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Education: General News About Reverse Discrimination and Quotas in Schools, Colleges, and Universities! |
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Chronologically (then by State, City): Education: Flogging the SATs
(10/25/99) "The Educational Testing Service, which runs the SATs, floated a trial balloon to grant an extra edge, like a golf handicap, to disadvantaged "strivers" who worked hard but scored low. The most publicized of the anti-SAT suggestions comes from journalist Nicholas Lemann, author of the impressive new history of the SATs, The Big Test. "…Lemann is an honest critic, but most of the people who lament all the virtues and talents that testing misses aren't being candid. They want to dismantle the tests because non-Asian minorities are not doing well on them.
"At places like the University of California-Berkeley and the University of Texas Law
School, we now know that preferential decisions weren't being made on the basis of a
candidate's background, character, independence, or moral worth. They were being made,
behind the scenes, with very little candor, on the basis of a numerical formula stacked by
race. In fact, the debate over testing is mostly a shadow debate over affirmative action.
Now that the courts are striking down racial preferences, backers of the preferences have
been driven to attack testing, along with important values like objectivity, achievement,
and merit. "Merit stands in the way of diversity, so they want to destroy it,"
said Shelby Steele, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution."
(U.S. News 10/25/99 edition by John Leo) Education: "Strivers" - A VERY Bad
Idea (posted 10/14/99) "If the student scored at least 1,000 on the SAT and outperformed his "predicted" score, he would be labeled a "striver"--someone who exceeds his circumstances and, by implication, is likely to do better than his actual record might indicate. Conversely, the performance of students who scored well, but still within expectations, would be discounted as simply routine. The strivers project was a combination of well-intentioned social uplift for disadvantaged students and calculated political strategizing aimed at evading the growing number of bans on race-based admissions at selective public universities. The strivers tag, as ETS researchers explained, would "overcome many of the emotional objections to... preferences because it rewards the kind of Horatio Alger behavior that Americans have always valued: hard work, persistence, improving one's lot in life, and overcoming adversity." "... So what was so insidious about the strivers project? Let's leave aside questions raised by the specifics of the moribund plan, such as whether the strivers formula would have told colleges anything that wasn't already evident from other application materials, or whether it's good to nudge students into schools at which they're more likely to perform marginally. (This last point is especially germane regarding non-Asian minority students, since their SAT scores already overpredict their college performance.) Let's even ignore that ETS' response to persistent score disparities on its own exam is to rerig the test, rather than to call for educational reforms.
"... Lemann is correct that the relatively wealthy try to maintain their position.
But he's dead wrong when he assumes that the "upper-middle class" and the
"people at the top of society" are a stable group. Economic mobility is the rule
and not the exception in the United States. Many--if not most--American families, even
affluent ones, can trace themselves back to relative poverty within a generation or
two." (Reason Magazine, Nov. 99 issue) Education: U.S. Dept. of Ed. Imposes Coerced "Diversity" (06/12/99 -
dead link) "News of this stratagem was first reported in the authoritative weekly the Chronicle of Higher Education: "Colleges would be in legal jeopardy if they use SAT (Scholastic Assessment Test) or ACT (American College Testing) scores as the primary basis for admissions and financial aid decisions, according to draft guidelines that the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights is circulating among college officials." "The coercive bureaucratic device to keep in mind is "disparate impact." The department's "Resource Guide: Non-Discrimination in High Stakes Testing" warns: "The use of any educational test which has a significant disparate impact on members of any particular race, national origin or sex is discriminatory, and a violation of Title VI and/or Title IX . . . unless it is educationally necessary and there is no practicable alternative form of assessment which meets the educational institution's needs and would have less of a disparate impact." "A college will have to meet the high burden of proof that it is not discriminating when members of any of these particular groups score poorly on the SAT or the ACT.
"The U.S. Department of Education -- an ardent advocate of "diversity" --
will be the arbiter of such gossamer terms as "educationally necessary" and a
permissible "alternative." A college failing the department's diversity
test will lose federal funds and also will be subject to accusations of racism, sexism and
other biases." (Washington Post Sat., 06/12/99, page A19, by Nat Hentoff)
"Re-Segregation"? Separate but equal is OK, some say (posted 06/23/99 - dead link) "In the 1960s, black parents demanded better educational opportunities for their children, and many believed desegregation was the answer. In the 1990s, black parents are still demanding a better education for their children. But today, black families are insisting that schools in their own neighborhoods be just as good as schools in white communities. Schools should focus on educational quality, they say, not desegregation. "Families know all too well the pitfalls of forced busing and other tactics used to integrate the school system. Those bitter recollections likely muted the response last week to a Harvard University study [from Gary Orfield, Mr. Pro-Busing] warning of [alleged] renewed and increasing segregation nationwide.
"A Herald analysis showed the trend in Broward [County] as well. But the
reports provoked little outrage. 'I don't care about the race of the school,' said
Karen Lockhart, whose two children attend 97 percent black Dillard Elementary School in
Fort Lauderdale. 'I just want the best education for my children.' "
(Miami Herald, posted 06/23/99, by Beth Reinhard) Ed. Sec. Riley: Clinton
promotes reverse disrimination in education (05/17/99 - dead link) "In a speech delivered on the 45th anniversary of a landmark school desegregation ruling, Riley said the plan — among others to be announced Wednesday — will narrow gaps between the rich [presumably white] and poor [presumably minority] students. "The proposals would impact the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, a 34-year-old comprehensive law that governs most federal education programs for students in kindergarten through 12th grade. Congress is expected to renew the act later this year. Education Secretary Riley said "It is incumbent upon us to build upon the legacy of Brown,'' referring to the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kan. The ruling ended deliberate racial division of the nation's schools. [Editor’s Note: Brown is widely regarded by the judiciary -- from district courts all the way up to the Supreme Court -- as no longer legally relevant or applicable to educational institutitions in the 1990’s.] "On Monday, anniversary commemorations included Riley's speech at the Charles Sumner School Museum and Archives in Washington, and the White House launch of "Winning Together: Don't Erase the Progress,'' a civil rights campaign to bolster [reverse discrimination-oriented, racial quota] programs on college campuses.
"Although schools with high poverty and minority student populations had made some
strides, those schools also offer fewer classes that help prepare its students for
college, Riley said." (Associated Press, via FoxNews, 05/17/99, by Anjetta
Mcqueen) Desegregation Rulings -- History
of Racial Quotas in Education (05/15/99 - dead link) "1896. Plessy vs. Ferguson. Upheld 1890 Louisiana law requiring railroads to provide ``equal but separate accommodations for the white, and colored races.'' Sanctioned state-imposed segregation. Became key to widespread racial segregation in public schools. "1899. Cumming vs. Richmond County Board of Education. Rejected bid to force Augusta, Ga., schools to close high school for whites until it reopened black school. Sanctioned unequal treatment. First school case to reach the court. "1927. Gong Lum vs. Rice. Allowed Mississippi district to require a Chinese-American girl to attend a segregated black school instead of school for whites. "1950. McLaurin vs. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma. Rebuffs rules physically segregating a black student from whites in a graduate education program. Considered a precursor to the end of state-sanctioned segregation. "1954. Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka. After review of cases in Delaware, Kansas, South Carolina, and Virginia, unanimously declared separating elementary and secondary students by race violates black children's constitutional rights to equal protection of the law. Viewed as landmark ruling, making desegregation law of the land. (A year later, court orders the districts in the original Brown cases to compy with its ruling.) "1958. Cooper vs. Aaron. Rejected Little Rock, Ark., district's bid to delay desegregation because of the upheaval surrounding the opening of its high school the year before to a handful of black students. Hampered resistance efforts in South. "1964. Griffin vs. Board of Education. Ruled that Prince Edward County, Va., one of the districts involved in Brown, was avoiding integration by keeping its public schools closed, as it had done since 1959. "1968. Green vs. New Kent County School Board. Declared in a case from Virginia that districts must dismantle segregation among students and faculty, staff, transportation and extracurricular activities. Court later used six ``Green factors'' to decide whether a district had met its desegregation obligations. "1971. Swann vs. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education. Authorized mandatory busing, redrawn attendance zones, and the limited use of quotas to be used in desegregation in this case from North Carolina. "1991. Board of Education of Oklahoma City vs. Dowell. Allowed the district to return to neighborhood school formula, saying that federal judges should lift such decrees if districts have complied with them in good faith and remedied past discrimination ``as far as practicable.'' Reaffirmed the notion that desegregation orders were supposed to be temporary.
"1995. Missouri vs. Jenkins. Struck down magnet school
plan in Kansas City, making it harder for federal judges to order city school
desegregation plans designed to attract white students from the suburbs. (Associated
Press via Washington Post 05/15/99) Race attitudes at colleges to
be tracked (04/18/99 - dead link) "When he issued the directive at the White House earlier this month, President Clinton described colleges as "the place where we're supposed to have the most freedom, the place where we're supposed to be the most rational, the place where we're supposed to think the highest thoughts with the greatest amount of space." He called the problem of hate crimes on campus "another cruel irony." "We have significant hate crime problems there, and we need to shine the light on that," he said. Under the Clinton directive, the Department of Education will survey college students about their attitudes on alcohol, drugs, crime and violence. The survey, still in the early phases of design, represents the department's first effort to collect data from a sample that reflects the entire college population.
"The first survey will be administered next year to more than 200,000 students,
Department of Education officials said. The students will retain their anonymity and
complete the questionnaire on a volunteer basis." (Scripps Howard News Service
April 18, 1999) Balkanizing the U.S. Campus
(editorial posted 04/09/99 - dead link)
"What's wrong with Asian and Latino students ''rubbing elbows''? Isn't that the
point of the diversity movement? Not really. The ugly secret behind the
diversity movement is that it creates and lives on division. The point is to split
off, self-identify, complain, covet and make demands. And, since campuses
(especially urban ones) are generally cramped, the result is bitter grabs for academic
turf and funding - ivory-tower equivalents of holy land and brute power." (NY
Post Online by Marc Berley) Desperately Seeking Diversity
(03/28/99 - no link) "In the heavy lifting required to conceal the trade-off between "diversity" and "excellence," academic officials abandoned the ordinary meanings of words like preference, objective, and fair. When the passage of Proposition 209 in California forced a grudging return to a world in which up is up and down is down, civil rights organizations naturally filed a lawsuit claiming that new admissions procedures based on "equal treatment" are, instead, "discriminatory."
"In fact, the clear evidence is that the demise of ethnic preferences has ushered in
a fairer and educationally sounder selection process. Instead of welcoming this, top
University of California administrators express frustration and disappointment and openly
yearn for a return to the past. With the Democrats back in power in Sacramento, an intact
affirmative action bureaucracy and stacked faculty committees are intensifying the
desperate search for more "diversity" -- of color, not thought. One new proposal
is to allow applicants to take one SAT test in a foreign language." (Sacramento
Bee, 03/28/99, by Jack Citrin) An End to Racial Preferences
(03/27/99 - no link) "Already, two states, California and Washington, have ended -- by ballot initiatives -- the consideration of race in admissions. And as a result of a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals decision (the Hopwood case), race as a factor in college admissions also has ended in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. "The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals (Maine, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New Hampshire, Puerto Rico) has ruled that a racial preference system for the prestigious Boston Latin School is unconstitutional. The Boston School Committee has been persuaded by the NAACP and the U.S. Department of Education not to appeal to the Supreme Court for fear of another defeat for this form of affirmative action. "Recently, a federal district judge in the 11th Circuit has ruled -- as the Chronicle of Higher Education reports -- that 'the University of Georgia used an unconstitutional admissions policy from 1990 to 1995 that gave preference to black applicants.' ...
"Ward Connerly, instrumental in California's ending of racial preference in college
admissions, has begun a Florida campaign to get a similar initiative on the ballot in next
year's general election. Gov. Jeb Bush calls him "divisive," but Connerly again
is going directly to the electorate to get 453,073 signatures for a place on the ballot.
The wind is blowing his way." (Washington Post, 03/27/99, Page A19, by Nat
Hentoff) NCAA Academic Standards Cause "Disparate impact?" (Updated 6/19/00) ADVERSITY.NET SPECIAL: The Clinton Department of Education is intent upon eliminating the National Collegiate Athletic Association's use of grades and test scores to determine player eligibility. March 1999: U.S. District Judge Buckwalter issues a ruling saying essentially "black athletes can't make it if we allow academic standards." December 1999: Buckwalter's ruling is overturned, and NCAA academic standards are re-instated. May 2000: U.S. Department of Education issues new federal rules making NCAA responsible for "disparate impact discrimination" if NCAA, or any other eduational organization, dares to continue to use test scores as admission criteria.
See Adversity.Net's Special Collection: NCAA and Disparate Impact (updated
06/19/00). Includes complete text of Judge Buckwalter's original ruling; many news
stories and links; and a complete chart showing NCAA test score requirements which are
alleged to cause "disparate impact". Civil Rights Leaders Want Schools
Improved before Testing Minority Children (03/22/99 - dead link) (Wisconsin, Milwaukee): Bill
would make schools drop discriminatory mascots (03/18/99 - dead link) "During a Capitol news conference, Boyle listed 40 school districts -- including the Mukwonago School District -- that he said had discriminatory American Indian logos, mascots or nicknames. "Rep. Steve Nass (R-Whitewater), who represents Mukwonago and Milton, which also was on Boyle's list, immediately denounced Boyle's proposal. "This bill would make political correctness the new standard for discrimination," Nass said. Nass said that at his news conference Boyle had labeled the use of American Indian mascots, nicknames and logos as "ignorant." He demanded that Boyle apologize. "The people of Mukwonago and Milton are hard-working, decent people and are certainly not ignorant or racist," Nass said in a statement sent to Boyle. "Under Boyle's proposed legislation, a resident of a school district could file a complaint with the state objecting to the district's use of a nickname, mascot or logo. The state superintendent of schools then would be required to hold a hearing on the complaint.
"The burden for proving that a district's nickname, mascot or logo was not
discriminatory and did not promote pupil harassment or stereotyping would fall to the
school board. Under current law, a resident of a school district may file a
complaint with the state Department of Public Instruction charging that a mascot, nickname
or logo is discriminatory. DPI conducts an investigation and makes a
decision." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 03/18/99, by Amy Rinard and Betsy
Thatcher) Over Represenation of Jewish
and Asian Students in Ivy League (02/22/99) "But hidden in plain sight in Harvard Yard, and at elite campuses across the country, is a dilemma of diversity that may test that mantra in complex and confounding ways: the overrepresentation of Asian and Jewish students and the underrepresentation of the white, non-Jewish majority, especially such white ethnics as Italian-Americans and religious groups as Southern Baptists and other evangelicals. "It is a touchy subject, largely unexplored and undebated, if it is noticed at all. But with America's Asian population growing, and the admissions decisions of the nation's most selective universities ever more in the cross hairs of lawsuits and public debate, it won't go away.
"Right now at America's most elite school, Harvard, an estimated 20 percent of
undergraduate students are Jewish, and almost the same percentage are Asian. Together,
Jews, only 2 percent of the U.S. population, and Asians, only 3 percent, comprise nearly
40 percent of Harvard College enrollment. That is about the same as the percentage of
Harvard students who are non-Jewish whites, a group that makes up more than 70 percent of
the U.S. population." (Associated Press, via Newhouse News Service, 02/22/99,
by Jonathan Tilove) Are
sports teams with Indian names really a federal civil rights crime? (02/19/99) "But the Libertarian Party says the investigation demonstrates how preposterous civil rights laws have become, and proves that Department of Justice bureaucrats are completely out of control. "Civil rights allegations have become a modern-day witch-hunt -- if saying so isn't a crime against our wiccan friends," said Steve Dasbach, the national director of the party. "What this case shows is that the Department of Justice has become a bigger threat to our civil liberties than any high school sports team is to our civil rights." "What put the Department of Justice on its current warpath? The mother of one Native American student at Erwin High School in Asheville, North Carolina wrote to federal bureaucrats, complaining that her son was "deeply offended" because school teams were named the Warriors and the Squaws.
"The Department of Justice jumped on the case, sending a detailed list of questions
to the school administration about whether a "racially hostile environment" had
been created for the 1% of students who are Native American. (Libertarian Party, contact
George Getz, Press Secretary Phone: (202) 333-0008 Ext. 222 E-Mail: 76214.3676@Compuserve.com) Conservatives open
drive against affirmative action (01/25/99) "The advertisement, which condemns 'the lingering presence of unlawful racial preferences' and urges students to download or send away for a free handbook on how to tell whether their college is breaking the law on race and admissions, is part of a new campaign by the Center for Individual Rights, a conservative public-policy law firm in Washington. "The student handbook includes sections on how to use freedom of information laws, what kinds of data to request from the university, what disparities to note and how to find a lawyer and bring a lawsuit.
"The campaign, to be announced Tuesday at a Washington news conference featuring
former Education Secretary William Bennett and the commentator Nat Hentoff, asserts that
most colleges that engage in race-conscious admissions do so in a way that violates the
law." (Associated Press, via the Star Telegram, 01/25/99, by Ethan Bronner)
Title I: Gap between Rich
and Poor Schools Remains Wide "Title I, which started with idealistic fervor in the 1960s' War on Poverty, provides $7.4 billion each year to help one of every five pupils in the nation's public schools. "Recent evaluations by the U.S. Department of Education found that the extra computers, tutoring and more than 132,000 classroom positions paid for by the massive investment have been 'insufficient to close the gap' in reading and math performance between poor students and their more affluent peers.
"The program has been 'a failure up to now,' said Maris Vinovskis, a University of
Michigan education expert who has reviewed independent studies assessing the effectiveness
of Title I. 'The real losers in this are not just the taxpayers (but) the kids. . . . We
haven't been able to deliver.' " (Seattle Times, 01-17-99, by Ralph Frammolino of the
LA Times) Medicine: Quotas
for Medical Schools U.S. Department of Education: Patrolling the Crossroads of Schools, Discrimination (dead link) Flawed
Defense of Quotas in Education Is
"Diversity" A Smoke Screen For Racial Quotas? How Boys Lost Out to Girl Power Affirmative Action Debate Moves to Public Schools
Bi-Lingual Education: Center for Equal Opportunity Immigrants Want Schools to Teach
U.S. Values (dead link) Some Minorities Are More Minor than Others END of General News - Racial Quotas in Education |
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