Tag: college

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education and schooling judiciary

Thomas & Thomas

race, racism, Supreme Court, college, education

In the Students for Fair Admissions decision, the Supreme Court rules that using race as a criterion of university admissions is unconstitutional.

Ambiguous aspects of the decision and the determination of some universities to keep using race as a criterion mean that qualified applicants may, alas, still be penalized for being the “wrong” color. Unambiguous, though, is Justice Clarence Thomas’s rebuke of the decision’s dissenters for, among other things, assuming that only racism can explain the different average outcomes of ethnic groups.

“[N]one of those statistics are capable of drawing a direct causal link between race — rather than socioeconomic status or any other factor — and individual outcomes. So Justice Jackson supplies the link herself: the legacy of slavery and the nature of inherited wealth. This, she claims, locks blacks into a seemingly perpetual inferior caste. Such a view is irrational; it is an insult to individual achievement and cancerous to young minds.…”

Has Thomas been perusing the work of Thomas Sowell?

One of Sowell’s career-​integrating insights is that statistics summarizing differences in average group outcomes are mute about the causes. 

One must investigate causally relevant facts.

Consider, for example, differences in characteristics and outcomes between subgroups of a broader ethnic group. Sole possible cause: racism? Or the fact that Asians on average perform better than whites in certain academic or economic categories. Sole possible cause: racism?

Just two of many pertinent questions that Dr. Sowell has asked as he, in his numerous books, surveyed our world’s cultures, lands, and histories.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling ideological culture judiciary national politics & policies

Affirmative Action Disaffirmed

affirmative action, quotas, college, race, racism

Congratulations to WHITE
SUPREMACY for winning
a huge victory today.

Thus tweeted Gene Wu, District 137’s representative to the Texas legislature. 

That was his reaction to yesterday’sSupreme Court decision striking down racial discrimination in picking students for colleges and universities.

He’s a Democrat and in a tricky situation. The case was brought to the High Court by Asian Americans, who have been most discriminated against in college placement. Rep. Wu, himself Asian American, talks up the compensatory racial preference cause. 

“Asian Americans have consistently been used as a foil to eliminate Affirmative Action programs which serve to repair centuries of intentional discrimination against Black and Latino AND Asian communities,” he argues. “Having Asian Americans as parties doesn’t make it any less racist.”

Actually, of course, discriminating in favor of “Black and Latino” applicants has hurt Asian Americans’ college placements the most, and provably so. Racial discrimination was the criterion. Not academic achievement, IQ, or ability to pay. Asian Americans were the big losers. 

More than whites.

But all Rep. Wu can think about is WHITE SUPREMACY. In all-​caps, no less.

He worries not one whit about racial discrimination against Asians!

As absurd as what we used to call “reverse” discrimination is, we can be sure that, after this current ruling, DEI-​obsessed administrators will still seek ways to continue their discrimination on the basis of race.

Also being raised? The issue of legacy admissions, rewarding with preferential treatment applicants whose parents and grandparents previously attended the institution. Senator and GOP presidential candidate Tim Scott called for public universities to nix those policies as well. Scott was joined by President Biden and AOC.

Sounds like justice and fairness based on merit is on a roll.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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education and schooling subsidy

Education Fraud

student, debt, relief

It’s a mess.

Families are often sold a bill of goods regarding higher education.

Unless a student pursues a subject like computer science, architecture, engineering, or medicine, it may take decades to pay off student loans.

Graduates who specialized in Advanced Basket Weaving, the Sociology of Postmodern Literary Stylings, and Marxist Techniques for Making White People Feel Guilty just might snag a high-​paying job as an Ivy League professor or senior manager of a corporate “antiracism” task force. But beyond those few spots, opportunities are scant.

And, of course, many people who pursued legitimate studies in the liberal arts or technical subjects also don’t make enough to emerge from massive debt any decade soon. Nor does every STEM grad necessarily cash in. Individual results vary.

What to do?

The Biden administration has decided to wipe out student debt en masse, expanding the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program so that about 40,000 student-​loan borrowers escape debt immediately and the debt of millions of others is slashed.

But is forcing others to pay this debt through their taxes — parents and children who perhaps carefully avoided taking out student loans — a just and practical answer to the problem?

The long-​term solution is to get the government out of the business of subsidizing higher education in any manner, whether in the form of direct payments to schools or loans to students. Without the massive subsidies, tuition costs would decline.

The short-​term solution? Launch an investigation into whether the U.S. Department of Education, colleges and universities — along with both Republican and Democratic administrations — have engaged in fraud against those who took out the loans. 

If students were defrauded, first seek redress from the perpetrators. Not the taxpayers.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Sell College Short?

college, student, debt, loan, forgiveness, hat,

We are often lectured on the importance of a college education. The path to upward mobility is greased via higher education, we are informed, and all that investment in time and money pays off … with a lifetime of higher salaries and better opportunities.

“The typical American with a bachelor’s degree or higher,” President Barack Obama pointed out back in 2014, “earns over $28,000 more per year than someone with just a high school diploma.” 

Accordingly, Obama urged “students and parents” to “begin preparing yourself for an education beyond high school.”

Was he just pulling our legs?

After all, $28,000 extra each year for many decades isn’t chump change. Yet, if college proves such a royal road to wealth, why would highly educated folks gaining such lucrative earning-​power need the bailouts … especially from taxpayers who didn’t make that self-investment?

That subsidy of the richer by the poorer is precisely what many Democratic Party presidential candidates are promising younger voters, with Sen. Bernie Sanders topping the proposed taxpayer-​generosity by offering to cancel all $1.6 trillion in outstanding student debt.

“Not satisfied with having the government take over 20 percent of the economy with his Medicare-​for-​All program,” James Joyner writes at Outside the Beltway, “the Vermont Senator wants the government to assume all debt taken on for education and make college absolutely free from here on out.”

If a college education is worth what it costs, no bailout should be necessary.

And only in the political world would anyone suggest giving away such a valuable commodity for free.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

college, student, debt, loan, forgiveness, hat,

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education and schooling

Gaming a Newly Rigged System

SAT, college, racism, race, fairness,

Education is important. I want my young adult offspring to get into a great college or university.

Sadly, my bribery fund is empty.

Must she, then, rely only upon working hard for good grades and preparing for the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)? 

No. There is a workaround: find a way to improve our family’s Adversity Score.

“The College Board plans to assign an adversity score to every student who takes the SAT,” The Wall Street Journal reports, “to try to capture their social and economic background, jumping into the debate raging over race and class in college admissions.”

This year 50 universities, including Yale, used these scores; next year, 150 will do so. Students are assessed on 15 not fully disclosed factors, things such as the level of crime and poverty in one’s high school and neighborhood, “the educational level of the parents,” and “family stability.” 

“An adversity score of 50 is average,” notes the Journal. “Anything above it designates hardship, below it privilege.”

Hmmm, how to climb (or descend) the “Overall Disadvantage Index”? What sacrifices to make?

My wife and I could divorce. Coming from a single parent household would improve our daughter’s opportunities in higher education.

We won’t sink her chances by upgrading our own educations. That’s obvious.

And crime-​free homeschools certainly place kids at a distinct disadvantage in being disadvantaged. I guess we could move to a more dangerous neighborhood. 

Heck — what am I thinking?! — we can stay put and just commit crimes ourselves. Show some entrepreneurial initiative! Don’t be dependent on others, for heaven sake! Be the change we wish to see in our world.

On that one, though, I better check my exuberance with my wife … if our divorce hasn’t yet been finalized.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

SAT, college, racism, race, fairness,

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Accountability First Amendment rights ideological culture media and media people moral hazard U.S. Constitution

Exit Strategy Advised

free speech, Trump, First Amendment, rights, college, campus, tolerance

The First Amendment applies only against governments, but our free speech rights can be violated by nearly anyone.

These days, these rights are most notoriously and routinely violated by mobs of students … attending colleges and universities nearly all of which depend upon taxpayer subsidies.

David E. Bernstein, writing at the Volokh Conspiracy, in “USC Law Professor: Supporters of Campus Free Speech are ‘Preying on Vulnerable Teenagers,’” makes a number of points regarding a law professor’s published defense of nasty student reactions to a Federalist Society speaker … on a campus not his own.

Bernstein notes that “the article has to have the requisite references to the Emmanuel Goldsteins of the modern left, the Koch Brothers, who are mentioned four times for no discernable reason.” The reason, of course, is demonization. For a movement needs enemies.

The USC law professor argues that journalists should ignore campus speaking events that “goad” students into “tactical mistakes” by the “mean-​spirited provocations” of “seasoned political operatives preying on vulnerable teenagers and inexperienced young adults.”* Bernstein shows that the “tactical mistakes” amount to peaceful and intellectual speakers being “harrassed, shouted down, and subject to or threatened with violence”; every reasonable person knows that disagreeing with the ideas someone communicates does not excuse violating that someone’s rights.

No matter how “provocative.”

Most chillingly, the speaker who incited student ire and accusations, etc., had been advised by “a security guard” before his “talk” to devise “an ‘exit strategy.’” This indicates that the American taxpayer needs an exit strategy from subsidizing anti-​democratic mob activism.

And its professorial enablers. 

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Don’t you find this language awfully coddling of people who should be treated as responsible for their actions, and who, by their attendance at an institution of higher learning, should be capable of listening to any point of view? I find it maddening.

 

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