Affirmative Action...Oy...

The NY Times publishes an article this date going on at great length about the various Anti-Affirmative Action initiatives (Michigan just passed one, inspiring this article) rolling to, and successfully through, the polls of late. Many professors bemoan at great length the resulting "lack of diversity", as they discuss many and creative ways to evade the spirit and letter of the new laws...

I'm curious though - when did it become the job of publicly funded universities to be either diverse or racially balanced? I've always thought that the number of seats at those Universities was a rationed and expensive resource (otherwise, let's ALL quit our jobs and go back to college! YAY!). In that context, given the nature of a rationed resource, I would argue that admissions to tax-funded institutions on a subsidized basis (hey, paying full-ride non-resident tuition is a whole different matter - I'm talking tax dollars here) should and must be on the basis of academic scores and history on the pro side, and prior criminal convictions or bad history on the negative side...that the limited public resource should be pointed to where the best bet of a successful student lays.

And then there's the point of not being racist/sexist/etc was you didn't pay attention to those factors and let folks succeed or fail on their own merits - for when we vary from that, are we not saying to those we "favor" that "because you're a member of a socioethnic group that is too dumb/evil/lazy/unmotivated, we'll cut you some extra slack"? Umm. Last I heard IQ wasn't tied to race/gender/orientation, and I think the suggestion that it is, is just a bit insulting.

Equal opportunity I can support wholeheartedly, with enthusiasm - where I have a whole bunch of difficulty is "we're not doing Affirmative Action, we're just focusing all our recruiting efforts and handing out a disparate percentage of our applications at minority schools", or more blatantly, good old fashioned Affirmative Action which logically is nothing more than reverse racism in action with "good intentions" sprinkled on top.

Good intentions are a *hint* of a bankrupt program or initiative...any time you hear "but this is to correct a historic wrong", "For the good of the children", "to achieve a diverse student population", or "for their own good" it should be a sign of a failed (or about to fail) effort to engage in conduct that would be reprehensible under any other circumstances.

A state-funded college or university should offer a simple two-track admission process for freshman - funded and non-funded. Non-funded is wide open to anyone who can pay the full cost (i.e., w/o subsidy) of their education, much like a private institution; funded is similar to what we see today (subsidies of up to 80% out of tax dollars, depending on the state), and should remain open on a basis of high school GPA and (perhaps) military service. Transfer students are a different critter for discussion on another day...

*Curmudgeon Mode: OFF*