As I’ve discussed here several times (here, here, here, here, and here), University of California Regent John Moores has criticized “comprehensive review,” a policy that gives admissions bonuses for overcoming adversity, as a not very well disguised attempt to circumvent the anti-discrimination provisions of California law.
The university has just issued a report clearing itself of those charges, sort of.
On Wednesday, UC Provost M.R.C. Greenwood said new research, using what she said was a more reliable statistical method, eliminated or significantly reduced the previous disparities between expected and actual admissions rates. The new report examined data for freshmen admitted to UC in 2003 and 2004.
The small remaining gaps, Greenwood said, amounted to statistical “noise.”
“I can say with some confidence
Suffering is not a form of merit. Fictitious suffering being claimed, as a way of exploiting institutional anticaucasianism, is itself a showing of lack of merit. Dishonesty, brazenness, resentment against those who are better educated and prepared; all of these correlate with lack of merit. The consequences are gathering and heightening upon us. Breakthroughs comparable to the continental drift theory’s revolutionizing of geology, have not occurred since the establishment of the antimerit society in 1971. Intellectual leaders in charge of important schools have a responsibility to throw everything towards the advancement of civilization. The antimerit policies work in the opposite direction from this, and progress is not guaranteed. Technology can go backwards.
The dilemma the left faces here is difficult. If they cheat on 209 but don’t admit they are breaking the law, they are providing evidence that laws ending preferences can still yield diversity. If they cheat too much, then ending preferences has no negative effect. This leaves us in a situation where they try, but they also try to keep the numbers just bad enough that they can use the data to stop MCRI-like attempts. Its really quite perverse.
I prefer to just say that they aren’t cheating – that there are alternatives that are working. Its hard to prove cheating – and I doubt that they could cheat enough anyway to make the real difference. The real difference will only be made when universities reach out and help fix the really bad school districts — 209 finally gave them an incentive to do that. It will take years — but that’s all that will ever work.