Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Defining Diversity Down

There was a terrific op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal last week regarding the "dumbing down" of University of California admissions standards, putting skin color above academic preparedness and achievement, in order to achieve the vague goal of "greater diversity."

The world gets more competitive every day, so why would California's education elites want to dumb down their public university admissions standards? The answer is to serve the modern liberal piety known as "diversity" while potentially thwarting the will of the voters.

The University of California Board of Admissions is proposing to lower to 2.8 from 3.0 the minimum grade point average for admission to a UC school. That 3.0 GPA standard has been in place for 40 years. Students would also no longer be required to take the SAT exams that test for knowledge of specific subjects, such as history and science.

....

Instead, the UC Board of Admissions proposal sounds like a declaration of academic surrender. It's one more depressing signal that liberal elites have all but given up on poor black and Hispanic kids. Because they don't think closing the achievement gap is possible, their alternative is to reduce standards for everyone. Diversity so trumps merit in the hierarchy of modern liberal values that they're willing to dumb down the entire university system to guarantee what they consider a proper mix of skin tones on campus.

A decade ago, California voters spoke clearly that they prefer admissions standards rooted in the American tradition of achievement. In the months ahead, the UC Board of Regents will have to decide which principle to endorse, and their choice will tell us a great deal about the future path of American society.

I didn't quote the entire article in full, but it is really worth a quick read. The scariest thing about this is that these are unelected state bureaucrats who are circumventing state law, common sense and the will of the voters with their bigoted, dumb-shit plan to put pigmentation before talent, intelligence, academic achievement and hard work. Beyond how just plain stupid, unfair and destructive this plan is, what is even more troublesome is that these morons really believe they have a right to put their weirdo political bias above the will of the people whose taxes and student fees pay their for their salaries and ivory tower fantasy-world isolation..