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Academic Racism By a Different Name
A decision by the Supreme Court in the case of Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina/Harvard College is due very soon. It is widely held the decision will do away with or greatly weaken affirmative action in college admissions, removing or dramatically limiting race as a criterion. But far from helping solve the festering problem of race in America, the Supreme Court decision will simply shift the battle from affirmative action to so-called “race-neutral criteria.” This is an already-in-place end run around any end to affirmative action, designed to pretend criteria such as class rank or home zip code are not racial. The theory of racial neutrality in academic decision making holds the use of such “neutral” criteria to create racially balanced classrooms is proper where affirmative action was once called into play to do the same.
At present schools may use race as an admissions criterion as long as it is not the only basis for a decision, with the implied so long as the goal is diversity (good) and not whitewashing (bad). This allowed a nation pretending to strive toward equality to instead enact the opposite, by upholding separate standards based on skin color.
The hypocrisy began with Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, a 1978 Supreme Court case which held a university violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 if it made admissions decisions on the “definite and exclusive basis” of race. That bit about “definite and exclusive basis” was crucial—race could be a criteria, but just not the only one.
The Court ruled that a university’s use of racial “quotas” in its admissions process was unconstitutional, but a school’s use of affirmative action to accept more minority applicants was constitutional. In this case, the university’s offense was being too clear; the University of California explicitly held 16 out of 100 admission spots exclusively for black students instead of just putting its thumb on the scale elsewhere in the process and—presto!—filling those slots with black students.
In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) the Supreme Court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s admissions policy, which used racial preference (bad) to promote diversity (good.) Black applicants were admitted under different standards than members of every other group. The fudge was again to say that affirmative action is constitutional so long as it treats race as one factor among many, and does not substitute for individualized review of the applicants. But Grutter in 2003 came with an interesting addendum: affirmative action was supposed to be a temporary policy, an imperfect expedient, while society worked out the larger issues. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor wrote, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest in student body diversity.” Some two decades later with that imperfect expedient likely to be declared unconstitutional, what comes next?
Though the expected Supreme Court decision will focus on university admission, the next battleground will likely be a high school in Northern Virginia. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known to everyone as “T.J.” is considered one of the best STEM high schools in the country. Until about a year ago, the only way to get in was to pass a very competitive entrance exam. Entry into T.J. meant you were a smart kid with the discipline to put in hard hours with no guarantee of success, a perfect definition of those who would also go on to succeed at MIT, CalTech, or an Ivy. However, in the aftermath of George Floyd, this was somehow not enough. As many as 73 percent of students admitted to Thomas Jefferson High School were Asian. Only about two percent of T.J. students were black. T.J.’s school’s principal said “Our 32 Black students and 47 Hispanic students fill three classrooms. If our demographics actually represented those of the county’s public schools, we would enroll 180 Black and 460 Hispanic students, filling nearly 22 classrooms.”
The answer was T.J.’s entrance exam was replaced with “a holistic review” that included “experience factors, including students who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, special education students, or students who are currently attending underrepresented middle schools.”
In addition, spots for the top students from every public middle school in the area (several of which are predominantly black or Hispanic) were set aside, pushing more black and other non-white and non-Asian students into T.J. Ignored of course is that the term “Asian” itself is yet another racial fudge, that somehow Chinese, Thais, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Laotians, Indians, Bangladeshis, et al., are part of one omnibus racial rejection pile.
It worked, for T.J.: the percentage of Asian American students dropped from 73 percent to 54 percent. The percentage of black students grew from two to seven percent while the percentage of Hispanic students grew to 11 percent from three.
Despite the obvious racially-divided results, and perhaps cleverly anticipating the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision doing away with affirmative action, T.J. is drawing the next line in the sand, claiming its criteria are racially neutral, and emphasizing the fact that admissions officers at the school are not told the race, sex or name of any applicant. Harvard is also toying with the idea of such racially neutral criteria, judging applicants in part now based on likability, courage, and kindness.
So who is kidding who here? In the face of the end of affirmative action, is racially neutral criteria just another workaround to allow schools to patch together a student body racially diverse enough to satisfy 2023’s woke standards?
Though it is uncertain the coming affirmative action decision will address racial neutrality, the courts are indeed aware of the issue. After the Supreme Court passed on the T.J. case last year (in the context of an application for emergency relief) and remanded it to a lower court, a divided three-judge panel at the Fourth Circuit federal appeals court in May allowed T.J. to continue with its revised admissions policy. But in a dissent that seemed to be addressed to a Supreme Court of some future date, Trump-appointee Judge Allison J. Rushing wrote the majority had refused “to look past [T.J.’s] policy’s neutral varnish” and consider instead “an undisputed racial motivation and an undeniable racial result,” and that the Constitution’s guarantee of equal protection “would be hollow if governments could intentionally achieve discriminatory ends under cover of neutral means.”
Just as the Supreme Court allowed discriminatory decisions by race as constitutional (“affirmative action”), the courts will soon face the question of whether so-called racially neutral criteria are constitutional. The issue is likely to come before the Supreme Court as early as this autumn, on the heels of the downfall of affirmative action.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
Education in Fairfax, Virginia Vies for the Darwin Award
Fairfax County, Virginia is ground zero for wokeness. It is 65 percent white and votes solidly Democratic. The median income is over $124k. I used to live there; it was common to hear white people brag about having black friends (but at work you know, not the kind that come over to the house) and worry about whatever the issue-of-the-week is as promoted by NPR. Hell, with the county’s proximity to Washington, DC, a lot of people there work for NPR.The jewel in Fairfax’s public school system is Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, known to all simply as TJ. TJ is widely considered the best high school in the country for STEM, and serves as a steady feeder into top universities. It would not be exaggeration to say TJ is a critical part of America staying ahead of other national economies. It’s a big deal, and it worked well until about a year ago based on the fact that the only way in was to pass a very competitive entrance exam. Kids would start studying in elementary school if their goal was TJ ten years later. Entry into TJ meant you were a smart kid with the discipline to put in the hard hours with no guarantee of success, a perfect definition of those who would also go on to succeed at Harvard.
The problem was with the danged Asians. As many as 73 percent of students offered admission to Thomas Jefferson High School were Asian. That drew criticism from people who felt black and Hispanic students were underrepresented. Typically only about two percent of the TJ students were black. The answer was a) to improve all middle schools in the area so they better prepare their kids to enter TJ; b) offer all students rigorous after-school programs to prepare for TJ c) or just lower TJ’s admission criteria to balance out the races.
Yeah, they did C. The crazy-hard entrance exam was dropped, the $100 application fee was dropped, and both were replaced by “A holistic review will be done of students whose applications demonstrate enhanced merit… Students will be evaluated on their grade point average; a student portrait sheet where they will be asked to demonstrate Portrait of a Graduate attributes and 21st century skills; a problem-solving essay; and experience factors, including students who are economically disadvantaged, English language learners, special education students, or students who are currently attending underrepresented middle schools.”
Catch that last part? Experience factors? That basically opened the door to one of the criteria being “whatever we say this all means.” The result at TJ was a drop of more than 11 percent in the number of Asians, and double-digit growth on the part of blacks and Hispanics, achieved by making being poor a criteria for acceptance. No matter white students account for only 22 percent of admissions, despite being 65 percent of the county population. This was done despite 85 percent of voters opposing race as an admission criteria; this is mirrored nationally, where 73 percent of Americans said colleges and universities should not consider race in admissions decisions.
But is it… racism? Seems so. One school board member texted another “I mean there has been an anti-Asian feel underlying some of this, hate to say it lol,” according to correspondence obtained by non-profit Parents Defending Education. In another exchange, Thomas Jefferson’s admissions director asked a school district official if she could “provide us a review of our current weighting (of experience factors) and whether or not this would be enough to level the playing field for our historically underrepresented groups.” She replied “My gut says that you may need to double all the points so the applicants can receive up to 200 points overall for these experience factors.” Another school board member wrote we “screwed up TJ and the Asians hate us” to which another responded he was “just dumb and too white” to address the diversity deficit in properly.
The school went further. There will now be three different “pathways” for admissions each year: the first for 350 high-performing students, the second for 100 students judged on a combination of half academic merit and half external factors, and 50 underrepresented students. Some people in town call them the Yellow, Brown, and Black lanes.
We’ve gotten so twisted in thinking America is shackled by systemic racism that we created a system of education admissions itself built on a foundation of systemic racism. We somehow think racially gerrymandering schools is a solution. We ignore John Roberts dictum “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” Why are we hell-bent on self-harm by sacrificing our education system on layers of false progressive assumptions?
The first false assumption is access to learning equals learning. A student has to be prepared intellectually to succeed, or he fails, or the institution is forced to dumb down to accommodate him. Progressive education thought is to publicly disavow what we all know to be true in private, that some students are just smarter than others. We are absolutely not all alike. Imagine if colleges chose who’ll play on their football teams based not on athletic skill but racial quotas. Who knew education was only skin deep, and the football team more intellectually honest than the philosophy department?
The next false assumption is the magic number; XX percent of the population is black so XX percent of the student body should be black. If it is not, de facto some form of systemic racism is wished into being to blame. This typically focuses on the admissions process (to include testing, like the SAT) and thus the answer is to scrap every part of the admissions process that seems to rub against that XX percent. You don’t have to show question 27 on the SAT is itself “racist,” only that the SAT results won’t get XX percent of black kids into Harvard and must ipso facto be racist. So, let more black kids into Harvard by eliminating the SAT and that will result in more black doctors and lawyers and a more just society. Problem solved.
Well, sort of. There still is that issue of getting admitted to Harvard is not the same as graduating from Harvard; you have to be able to understand the classes and put in the hard work of studying, that ultimate form of delayed gratification. And Harvard only has so much space so to let in more black kids means saying no to others. In most progressive instances, that means telling “Asians” to go away (the term “Asian” itself is yet another false assumption, that somehow Chinese, Thais, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Laotians, Indians, Bangladeshis, et al, are lumpable into one omnibus racial garbage can.)
What you’re left with is the certainty that more exclusion by race is the answer to the alleged problem of exclusion by race. After some forty years of seeing something that egregiously dumb as a good idea, the issue is now coming again before the courts for a reality check, starting in Fairfax County, Virginia. Someone may decide it’s time to ask why we regularly end up with “cosmetically diverse” institutions, rather than anything real that leads to broad social progress.
A group calling themselves the Coalition for TJ sued the school system to reverse the admission process changes, which they allege were meant to diminish the number Asian students. That qualifies as discrimination based on race, outlawed under the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause, they claim. In late January a U.S. District judge turned down the Coalition’s request for a jury trial, claiming that since no material facts are at issue, he will instead issue a ruling later this year. Both sides will then be able to appeal, suggesting the issue will overlap another admissions season. A second suit is also in play. A bill before the Virginia legislature would also affect TJ, seeking to remove race as an admission criteria.
The move to eliminate racism in admissions processes in Virginia is mirrored at the national level. The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether race-based admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina are lawful (Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard College and Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina.) The case against Harvard accuses the school of discriminating against Asian students by using subjective criteria such as likability, courage, and kindness, effectively creating a ceiling for them in admissions, a nasty echo of the 1930s when it was thought Jews lacked the “character” to be Harvard men. In the North Carolina case, the argument is simply that the university discriminated against white and Asian applicants by giving preference to PO other C. Don’t expect a decision before next year.
Once upon a time Americans decided race should not be a factor in education, doing away with segregated schools and ending separate could be equal. Somewhere we lost our way, to the point where leveling down, and creating twisty definitions of things like “experience points” brought race directly into education again. Only this time we convinced ourselves that discriminating against whites and Asians was perfectly OK. That current system is under fresh attack in the courts, and well it should be. The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race. You don’t have to go to Harvard, or TJ, to figure that out.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity.
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