Donald Scoggins is a real estate agent in northern Virginia. One of his sons was recently accepted at the University of Michigan, but he’s not altogether pleased.
Ironically, the week before the oral arguments in the University of Michigan case, one of my sons was accepted to the school’s engineering program. He’s quite smart. I’m hoping he wasn’t accepted solely because of affirmative action preferences.
I’m black, but my wife is Asian Indian. My sons selected “African-American” on their college applications. My wife was offended, and suggested they select “Asian-American” or “other.” The boys said they might not get in because everyone knows Asians are smart and my sons didn’t think their academic records were that good. They reasoned that selecting African-American and having reasonably good grades and test scores would allow them to rise to the top of the pile of black applicants.
My sons took advantage of affirmative action to get into a good school. Unfortunately, they took advantage of a system that presupposes certain students don’t have the best academic credentials because of their racial heritage.
Genuine black achievement is stigmatized by the perception that what blacks achieve was helped by special exceptions.
