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University of California President Richard Atkinson is back on
the warpath. His most recent policy proposal, “comprehensive
review,” is nothing less than a legal run around Proposition
209, and demonstrates utter disregard for the democratic process
that enacted the legislation against group preferences.
Comprehensive review would evaluate UC applicants on academic
achievement, personal achievement and life challenges, in no given
ratio. These proposed standards give admissions officials the
latitude, and the implicit command, to enact affirmative
action.
The stated goal behind this latest outrage, as always, is the
pious cause of “diversity.” In truth,
“diversity” is simply the latest disguise for
ethnocentrism, with its racially divisive goals masquerading as
“social justice” and “access.”
But let us humor these diversifiers and accept their narrow
conception of diversity defined only by ethnicity. They use the
drop in minority numbers at UCLA and UC Berkeley as evidence of an
educational crisis. The bitter truth is, five years after that evil
proposition became law, minority numbers system-wide are virtually
identical to what they were during those halcyon days of
affirmative action.
You might as well wonder what makes comprehensive review so
dangerous. First, it ends the current system that selects 50-75
percent of students based on grades and test scores alone. This
system is only a failure if your name is Atkinson and have the
twisted worldview that race determines all. In that case, falling
UCLA (but not UC-wide) admission rates for minority students become
a cause for destroying a fair, impartial admissions standard.
Gone will be a system that gives due consideration to the
universal applicability of the SAT test, and the more general
measure of grade-point averages. In its place will rise a system
which assigns numeric scores to the nebulous standards of
“life challenges” and “personal
achievements,” with the current system consigned to the
fog-shrouded wasteland of “academic achievement.”
Comprehensive review will destroy the system currently doing an
exemplary job of selecting students, not race-mongers; scholars,
not activists.
Most threatening in the proposal, if a single component can be
selected, is the “life challenges” element. Nobody
knows exactly what it means ““ which is exactly how Atkinson
& Co. want it. It is “life challenges,” with the
“no given ratio” caveat, which will give admissions
officials the ability to enact a de facto affirmative action.
Under our current system, a given student with poor test scores
and mediocre grades would not receive a second chance, and rightly
so. Under comprehensive review, our applicant would be welcomed
with open arms. Why the change? Our applicant is a black male
(though he could be any minority), who helped out evaluators by
writing a whiny personal statement blaming his academic failure on
having to face “life challenges,” which, incidentally,
non-minorities do as well.
Our applicant is accepted based on the life challenge of race.
Such a result conforms to the rules, and goals, of comprehensive
review ““ affirmative action in practice, if not in name.
This scenario is not far-fetched ““ comprehensive review
will do just such a thing. Not only once, but over and over, until
proper “diversity” is achieved.
An altered conception of this plan is likewise unacceptable.
Even putting academic effort and success on an equal one-third
footing with nebulous measures like “personal
achievement” and “life challenges” is an insult
to applicants who played by the rules, made the small, often
invisible sacrifices, and rightly expect their reward. For personal
achievement and life challenges are something which cannot,
contrary to the proposal, be scored numerically, much less
understood or conveyed in a single short personal statement.
UC evaluators know that they cannot make an honest judgment
about life challenges or personal achievement from the meager
evidence provided. When push comes to shove, their beady little
eyes will wander up to that racial checkbox for the exact idea of
what score to give the applicant.
You might as well ask ““ what should be done? Nothing. The
applications and standards in place now work well to reward good
students, and weed out academic imposters. Punishment of those not
lucky enough to have the proper skin tone to fill out
Atkinson’s crayon box of diversity is a crime against
everyone.
The only choice for the UC, if it seeks to maintain its tattered
facade of fairness and impartiality, is to continue its emphasis on
solid achievement as measured by the SATs and grade-point average.
Grades reflect the student’s willingness to focus on school,
to sacrifice in high school for the reward of admittance to an
excellent university.
Should the “comprehensive review” come into being, I
encourage every UC applicant, as a matter of principle, to do
everything in their power to obstruct the political goals of the
plan. It is nothing less than an attempt to resurrect affirmative
action ““ as such, every student who will be violated under
the new system should engage in civil disobedience by fabricating,
inflating, and misrepresenting every aspect of their lives in order
to appear properly “oppressed.”
With 100 or more applications a day, UC evaluators cannot
possibly verify every student’s claim of wrongs suffered or
exemplary extracurricular activity. We must use this to our
advantage and overwhelm the race-mongers with falsifications, on
such a scale and magnitude that comprehensive review will be shown
for the racial masquerade it is.
The UC has declared war on the students who played by the rules.
It is your responsibility to fight back. You fight not simply for
your future, but for American ideals of fair play and equal
opportunity.