Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1490194
6 UCW JANUARY 18 - 24, 2023 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM OPINION Campuses will try to keep discriminating by JOHN HOOD Some argue that the most effective way to combat prejudice and expand opportunities in a free and open society is to make less use of crude racial and ethnic categories, not more use of them. Later this year, the U.S. Supreme Court will finally compel the Uni- versity of North Carolina and the rest of American higher education to halt the pervasive practice of racial and ethnic discrimination in admissions. Academic leaders should have ended this obnoxious and coun- terproductive policy on their own, decades ago. It shouldn't have required lawsuits by Edward Blum and his group Students for Fair Admissions to force universities to comply with federal anti-discrimi- nation laws. But it did — and even now, the higher-education establishment is plotting to circumvent what it finally understands will be a defini- tive ruling from the nation's highest court. One tactic will be to dimin- ish the significance of academic ability and accomplishment in the admissions process while elevating the role of more-subjective crite- ria such as essays, interviews and extracurriculars. In this way, they hope to smuggle illegal preferences in the "back door," so to speak, much as Har- vard University already discrimi- nates against Asian applicants by systematically giving them low ratings in interviews. is may be one reason UNC officials sought to extend a "tempo- rary" moratorium on the require- ment of minimum SAT or ACT scores for admissions. Originally introduced in 2020 as a pandemic-era measure, the moratorium will now last until 2025. High test scores shouldn't be the sole or even primary cri- terion for university admissions, of course, but the best available evidence suggests that a combina- tion of grade-point average and test score is a better predictor of college success than GPA alone. Another probable response to the end of racial preferences in ad- missions will be, if anything, more pernicious: universities will shift their emphasis from admissions to employment. It is already illegal, but nonethe- less widespread, for institutions to take race or ethnicity into account when making decisions about hir- ing, pay and promotion. Infuriated by the end of admis- sions preferences, however, pro- gressive faculty and activists will press university leaders to advance "social justice" (properly used, the noun needs no such modifier) by establishing explicit hiring goals and preferences based on both ra- cial and ideological identification. One device for tracking the latter will be the use of "diversity, eq- uity, and inclusion" statements. At many campuses and departments, including some here in North Carolina, individuals are already required to submit DEI statements when applying for jobs or even for admission to graduate programs. Here's what the UNC-Chapel Hill medical school offered as a sample of the kind of DEI statement it wants from prospective faculty: "As I move forward in my career, I intend to continue to include issues of equity and inclusion in my bed- side teaching. I commit to annually attending a seminar offered by the University Office of Diversity and Inclusion to learn more about the intersectionality of race, gender, and sexual orientation in clinical care and medical education, and to confront my own biases and the biases of our medical culture to improve inclusivity in my environ- ment." What if you are an experienced, accomplished and caring physician who sincerely believes you already treat everyone with respect and dignity and prefers to devote your professional-development time to other topics, such as the economics of health care or the latest innova- tions in your medical specialty? Better not say that if you want to get a job, or get ahead, at the medi- cal school. Contrary to the strident claims of self-styled "anti-racism" advocates, the most-effective way to combat prejudice and expand opportu- nity in a free and open society is to make less use of crude racial and ethnic categories, not more use of them. It is to treat individu- als as individuals, not as pawns in some political game or cogs in some social-justice machine. It is to respond to specific markers of personal disadvantage — offering scholarships to poor students, for example, or well-tailored ac- commodations to disabled ones — rather than to membership in some politically concocted class of preferred beneficiaries. Explicit admissions preferences will end. en a broader debate, likely a very contentious one, will begin. e stakes couldn't be higher. JOHN HOOD, Board Member, John Locke Foundation. COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. 910-484-6200 Christian music station local your