Sunday, February 08, 2009

Are Not Enough Students Applying To UC's?

Or perhaps not enough of the right kind of students, or perhaps the right color of students, are applying. What else would explain this?


University of California regents Thursday approved new admission requirements intended to improve access for low-income students as well as a policy bolstering UC's commitment to financial aid.

The changes for freshmen admission will take effect for the fall 2012 incoming class.

The regents approved a proposal to no longer require high school students to take SAT subject tests. The percentage of students guaranteed admission to the university system based on grade-point average would also be decreased from 12.5 percent statewide to 9 percent.

This isn't even a subtle attempt to get around Proposition 209.

Oh, but you support affirmative action?

As I have pointed out too many times to cite, when “affirmative action” was first imposed on the federal government by presidential executive orders (Kennedy’s 10925 in 1961; Johnson’s 11246 in 1965) government agencies and contractors were barred from discriminating against “any employee or applicant ... because of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” and they were required to take “affirmative action” to ensure that all applicants and employees were treated “without regard to race, creed, color, or national origin.”

Over time, as we’ve seen, the meaning of “affirmative action” was reversed, so that it now requires precisely what it was originally designed to prevent — treating some applicants and employees better and others worse because of their race or ethnicity.

If you believe in today's version of affirmative action, you've been suckered by race hustlers. You have no moral tie to the goals of the civil rights movement at all.

1 comment:

Katenik said...

The UC's have been trying to get around Prop 209 since it passed. I was teaching then, and the outreach folks were 'suggesting' to our kids the kind of language to use in their personal statements to signal their race/ethnicity to the admission committee.