Universities Weblog

Wendy McElroy thinks so, and according to her, that's not a bad thing. In a Fox News opinion piece, McElroy says colleges and universities are retreating from affirmative action (she doesn't cite telling statistics to support her case, but includes a quote from the NAACP), and suggests that perhaps it's time to end the practice altogether.

To wit:

At its root, affirmative action is an ambitious campaign of social engineering. It is an attempt to redistribute social and economic power by forcing institutions—through law and court precedents—to prefer women and minorities. The underlying sentiment is a noble one that is being badly used.

[....] It is time to question whether affirmative action is a noble goal. Advocates of [the University of Michigan's] policies speak in collective terms about race disadvantage and gender inequities. What they don't deal with are individuals. Affirmative action admission (and other) policies do not look at the individual merits of your son or daughter, at the grade average they've struggled to maintain, the volunteer organizations they've joined, the dreaming human beings they are.

Instead, affirmative action advocates see skin color and gender. There is nothing noble about that vision.McElroy also offers a brief history of affirmative action, tracing its roots to the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s. Obviously the history is more complex than what she details here.

She does, though, strike a nerve about the long-term viability of affirmative action. Even Justice O'Connor, who supported the practice in last year's Supreme Court rulings, suggested that in 25 years we may not need affirmative action anymore.

Will it last that long?

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