Race-based admissions policies must go

Feb 14, 2003 ·

The litigation over race-based admissions policies is probably the most important case the Supreme Court will decide in its current term. Those who think that it’s somehow progress for government institutions to treat classes of individuals differently because of their ancestry are pulling out all the stops to defend race-based admissions policies, including an intellectually dishonest argument that diversity enhances education and cries that the sky will fall if schools like the University of Michigan can’t stack the deck in favor of applicants in certain groups. Here are a few thoughts on this momentous case.

Supreme Court poised to offer long-overdue clarity on racial preferences

Dec 6, 2002 ·

By next June the nation’s highest court could finally issue a much-needed clarification of the constitutionality of using racial considerations in college admissions decisions. The Supreme Court took up two cases in which white applicants argued that their applications to the University of Michigan and its law school were turned down because of their race.

The tragic life and death of a poster boy

Aug 16, 2002 ·

He was held up as the poster boy of racial preferences in the fight against California’s Proposition 209, the ballot initiative outlawing preferences passed overwhelmingly in 1996. An ardent defender of preferences, in 1995 he was profiled as their best defense in the pages of The Nation, The New York Times Magazine, The Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times.

Discrimination for diversity’s sake doesn’t help minorities succeed

Mar 22, 2002 ·

The controversy over minority enrollment in North Carolina colleges gets right to the heart of diversity, the cardinal virtue of academe. Although the issue has been vexing colleges for years, it doesn’t take an outside observer long to realize the absurdly simple crux of the matter. The problem with minorities is just that there are just so few of them.

Racial references to blame for black graduation rates at N.C. State, not low aid

Feb 1, 2002 ·

A collection of black student interest groups at North Carolina State University has graded the university on the subjects of enrollment and graduation of black students and recruitment of black faculty. The African-American Student Advisory Council, not surprisingly, gave the university mostly failing grades. In essence, the groups gave N.C. State low marks because the university doesn’t discriminate enough in the way they want it to.

UNC Benefactor Sues To End Race/Sex Quotas

May 22, 2001 ·

One of the University of North Carolina’s greatest benefactors on Monday sued the state and the UNC Board of Governors for using “an unnecessary and illegal quota system” to ensure that minorities and women received spots on the UNC Board of Governors.

Dropping Scores to Admit More Minorities Means “Strange Bedfellows”

Sep 8, 2000 ·

Large public university systems in California, Texas and Florida may have increased minority enrollment in the face of an end to affirmative action. But the change may not be the result of increased minority test performance. In fact, many schools are dropping the SAT and ACT academic achievement exams as admissions requirements altogether, according to a recent USA Today report, automatically admitting students who are top-ranked in their high schools.