“Leaders of the University of California,” the Chronicle of Higher Education reports today, have “proposed revising admissions policies systemwide to increase the enrollment of minority students.”
Leaving aside the question of whether it is legal to devise a policy for the purpose of admitting more minority students, the racialist assumptions underlying UC’s rationale for “holistic” admissions is as unappealing as the racialist assumption of “difference” underlying “diversity.” The Chronicle writes that UC system president Mark Yudof
said he had asked the Academic Senate to consider requiring all nine campuses to adopt consistent holistic-review practices that consider students’ life experiences, as well as test scores and grades.
What is the reason for assuming that the “life experiences” of otherwise not accepted blacks and Hispanics provide better evidence of readiness for UC than the “life experiences” of Asians or, heaven forbid, even whites who would have been accepted if those experiences had been taken into account? Does anyone really believe that the “holistic” nod to “life experiences” is anything other than a high-brow way to discount poor grades and test scores for certain groups?
The Los Angeles Times quotes Yudof as saying “I want a system that is less mechanical and takes a serious look at a range of talents and skills and history, and takes into account poverty.” Will Berkeley and UCLA, I wonder, require a higher quality of “life experiences” than the other campuses, just as they now require higher “mechanical” grades and test scores? Will Kaplan and the other coaching schools recommend certain “life experiences” over others, and coach students on how best to present their victimhood and what they have done to overcome it?
UC Regent Eddie Island (whatever happened to no man is an island?), according to the Times, thinks that lack of a “nurturing environment” is a problem at at UC but not the worst, since
he also blamed UC’s admissions policies for artificially limiting the rolls of minority students. “It is the absence of inclusion that frees hatred, that frees bigotry, that allows it to go unchallenged. That’s our biggest problem,” he said.
Imagine, someone sitting on the Board of Regents of the University of California who actually thinks UC’s “biggest problem” is unchallenged hatred and bigotry.
Maybe the Board of Regents has a “holistic” appointment policy for its members.
How about a review of likelihood that the student will drop out sans diploma and avec a lot of debt [or at least time lost in acquiring marketable knowledge and skills]?
Think they should consider the welfare of those they’re choosing. The assumption that entry to UC schools is nothing but a boon should be revisited. It never seems to occur to them that “lesser” schools might be a better fit for their supposed holisitic beneficiaries.