July 12, 2023

College Racism

Affirmative action is racist, and therefore wrong.

The Left is angry because the Supreme Court ruled race-based affirmative action unconstitutional. President Joe Biden says he “strongly disagrees.”

But Chief Justice John Roberts was right to say, “Eliminating racial discrimination means eliminating all of it.”

It’s a victory for Students for Fair Admissions, the group that sued, thereby forcing Harvard to admit that Asians had to score 22 points higher on the SAT than whites, 63 points higher than Blacks.

How did Harvard justify that? They said Americans of Asian descent score lower in personal attributes, like “likability.”

“Asian Americans are boring little grade grubbers,” complains the Asian American Legal Foundation’s Lee Cheng, in my video on race-based admissions. “That’s bulls—t,” he adds.

Economist Harry Holzer, who defended Harvard, says the school did the right thing.

“Asians are not interesting?” I ask. “They don’t have interesting qualities?”

“Personal ratings reflect a wide range of characteristics,” Holzer responds. “It’s possible that some of that is anti-Asian bias, but you certainly can’t prove that. … When you have a long history of discrimination based on race, you have to take race into account.”

“There are many, many, different ways to achieve diversity without discriminating against Asian Americans,” Cheng responds. “Race-focused affirmative action helps rich people. Seventy percent of the students of every ethnic group at Harvard come from the top 20 percent of family income.”

But Asians already do well in America, earning more money, on average, than other ethnic groups. Blacks have faced more discrimination. “Isn’t it Harvard’s job to try to make up for some of that?” I ask Cheng.

“The right path out of the history of discrimination based on race is not more discrimination,” he replies.

Cheng is right. Affirmative action is racist, and therefore wrong.

I once tried to make that point by holding a racist bake sale. I called it an “affirmative action bake sale.” I sold cupcakes at a mall. My sign read:

Asians — $1.50
Whites — $1.00
Blacks/Latinos — 50 cents

People stared. Some got angry. One yelled, “What is funny to you about people who are less privileged?” A Black woman called my sign “very offensive, very demeaning!” “You got to be out of your gosh darn mind, boy!” said another. One man accused me of poisoning the cupcakes.

But after the initial anger, when people let me explain the reasoning behind my racist sign, many expressed second thoughts about affirmative action. “I guess it is unfair,” said one Black student.

I modeled my bake sale on what a student group at Bucknell University did to call attention to the racism of affirmative action. Bucknell officials shut down the students’ experiment. Schools that practice affirmative action don’t like to be confronted with the reality of affirmative action.

Now that affirmative action is illegal, universities will still discriminate by race. They’ll just hide it better. One tactic is to become “test-optional.” Over 1,800 schools, including Harvard, no longer require students to submit SAT scores.

Already, schools practice legacy admissions, meaning that they favor the children of alumni. That’s clearly unfair. It helps mostly rich people, who are mostly white people.

The problem with both “test-optional” schools and affirmative action is that ultimately, it harms Black students. Those admitted with lower standards often struggle or drop out. Had they attended other schools, they might have done well.

And of course some people look at even the smartest Black students and wonder, is she really smart? Or did she just get in because of her race?

If activists want to help young people, they should start before college. Promote school choice. It allows all kids to escape bad public schools.

That will help more kids than rigging college admissions.

COPYRIGHT 2023 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.