Ken Berwitz
The Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments on Fisher v University Of Texas – a suit initially brought in 2008, by Abigail Fisher and Rachel Michalewicz (Michalewicz subsequently removed herself from the suit), alleging they were denied admission to the University of Texas in favor of Black students with lesser qualifications – that this was illegal under the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution.
During the oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia said this:
“There are thosewho contend that it does not benefit African Americans to – to get theminto the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to havingthem go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they dowell.
“Most of theblack scientists in this country don\’t come from schools like the University ofTexas. They come from lesser schools where they donot feel that they\’re that they\’re being pushed ahead in classes that are too fast for them.”
Predictably, Black activists and Democrats are assailing Justice Scalia as a racist, who is calling Black people inferior. You can read much of this sentiment in Reena Flores\’ article for CBS News – among many other sources.
But is he?
Mr. Scalia\’s point is that lower admission standards for Black students at the University of Texas brings in students who are not as qualified to be there, that they are more likely to perform well at a “slower-track school”, which has an academic climate more in keeping with what they are capable of.
Is Scalia saying that Black students, in aggregate, are incapable of attending the University of Texas? No. He is saying that Black students with lesser academic credentials are less capable of doing so.
Would Scalia say exactly the same of White students with lesser academic credentials? No one, to my knowledge, has asked him that. But if his answer is along the lines of “Yes, of course, for the same reasons”, then his comment does not make him a racist, it makes him a realist.
There are many studies showing that “affirmative action” in college admissions, which is intended to bring more “diversity” to schools” by lowering the standards to admit more Black students, results in higher dropout rates by Black students because they are inherently are less capable of performing to the school\’s standards – the ones they did not meet in the first place.
Yes, some Black students will grow, and blossom, and even excel at schools which do this. But that positive outcome is far less prevalent than the negative one.
Here is a key segment:
The mismatch effect happens when a school extends to a student such a large admissions preference — sometimes because of a student\’s athletic prowess or legacy connection to the school, but usually because of the student\’s race — that the student finds himself in a class where he has weaker academic preparation than nearly all of his classmates. The student who would flourish at, say, Wake Forest or the University of Richmond, instead finds himself at Duke, where the professors are not teaching at a pace designed for him — they are teaching to the “middle” of the class, introducing terms and concepts at a speed that is unnerving even to the best-prepared student.
The student who is underprepared relative to others in thatclass falls behind from the start and becomes increasingly lost as theprofessor and his classmates race ahead. His grades on his first exams orpapers put him at the bottom of the class. Worse, the experience may wellinduce panic and self-doubt, making learning even harder.
Asking again: Is Justice Antonin Scalia a racist, or a realist?
As the opprobrium rains down on Scalia for saying what he did, it would be good for thinking people – as opposed to mindless racial robots – to think about the answer to that question..
One other thing: Let me point out that the concept at play here is the same one we have seen for voter ID.
To say that voter ID laws suppress the minority vote is to say that minority people are less capable of obtaining a voter ID than White people – which is to say that they are inferior beings, unable to take care of what is a simple procedure for the White majority. In other words, it is to say that people who demand there be no voter ID laws on racial grounds are, themselves, racist.
To establish lower admission standards for Black students – I\’m not talking about slight differences which can serve as a “tie-breaker” for admissions, which I strongly support, but differences of, for example, hundreds of points in SAT scores – is doing the exact same thing. it is saying that Black people should be held to lower standards, which is therefore to say that they are inferior beings.
I have written many times in here that it is amazing how much racism emanates from people who profess to be against racism. Chalk this up as another demonstration of why.
