Tung Yin, a law professor at the University of Iowa, has a typically thoughtful suggestion for uptight anti-bake (my term, though a better one might be half-baked) university administrators tempted to close down these bake sales.
Sounding the way liberals used to sound when they were the good guys, Tung Yin suggests “it would be more effective for the schools that confront these bake sales to have a rational discussion with the bake sale proponents.” He even provides a short draft for them:
We realize that you disagree with affirmative action. However, this bake sale, with the differential pricing based on race and gender, while clever, makes a fundamentally specious analogy. The buyers of your baked goods do not interact with other buyers, so even if you attract a greater number of minority buyers, there is no increased cross-racial interaction; at least, not within the context of a simple sale. In the educational context, on the other hand, our experience with teaching has led us to realize that increased racial diversity improves the education process for everyone involved. Thus, affirmative action in the educational process has a pedagogical purpose that is absent in your bake sale.
“Would such an approach satisfy Rosenberg and his readers?” Tung Yin asks. “Probably not. But it might satisfy others who are willing to accept the diversity rationale.”
Alas, he’s right; it won’t. Or at least it probably won’t. It depends, first (at the risk of sounding Clintonian), on what Tung Yin means by “satisfy.” Of course it would be better for administrators to engage in a debate with the bakers than shut them up. Indeed, the whole purpose of the bake sales is to provoke just such a debate. I would thus indeed be satisfied by administrators making these debating points rather than closing down the sale, but I obviously do not believe the argument Tung Yin drafts justifies closing them down (I don’t think he meant it to).
Tung Yin suspects the argument may persuade some of those who “accept the diversity rationale.” Indeed it may. In fact, even I am perfectly willing to admit that a bake sale is different from a college education, as , I suspect, the bakers would as well. They do not justify their discrimination (selling to different races at different prices) by claiming that doing so provides diversity (or even cookies) to the community. Their whole point is that discrimination is not justified.
Which leads us to the phrase, “diversity rationale.” There are many of us — I am one — who rather like diversity but who do not believe it provides a sufficient “rationale” for engaging in racial discrimination. We would like religious diversity as well, but would balk at state institutions raising and lowering entrance or employment requirements based on the faith of the applicants. Indeed, we might be tempted to reply to an administrator making a Tung Yinian argument that
if you really believe ‘diversity’ trumps the right to be free from racial discrimination, why don’t you put all minority applicants in a pool and assign them to the colleges that need them instead of letting them choose where to go? Once on campus, why not assign them to classes with few minorities in them rather than indulge them in their own individualistic preferences of what courses to take? Not to mention disbanding black dorms and putting quotas on how many minorities could sit together at lunch. Etc. etc.
But note well: if we replied this way, and if the administrators and their preferentialist sympathizers in turn replied, we would be engaging in a rational debate, which my readers and I would find deeply satisfying.
UPDATE
Insofar as a blog can be judged by its readers (which is quite far in my opinion), this blog has got to be one of the best. I learned a long time ago that the best way to write an article is to send an idea (which need not be either good or original) to a select group of friends and then edit their responses.
Which leads me, in a roundabout way, to an article written by reader Linda Seebach, who in real life writes for the Rocky Mountain News. She sent me a copy of a splendid article she wrote several years demonstrating that “Orthodoxy, Not Diversity, Rules on CU-Boulder Campus.” I was tempted to anger the copyright gods and reprint the whole thing, but fortuntely I don’t haveto. It is not available on paper’s web site, but it can be found here. Go read it for a chilling view of “diversity” in practice.
This post raises a seldom discussed viewpoint… my own.
I am in favor of the end result that diversiphiles so often espouse. We called it integration 40 years ago. I live and work in the most integrated communities and work environments imagineable, and I do enjoy it. My wife is Asian, and I live in a community that is equal parts Asian, black, white and hispanic. My company is also admirably integrated. I am delighted with this result.
And, I am opposed to the quota system.
I worked in the civil rights movement in a variety of capacities in the 1960s, and I am proud that I did. I did not do this so that white, heterosexual men could become objects of derision and discrimination. I view the quota system as a movement for revenge, and unjustified revenge at that. I was born into poverty. I am the first member of my extended family to earn a college degree.
I also worked, in the early 1970s in the movement for gay rights, particularly the right of gays to openly acknowledge their identity. I still think that this was the right thing to do. But, in the mid-1990s, I was repeatedly confronted in the workplace by gays who had recently graduated from college, full of the gay activist indoctrination. They believed fervently in the right of gays to be open about their identity. And, they believed equally fervently that macho, hetero men had no right to express their identity in the workplace. They lobbied fiercely to force macho, hetero men to stuff it.
This was not the result I envisioned, and it has often made me question whether I should have been so generous in my support for the rights of others. The favor does not seem to be returned.
Man is flawed in various and fundamental ways. I am not being theological here. It is a fact that all of us witness in our fellows and ourselves daily.
That is why the road to hell is paved with good intentions. That is why two wrongs don’t make a right. And that is why we don’t condone racial discrimination by one group to cure racial discrimination by another. Because in man’s flawed little hands such an approach encourages envy, hate and revenge. History is replete with such examples. And TY as a law school professor surely must know that above all else the very existence of laws in virtually every society in history is irrefutable proof that man cannot ever be trusted to act solely out of the goodness of his heart.
And, finally, our flawed natures are why we should never use euphamisms to conceal what we are really saying on this subject. Diversity as used by TY means racial discrimination pure and simple. We can participate in an endless stream of intellectual teas and profess civilized and temperate opinions about diversity, affirmative action, etc., ad naseum, but what we are really talking about is naked racial discrimination. And we must honestly ask and answer: Is there is any benefit to be achieved by racial discrimination that outweighs the current and future harm it causes? I continue to say absolutely not. And John does as well, although he is far too collegial to state it as candidly as I have just done.
I love diversity. That’s why I was creeped out by my summer in Bloomington, Indiana. I now live happily in Flushing, Queens, where I’m in the mix with people of many ethnicities and religions. (Actually, I think somebody found that Queens County is the most diverse county in the country when looking at ethnicities. Though we also have all ages, lifestyles, etc.)
College is so removed from how the rest of one’s life is (something that college professors might not know). If you want diversity, go live in a diverse place. If more people want a diverse living situation, like mine — hey! my property values go up!
Still, I find it odd that colleges think it their duty to socialize adults racially — and by such an indirect method as admissions. Is there any actual proof that enforced racial diversity increases the value of a college degree? If there’s a study out there, I’d like to see it. If I remember correctly, there was one at Michigan, and the results were, at best, mixed.
Stu, just to be clear, I was merely setting forth what I think would be a better approach to dealing with the bake sales. It wasn’t my intent necessarily to endorse diversity as a rationale.
The reason I think it’s better for schools to do that than to shut the bake sales is fairly obvious. I do think there is one reason that you may be overlooking about what you call euphemisms: if the school is going to use diversity to justify a race-based preference (as opposed to remedying past discrimination), it sets forth a principle than can then be tested. John identified a few examples of practices at some schools that would appear to fail the test. Thus, those schools engaging in those practices would need to explain how those practices fit in with diversity, and failing that, should (if intellectually honest) disband them.
Re: if you really believe ‘diversity’ trumps the right to be free from racial discrimination, why don’t you put all minority applicants in a pool and assign them to the colleges that need them instead of letting them choose where to go?
Of course, we already tried that at the K-12 level — it was called “school busing” and we saw how well that worked.
There are tradoffs in all life, we trade freedom for law, equality for wealth and so on. For homosexuals to gain in society they must gain in all facets. This means that when you go to a movie theater you ‘re more likely to see a gay kiss on screen. Since there’s only so much time for kissing, this means you’re less likely to see a hetero kiss on screen. This is the kind of price you MUST pay in order for a group to be equal in society.
AA is much thornier however, maybe its because its INSTITUTIONALIZED and not private. Instituions like Government and Academia always cause inefficiency, stupid jerks, but no one has been able to create a way to replace them. An imperfect world is the price you pay for life, besides there’s someone out there with a blog that details descrimination against blacks. Perhaps you two could duke it out in a battle to determine who has the best solution for your AA opponent?
You could suggest more money toward primary education in urban schools, he could suggest that you just ‘suck it up’…
You could suggest more money toward primary education in urban schools, he could suggest that you just ‘suck it up’…
I already have; he — or more accurately, they — already have.
Your “the more of this, the less of that” argument is interesting. It seems to me to confirm what I’ve been arguing here for a while, which is that a new proportional representation model of equality is struggling (with a good deal of success) to displace and replace the old equal opportunity/non-discrimination model.
I attended university and law school before the AA movement took full hold, and I had a fair amount of interaction with the ‘minority’ students in my classes. We got along quite well and treated each other as peers. I even had a number of very interesting and enlightening conversations directly relating to the experience of being a ‘minority’ in the USA.
My offspring attending university (who were raised to respect all individuals as such, and with very little regard to any race other than human) report that there is very little interaction between the various ‘minority’ group factions, there is an amazing degree of self-imposed segregation, and there are a lot of people who simply assume that most of the ‘minorities’ on campus are there through AA and are otherwise unqualified to attend (which, saddly, seems to be somewhat borne out by such things as academic performance and graduation rates). No one every has any real conversations about race, there is only indoctrination sessions wherer no opinion other than the approved PC-think is allowed to be voiced. Instead of addressing issues and creating a learning experience, students’ opinions are forced subsurface and they are presented with evidence that the loons expousing racist ideas might have a point (and without being able to openly discuss the issues, they have more trouble learning the truth than I did back in the ‘bad old days’). This is viewed as unquestionable progress. Go figure.
If the liberal establishment were really interested in addressing the lower academic performance of blacks they would look for ways to improve the education blacks receive in primary school. However, that would be quite difficult to do, with no guarantee of success. So rather than addressing the real problem they attempt to hide the problem by admitting the “right” number of blacks to select universities regardless of their qualifications. The fact that a much higher percentage of these affirmative action students never graduate does not seem to concern the liberal establishment one bit. They have done their duty and they can congratulate themselves as to how caring and morally superior they are.
KRM, there has always been self-segregation cliques and the like. And today’s college campuses are in a different era. In the past, college age blacks and whites were fighting together to overturn a system that was blatantly discriminatory against minorities and young people. Now we have the ambiguity of partial success, the people that we have to worry about are the ones that think the system is either completely broken or completely fixed. Students today have the opportunity to learn and grow with peers of many races and that’s, in part, a result of the struggles of the past.
Richard,
Where do you start from though? The biggest determinant on whether a student attends college is whether their parents attended college. How do you get the next gen to attend college? Make sure as many of this gen does. How do you improve black schools? Have more college ed black teachers. This is the whole F*ing enchilada right here! How do we get a group of people to rise in society without giving them breaks, benefits, deals and special treatment? You can’t just throw money at the problem, even if you could there’s always more ‘white’ money to be thrown at white kids by their parents. A minority kid with the best teachers likely still won’t go to college if they’ve got illiterate parents. The only solution is to force things-rush things-push things, even if they’re unfair.
But then of course we have to look at the results, does AA do the job? Where are the stats on how AA parents’ kids perform? Even the ones that dropped out. But we agree that discussion should not stop!
Jeff,
The biggest determinant on whether a student attends college is whether their parents attended college.
What does that have to do with what I wrote? I was questioning why you would want decent black students to flunk out of college by accepting them into elite universities where the average student has much better academic credentials than they have. Wouldn’t it make much more sense for those students to go to a lesser school where the competition is not as strong, so that they can actually graduate? Do you believe that having these students flunk out of school will enhance black achievement?
How do you improve black schools? Have more college ed black teachers.
Are you trying to say that simply by hiring black teachers the students will learn more? In other words, only blacks can teach blacks. What a racist statement! If that was the case then shouldn’t blacks only go to black colleges? Think how much more they would learn that way.
Unfortunately, what has happened in many inner city schools is that unqualified teachers have been hired simply because they are minorities. All that has accomplished is to lower the already poor academic achievement of the students.
How do we get a group of people to rise in society without giving them breaks, benefits, deals and special treatment?
How do you account for the success of the Asian students such as the boat people from Viet Nam who came to this country with no money or education? Do you think that by giving people something they haven’t earned you are going to help them? Since you clearly don’t care if they actually learn something, why don’t we just give all blacks a college diploma? Wouldn’t that be the perfect “special treatment” to help them succeed?
Why do liberals go through this charade of pretending to help blacks succeed when they are simply perpetuating the stereotype that blacks are not capable of performing as well as whites academically. The only answer I can come up with is that liberals are the real racists because they are absolutely convinced that blacks are inferior to whites. They think that they can assuage their own guilt by patronizing blacks through affirmative action. Unfortunately, liberalism is the problem, not the solution to black underachievement
Consider a rephrasing of Professor Yin’s criticism of the affirmative action bake sale, to address the more popular version, offered to highlight a nonexistent pay gap between the earnings of women and men. I offer such a rephrasing for your consideration at Cold Spring Shops
To needlessly amplify Richard’s well-made point, history is replete with minorities who succeed despite far greater inconveniences than those faced by contemporary black Americans. The Chinese in Southeast Asia, Lebanese in South America, and Jews in post-communist Russia all come to mind. (Aside: Please nothing about slavery in response. If I wanted to discuss ancient history, I’d post on a paleontology site)
In truth, I would be hard-pressed to identify just what undue obstacles an intelligent, ambitious, law-abiding black faces in modern America. He will be escorted to his university of choice under considerable financial subsidy; whereupon his graduation he will face only the perils of sycophantic corporate recruiters, each under more pressure than the last to fill their “diversity” mandates (pardon me, that’s guidelines). Finally, upon entering the labor force, our lad will find himself in the unenviable position of having to prematurely select which divisional fast-track to pursue, a task his white peers may not be burdened with for some time.
Is life all roses for black Americans? Of course not. Nor is it for whites, Asians, or most anyone else. Though my point is that for those willing to apply and prepare themselves, this country offers a bounty of prosperity which is in NO WAY foreclosed to minorities of any color. And this would remain true even without my (and your) tax-funded government offering racial “breaks, benefits, deals and special treatment.”
“The only answer I can come up with is that liberals are the real racists because they are absolutely convinced that blacks are inferior to whites. They think that they can assuage their own guilt by patronizing blacks through affirmative action. ”
Oh please, you’re jumping to levels of hyperbole that aren’t appropriate for a blog as well reasoned as this.
As for the Asian immigrants that came to our shores, they are self selecting. That is, immigrants that can make it half-way around the world and survive in a new country tend to be the brightest/most innovative/most educated. For example, take black Americans that have emmigrated to Japan, you’ll find that this group is more intelligent than the average American. So it was with many of the Asians that immigrated here (forced immigration aside). As for the current success of the Chinese/Vietnamese/Lebanese/Russian Jews, I think hoping that the average Black American has a higher income than these groups is not too much to ask. After all, what’s the ave per capita income in China right now? like 700 bucks? Wow! Why can’t our minority groups succeed like that? :endsarcasm
ok so liberals actually hate blacks, but your guys’ program to help them succeed is what? Them to just suck it up and do it themselves – this advice is from planet common sense, it seems like this would work, after all you’ve worked hard and are now successful, but statistically it sucks. I’m willing to listen to the argument that AA isn’t working well, and I don’t want a commie state either but c’mon, success shouldn’t be dictated by race, and right now, statistically, no matter how many whites are ‘hurt’ by AA, it is.
Context, Jeff, Context. Your remarks are missing this (with or without sarcasm assigned). If a minority group earns only $700 amidst a larger population earning $100, then yes it is an unmitigated success story. And your hope that black Americans will earn more than either is shared by most of us–though it is their actions, and not our sentiment which will bake this cake.
But since context isn’t really your bag, I’ll provide some data that you should find appealing in this regard. Black Americans, were they a national entity, would represent the 20th richest country per capita on Earth. They would be richer than occidental nations such as Ireland, New Zealand, Spain, and Portugal (and very close to Britain and Italy), and the oil empire of Saudi Arabia. Need I add that they would also be wealthier than every single African country by a vast margin? You were mentioning something about blacks not succeeding here?
And no, success is not dictated by race. It is dictated by ambition, work ethic, family support, and eschewal of drugs and criminal activity. Integrate black nuclear families, reverse the prevailing attitude of work equating to “acting white,” and do something about the epidemic of black violent crime and drug use, and you will see the black success you hope for.
Jeff,
I am sorry I hurt your feelings, but it still doesn’t change the facts. You see only what you want to see.
That is, immigrants that can make it half-way around the world and survive in a new country tend to be the brightest/most innovative/most educated.
This statement is so wrong that it is laughable. Every immigrant group that came to this country was poor and uneducated. Do you actually believe that immigrants who came to this country from the 1850 to the 1930s were the crème de la crème of their countries? For example do you think that the Irish immigrants who came to this country because of the potato famine were all doctors and lawyers? Or do you think that the Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe were highly educated? Or how about the Chinese who helped build the cross continental railroad? Or do you think that the current wave of Mexicans immigrants is from upper society? People who are doing well in their own societies do not immigrate it great numbers. However, as StuartT so correctly pointed out, what they did have was ambition and a work ethic. That is what allowed them to succeed. But more importantly, do you really believe that the average black in this country is poor and uneducated? If so you are totally misinformed or willfully ignorant of the facts.
ok so liberals actually hate blacks
Where did I make that statement? I said that Liberals think blacks are inferior to whites not that they hate blacks. There is a difference. The many problems in the black community would not be solved by affirmative action. In fact, they would be exacerbated by affirmative action because the message would be sent that you don’t have to work hard to succeed. But it is so much simpler to blame the problems of the black community on white racism rather than to try to solve them, isn’t it?
Richard,
A lot of your factual assertions regarding the lack of wealth that immigrants came with strike me as right. However, there were two points I wanted to question. I haven’t looked at the data recently, so you may be looking at something more recent. But I throw these out:
1) The first wave of Chinese who immigrated here were indeed poor and ended up being used as coolies to build the railroads, etc. However, the wave of immigrants in the 60s (including my parents) came here with substantial amounts of education, often in technical fields. My parents both had college degrees in math or engineering and immigrated to get PhDs from American universities. Same story with a number of their friends. For this group, at least, it’s not just work ethic/ambition, but education that provided a substantial advantage. That doesn’t undermine your argument or Jeff Findel’s, but I think it makes the current success of Americans of Chinese, Japanese (and perhaps Korean) descent less useful as a comparison to other groups.
2) Regarding Vietnamese immigrants, statistics that I’d looked at in the mid-1990s suggested that more recent immigrants from Southeast Asia actually had demographic profiles (income, SAT averages, etc.) that more closely resembled Latinos than Chinese/Japanese. As anecdotal evidence, pre-Prop. 209, the percentage of Asians at Boalt was about 16%, which was 13% Chinese/Japanese/Korean and 3% other Asians. After Prop. 209, the first class was still 16% Asian, but it was all Chinese/Japanese/Korean.