quote:

What I'm saying is, where do these rejected students go? I'm assuming other public schools. Otherwise, NYC would have a fairly large lawsuit on their hands.

I'm not familiar with the NYC school system, but I can only imagine that some schools are tracked for gifted students, while students who don't get into those programs attend the regular public school.

Arent all college students virtually guaranteed admission to community college?

quote:

I should also point out that I see legacy admissions as a completely different topic than race-related admissions."

Well, not completely. They're both non-merit-based criteria, or achievement-based.

But race based discrimination is something that our government has a history of promises to eliminate, often even in private industry. The same cannot be said for wealth-based discrimination.

Our government has also promised to address past discrimination and inequality and injustice by providing additional opportunities to those groups who have suffered in the past. And now that outright discrimintation is less of a problem, those types of programs have been scaled back, and rightly so.

Now it's only legal to include race as one criteria of many. No quotas, no point systems, etc.

As for the community colleges, you're suggesting that minority students who get into to a school like Michigan would otherwise end up in community colleges. I don't think that's really the case anymore. These programs have to be narrowly-tailored. You're not taking a minority with Ds and swapping them in for a white kid with an A average.

If you want to shift to a system like the one they use in Florida and Texas, I think there are arguments for that type of system as well. (And against.)

And we'd also have to get into the quality of high schools where these kids are coming from, which I think is a more important issue than this one. And one best left to the admissions departments.

But again, we're back to the old argument, though. Making it fair in principle and in letter versus trying to devise a system that makes more equitable in reality.

Though I have to say, I'm much more on the page of socio-economic based need. It's like Obama said about his black kids, "My kids should be viewed as privileged."

quote:

As for the community colleges, you're suggesting that minority students who get into to a school like Michigan would otherwise end up in community colleges.

Not at all. I was trying to point out that, just like elementary school, kids rejected from the best schools can still go somewhere. The worst case scenario is community college, I guess.

I've got to go.

Oh, I just missed a deadline. Beat that.

quote:

Though I have to say, I'm much more on the page of socio-economic based need. It's like Obama said about his black kids, "My kids should be viewed as privileged."

Exactly. No one is trying to stop them from considering the circumstances you are coming from, but that can be done (the reality) without state sponsered racial discrimination (the principle).

From today's Journal:

If you have ever wondered why colleges and universities seem to march in lockstep on controversial issues like affirmative action, here is one reason: Overly politicized accrediting agencies often demand it.

Given that federal funding hinges on accreditation, schools are not in a position to argue. That is precisely why the U.S. Department of Education, which gives accreditors their authority, must sometimes take corrective action. George Mason University's law school in northern Virginia is an example of why corrective action is needed now.


GMU's problems began in early 2000, when the American Bar Association visited the law school, which has a somewhat conservative reputation, for its routine reaccreditation inspection. The site evaluation team was unhappy that only 6.5% of entering students were minorities.

Outreach was not the problem; even the site evaluation report (obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act requests) conceded that GMU had a "very active effort to recruit minorities." But the school, the report noted, had been "unwilling to engage in any significant preferential affirmative action admissions program." Since most law schools were willing to admit minority students with dramatically lower entering academic credentials, GMU was at a recruitment disadvantage. The site evaluation report noted its "serious concerns" with the school's policy.

Over the next few years, the ABA repeatedly refused to renew GMU's accreditation, citing its lack of a "significant preferential affirmative action program" and supposed lack of diversity. The school stepped up its already-extensive recruitment efforts, but was forced to back away from its opposition to significant preferential treatment. It was thus able to raise the proportion of minorities in its entering class to 10.98% in 2001 and 16.16% in 2002.

Not good enough. In 2003, the ABA summoned the university's president and law school dean to appear before it personally, threatening to revoke the institution's accreditation.

GMU responded by further lowering minority admissions standards. It also increased spending on outreach, appointed an assistant dean to serve as minority coordinator, and established an outside "Minority Recruitment Council." As a result, 17.3% of its entering students were minority members in 2003 and 19% in 2004.

Not good enough. "Of the 99 minority students in 2003," the ABA complained, "only 23 were African American; of 111 minority students in 2004, the number of African Americans held at 23." It didn't seem to matter that 63 African Americans had been offered admission, or that many students admitted with lower academic credentials would end up incurring heavy debt but never graduate and pass the bar.

GMU's case is not unique. In a study conducted several years ago, 31% of law school respondents admitted to political scientists Susan Welch and John Gruhl that they "felt pressure" "to take race into account in making admissions decisions" from "accreditation agencies." Several schools, like GMU, have been put through the diversity wringer.

The GMU law school was finally notified of its reaccreditation in 2006, after six long and unnecessary years of abuse – just in time for the next round in the seven-year reaccreditation process. Even then, the ABA could not resist an ominous warning that it would pay "particular attention" to GMU's diversity efforts in the upcoming cycle....(article continues)