 75% of the blacks currently in medical schools would not be there if they had been required to meet the same entrance requirements deemed necessary for non-blacks. Of course, it’s possible those standards may not accurately predict anything worthwhile, but the medical schools have not reached that conclusion.
Next, however, I believe the ad goes off the deep end.
Without a continuing stream of black medical school graduates, a public health crisis will loom in the nation’s inner cities for decades to come. Studies have shown that black physicians are far more likely than white doctors to serve in predominantly black inner-city neighborhoods.
Without affirmative action, racial disparities in the health of Americans will not only continue but will increase in years ahead.
Well (As George Will would say)! Leaving aside the implication that critics of racial preferences are signing the death warrants of black babies, this striking argument is as problematical for what it doesn’t say as for what it does.
First, for a refreshing change, it has absolutely nothing to do with “diversity” and everything to do with pure race. It baldly asserts that admissions preferences must be given to blacks because blacks need more black doctors.
No, you might object, that’s not a purely racial argument. It’s an argument that more doctors are needed in inner cities and “studies have shown” that blacks are more likely to practice there. Really? Then why not simply give preferences to applicants who will sign up for the Public Health Service for several years, or otherwise agree to practice in poor areas?
Blacks in inner cities don’t need black doctors; they need doctors. Like everybody else. And also like everybody else, they don’t need doctors (or lawyers, or airline pilots, or engineers, or high school teachers, or …) who have been held to lower standards than professionals serving other communities.
I think John is missing the whole point of this exercise (not really). All this drivel about the negative impact of better qualified(!) doctors on the health of blacks is a moral Potemkin village. Naturally, its seedier underside is the racial spoils/shakedown racket. Speaking of BAMN…
“The ad presents a chart showing the increase in numbers of blacks in medical school since 1950, and argues that the rising number is attributable only to affirmative action. This strikes me as fair commentary, whether or not the point is completely accurate.”
“Fair”? It sounds appalling. I haven’t seen the original ad, but assuming you’re right about the ad crediting “the rising number … only to affirmative action,” I wonder:
Has JBHE forgotten about the increasing number of blacks who could have gotten into medical school without affirmative action? There are surely far more blacks qualified for medical school today than fifty years ago.
I’d say the ad goes up off the deep end a lot earlier.
Amritas – You’re probably right. I was leaning over backwards to be, well, fair. I certainly didn’t mean to endorse JBHE’s interpretation. All I meant was, if a chart of the increase in the number of black medicat students turns upward sharply when affirmative action is introduced, it’s not patently implausible to attribute the former to the latter. Anyone looking for evidence to support the view that black progress began to improve dramatically before AA and would have occurred without it should consult Abigail and Stephan Thernstrom’s AMERICA IN BLACK AND WHITE.
John,
Thanks for clarifying. Sorry if I sounded too hostile – I was blasting JBHE, not you.
And a clarification of my own: It’s obvious that affirmative action IS a major factor in the increase in black admissions. My point was that certainly some of that increase is attributable to other factors. I thought JBHE was doing some black medical students (and doctors) a disservice by implying that they ALL couldn’t have done it without AffAct.
Lastly, have you heard about the late Dr. Patrick Chavis?
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/michelle/malkin080702.asp
You are so on the money when you said blacks need doctors. REAL doctors. Unwittingly or otherwise, JBHE is endorsing incompetents of the “right color.” What an insult toward inner city dwellers (who aren’t all black).
Then why not simply give preferences to applicants who will sign up for the Public Health Service for several years, or otherwise agree to practice in poor areas?
This is a case where I think this solution is better than the race-conscious solution, regardless of the legality or morality involved.
OTOH, StuartT will have to explain to me more slowly why blacks would benefit from better doctors under race-neutral standards, and in the absence of the substitute program above, if none of those doctors practice in their neighborhoods. To my mind, a less-qualified, only-accepted-as-black doctor is better than none.
I would also point out that there have been programs involving forgiveness of student loans taken out for medical school to students who served in critical areas (the rural US has a shortage, as well as the inner city), but (1) these programs were cut drastically under the Reagan Administration and I don’t know to what extent they have been revived and (2) they didn’t extend as far as the Admissions Office.
awesome weblog – massive post
Standards should remain objective. If the establishment of an objective standard causes all doctors to be white, so be it… black, so be it… asian, so be it… The problem is that everyone is lied to. You, nor anyone else, can “be whatever they want to be”. Then, spineless administrators and opportunistic politicians take steps to allow people to achieve “dreams” that had no basis in reality. You can’t be whatever you want to be. Know yourself, respect yourself, and accept yourself.
Ten years after…who knows if the person running this blog is still alive. They may have died from misdiagnosed illness at the hands of a doctor admitted to med school on the basis of race. At any rate… this is one of those “those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it” moments. And I get the sense that many conservatives are indeed chomping at the bit to repeat the history but of race in America.
A hundred and some years ago, black doctors were educated mainly at black teaching hospitals. Those hospitals, like many other segregated institutions which, however poorly, served to provide black Americans in a segregated society with professionals, are not around anymore. They are not coming back. The money isn’t there and desegregation has won the day, in theory and in policy at least. So, in the ostensibly post-racial but somehow still largely segregated nation we inhabit, how are black Americans to provide for themselves the professionals who are to serve their stricken communities? By ads such as the one you, with your tin-ear, so blithely trash on the basis of a half-baked ideology composed of equal parts indifference and lack of imagination.
The ad is stating things in a way that is maybe a little subtle for the clod-hopper mentality that bloviates on this blog, but it’s at least addressing reality. So my vote goes to the terrible ad. I prefer reality.