Supreme Court wipes out affirmative action; what the decision really means
How colleges will work-around it
3 JUL 2023
∙ PAID
The Court says: no more affirmative action in school admissions.
So…many colleges will perform a work-around. They’ll adopt new standards they claim add up to “merit.” They’ll apply these absurd standards.
And there will be new law suits.
“Your Honor, my client, David Po, was turned down at Harvard. He posted a nearly perfect SAT score of 1524. His grade point average was 4.0. He was the captain of the soccer team. He was the president of the chess club and the history club.”
“And meanwhile, Your Honor, a black student admitted by Harvard had a grade point average of 2.3. He didn’t take the SATs. He was accepted on the basis of his ‘life experience,’ which he described in an essay he submitted to Harvard. But he didn’t write the essay. He dictated it. He spoke it. He recorded it…”
The black student, entering Harvard, will be unable to keep up in his class work. He doesn’t have the skills. Unless…
Harvard lowers its performance requirements in the classroom. Which it does.
With several strategies. Grading on a curve. Ignoring the student’s errors altogether. Arbitrarily giving the student a passing grade. Awarding him credit for more “life experience.” He joined an activist group. He attended rallies and protests. He supported a college janitors’ strike.
New standards of merit.
With an added strong dose of critical race theory to explain why the student can’t measure up. The measurements are all wrong. They’re racist.
Whatever the student CAN do is automatically made into a standard of excellence.
What I’m describing here has always been, in one way or another, the approach of affirmative action.
You can talk all you want to about denied opportunity, poverty, prejudice, no father in the home, and so on, but that “context” doesn’t work when the student arrives in the classroom.
If course-study demands academic performance, the unprepared student is going to fail.
“Well, you scored a 23 out of 100 on the test, but we know why. So we’re going to give you an 80.”
That’s the only solution.