January 26, 2003

Wolverine Diversity

George Will does a fantastic takedown of the lie that racial admission preferences promote "diversity" in his column, "Wolverine Diversity."

However, the university says rewarding certain favored races and ethnic groups is just a means of promoting diversity. Because the university is an institution of higher learning, its focus is on minds. Therefore the "diversity" it wants -- the law school speaks of diversity of "perspective" -- is presumably diversity of thinking. Or, considering that applicants are young and intellectually unformed, perhaps just diversity of experiences and outlooks.

If diversity of outlook or perspective is the true goal, then surely the best way to achieve that goal is to find out what the applicant's outlook or perspective is (hey! Maybe you can ask them to write an essay?), rather than the current system, where having the right genetic traits gets you gobs more credit than a perfect score on the SAT. (20 points vs. 12 points)

By the way... what do you call someone with a 2.5 GPA, who got a 400 on the SAT, and wrote a crap essay, but is an underrrepresented minority, has a "socio-economic disadvantage," and lives in Michgan? You call that person a member of the incoming freshman class. (100 points)

What do you call an out-of state applicant with a 4.0 GPA and a perfect 1600 on the SAT, with the best essay the admissions committee has ever seen, and whose parents both went to Michigan (and maybe even met there or got married in the campus chapel) who happens to be white or Asian? You call that person a denizen of the dreaded Wait List. (97 points)

Posted by wasylik at January 26, 2003 11:45 AM | TrackBack
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