George Will claims affirmative action hurts minorities...how is he wrong?

[alp227]

I don't read him or the Wash. Post's conservative columnists but found his latest "The unintended consequences of racial preferences" in which he previews an upcoming affirmative action case out of the Univ. of Texas that the Supreme Court might hear:

Preferences as recompense for past discrimination must eventually become implausible, but the diversity rationale for preferences never expires.

Liberals would never stoop to stereotyping, but they say minorities necessarily make distinctive — stereotypical? — contributions to viewpoint diversity, conferring benefits on campus culture forever. And minorities admitted to elite universities and professional schools supposedly serve the compelling goal of enlarging the minority component of the middle class and professions.

But what if many of the minorities used in this process are injured by it? Abundant research says they are, as two amicus curiae briefs demonstrate in urging the court to take the Texas case.

My personal observation: those who grow up isolated from diversity whether they're white or not generally lack understanding of those outside of their bubbles.

GW moves on to argue that aff. ac. mismatches some students with colleges too advanced for them:

The details of the Texas policies are less important than what social science says about the likely consequences of such policies. A brief submitted by UCLA law professor Richard Sander and legal analyst Stuart Taylor argues that voluminous research refutes the legal premise for such racial classifications: They benefit relatively powerless minorities.

“Academic mismatch” causes many students who are admitted under a substantial preference based on race, but who possess weaker academic skills, to fall behind. The consequences include especially high attrition rates from the sciences, and self-segregation in less-demanding classes, thereby reducing classroom diversity. Blacks are significantly more integrated across the University of California system than they were before the state eliminated racial preferences in 1996, thereby discouraging enrollment of underprepared minorities in the more elite institutions.

A second brief, submitted by three members of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Gail Heriot, Peter Kirsanow and Todd Gaziano), argues that racial preferences in law school admissions mean fewer black lawyers than there would be without preferences that bring law students into elite academic settings where their credentials put them in the bottom of their classes. A similar dynamic is reducing the number of minority scientists and engineers than there would be under race-neutral admissions policies.

There are fewer minorities entering high-prestige careers than there would be if preferences were not placing many talented minority students in inappropriate, and discouraging, academic situations: “Many would be honor students elsewhere. But they are subtly being made to feel as if they are less talented than they really are.” This is particularly so regarding science and engineering, which are, as Heriot, Kirsanow and Gaziano say, “ruthlessly cumulative”: Students who struggle in entry-level classes will find their difficulties cascading as the academic ascent becomes steeper. Hence the high attrition rates.

Thomas Sowell, a black libertarian scholar of Stanford's Hoover Institution, has also made such argument about academic mismatch.

[FSogol]

1. Someday, George Will will probably be correct about something.

But I doubt it.

[MADem]

2. When the budgets for the schools where those "minorities" live are the same as the budgets

where the well-fed suburbanites live, then maybe he will have a point.

When the teachers in the inner city schools are as good as the teachers in the burbs, maybe he will have a point.

When the test scores in the slums are as good as the test scores in Anytown, USA, maybe he will have a point.

Until then, all affirmative action does is try to give a boost to a small percentage of a group that got fucked over on their way up the ladder of success. You don't give someone a five rung disadvantage and then expect them to climb as far and as fast. The disadvantage needs to be ameliorated.

The best AA programs include intensive coursework on core subjects ahead of the regular school year, and tutoring when needed.

Smart kids can always catch up, they just sometimes need a little help when they have twice as much work to do in half the time.

The Hoover Institute is hardly an outfit where you'll get a liberal perspective--hell, they'd argue for a return to segregation if they could get away with it, and probably find a "black libertarian scholar" to write the thesis for them, too. Let me put it this way--Condi Rice and Ed Meese LOVE the place. So take what comes out of that place for what it is.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

4. In CA they pretty much are

[MADem]

5. CA is an exception. The local school board, town or city, holds sway in most locales. nt

[ProgressiveProfessor]

8. More and more states are going to level funding, often at the proding of the courts

Much of it for the reasons you cite.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

3. I have seen first hand the devestation that comes when a student is put in an advanced

environment they are not ready for. Its ugly for all concerned. There has been less of that since numbers and ratios were de-emphasized.

[bluestateguy]

6. Affirmative action is fine and I support it

But there is a reason why the people who most resent it are working class whites, not affluent whites.

I think that needs to be addressed.

[liberalmuse]

7. Isn't it funny when a white man...

tells persons of color that a program isn't helping them? It's rather arrogant of them. I'm sure the demographic that has enjoyed thousands of years of undisputed priveledge would know what's best for everyone else, right?