A few days ago I had a short piece on Minding The Campus, “Is ‘Diversity’ In Science Necessary? Legal?” It was linked on InstaPundit this morning, which I appreciate, and I found (as you would find if you read them) the comments that it elicited there quite interesting. I especially enjoyed two from someone whose nom de comment is “BostonBridget,” which I will link below with an ellipsis:
Affirmative action, or even the mere scepter thereof, destroys the people that it is trying to help.
Back when I was applying to engineering school, I lost count of how many times someone told me, “You’ll get in because you’re a woman,” or “You only got in because you’re a woman.” If they are wrong, affirmative action has undermined my achievements by casting doubt on my worthiness; if they are right, then I will take this opportunity to extend my profound apologies to all of the men who got higher math SAT scores than I did.
Of course, that doesn’t even get into Richard Sander’s mismatch theory and all the attendant problems with affirmative action in higher education….
Beyond the snark, affirmative action fails by its own standards. If there’s some bright kid from the Bronx who hasn’t had many opportunities because he’s a poor black kid, it makes sense to take that into consideration when evaluating his application for admission to a university. It might even make some sense to cut him a bit of slack on his first-year grades as he plays catch-up to his peers.
What is absolutely mental, however, is affirmative action that starts in college admissions, continues onto graduate school admissions, potentially continues throughout graduate school, and then continues into the workforce. There is some point at which an individual becomes responsible for his own success or failure, and it should be long before retirement.
BostonBridget has written one of the best comments about affirmative action I have seen:
What is absolutely mental, however, is affirmative action that starts in college admissions, continues onto graduate school admissions, potentially continues throughout graduate school, and then continues into the workforce. There is some point at which an individual becomes responsible for his own success or failure, and it should be long before retirement.
I can assure readers that affirmative action DOES continue throughout graduate school. Grants, paper collaborations, scholarships and fellowships, conference travel, and other awards generally include race/ethnicity (i.e., Hispanic or Black identity) as a criteria. Then, of course, universities create tenure-track positions specially reserved for these groups. I can’t imagine how awkward I would feel interviewing for a job literally-literally-set aside for my racial/ethnic identity (again, i.e., Hispanic or Black).