Most fair-minded people believe that everyone deserves an equal chance—irrespective of race, gender, or religion. Nowadays this frequently boils down to providing everyone with an opportunity to acquire a good education.
The question, however, is how best to achieve this? Many people, especially liberals, assume that this must entail what has been called “affirmative action.” They want to make sure that minorities are not excluded from higher education and therefore they support balanced admission “objectives.”
According to the advocates of this policy, colleges should set admission targets for African-Americans—but not quotas. In practice, of course, these come down to exactly the same thing. They also say that race should serve only as a tiebreaker when candidates’ credentials are fairly close.
In fact, affirmative action has been used to admit minorities to elite colleges for which their academic preparation is wholly inadequate. The effects of this strategy have recently been chronicled by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor in their book, Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended To Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit It (Basic Books, 2012).
As this work’s title suggests, the lead author’s research demonstrates that students who are admitted to colleges for which they are unprepared suffer serious injury. Many do not graduate, or if they do, they do so poorly that they have difficulty entering the job market.
Good intentions do not always produce good results. For a long time critics have been asking how it benefits a student to be admitted to a school, but then fail out? Now the data is in and it confirms the worst fears of the doubters. The supposed beneficiaries of affirmative action do less well than their peers who do not receive this presumed assistance.
Sander, who is a law professor at UCLA, has spent over a decade and a half studying the admissions policies of law schools. He finds, and this has been confirmed by other researchers, that students with low grades and test scores cannot keep up with the demands of the more rigorous schools.
He also finds that they become discouraged and drop out. Or if they graduate, they cannot pass the bar exam and therefore do not become lawyers. Meanwhile, students who are better matched with lower ranking schools get better grades and do pass the bar.
The point is that what matters is how well a student’s academic grounding fits the standards of a particular school. The better the fit; the better the outcome. Efforts to vault people into programs they cannot handle does them no good. It only leads to frustration and bitterness.
To me, one of the worst aspects of this discovery is how it has been dealt with by academics. For the most part, they are in denial. So committed are they to affirmative action that they refuse to alter their programs.
Thus, when California, by law, forbade its university system from using race to determine college admission, the professors and administrators were up in arms. They predicted complete disaster, with African-American students totally excluded for top-tier schools.
And indeed, the number of blacks admitted to Berkeley fell substantially. But the surprise was that the number who graduated increased. Since only well-prepared students were accepted, these could, and did, keep up.
So what was the lesson that the academics learned? Well, they didn’t learn. They were so determined to keep affirmative action in place; they changed their admission policies. Instead of relying on grades and test scores, their practices became more “holistic” and hence subjective.
In other words, the university officials cheated. They stacked the deck to bring back minorities in the desired numbers. As an academic, I was mortified that scholars who supposedly believe in empirical facts rejected these in favor of touchy-feely moral sentiments.
So where does this leave us? Will our colleges institute reforms that actually make things better, or will they remain in the same anti-intellectual rut?
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Conservatives Cannot Afford to Be Conservative
Football fans will know the strategy. It is called a prevent defense. When you are leading toward the end of the game, instead of trying to score more points you have your defenders drop back in an effort to make sure that the other team does not score. The trouble is this often backfires and allows them to move ahead.
By now many commentators have suggested this was a major reason Mitt Romney lost the election. He could not believe that the country would vote for a man who was both dishonest and a terrible steward of the economy. Why, after all, would anyone want a nation that was both poor and weak?
But people did vote for Obama—because they did not perceive that they were given a dynamic alternative. Mitt was a technocrat. He was an honest man with demonstrable economic skills. I still believe this is exactly what we needed; nevertheless it was not what the voters thought.
As commentators such as the economist Thomas Sowell and the newly seated Texas senator Ted Cruz have counseled, now is not the time to go “moderate.” The electoral problem was not that Republicans failed to resemble Democrats; it was that they were ashamed of being full-blooded Republicans.
Conservatives believe in freedom. Conservatives support a free marketplace. They also favor a smaller government. To these ends, they have rightly defended the constitution and sought to lower the deficit. These are noble objectives, but they are not inspirational.
Remember how Ronald Reagan called us to “greatness.” Remember how during his second presidential campaign he told us that it was “morning in America.” These are not conservative themes. They did not look backwards, but forward. They offered visions of a better world, not a return to an old one.
Freedom isn’t an outmoded concept! Nor is a market-based economy! These are the keys to unleashing the energies and genius of ordinary people. This, therefore, is what erstwhile “conservatives” need to stress; it is what will give the young and moderate a reason to vote Republican.
What I am about to say will offend many people, but I must say it anyway because I believe it is the truth. During this last election cycle Republicans put too many eggs into the evangelical basket. They expected religious conservatives to come out in huge numbers, whereas they did not.
This false assumption prompted the party to select candidates, who sounded as if they favored rape, to shape its image. As a result, social issues, rather than the economy or our future, came to the fore and persuaded moderates that Republicans had nothing new to offer.
This must change. Cruz suggests that conservatives pivot and champion an “opportunity” society. Over a decade ago Newt Gingrich came to a similar conclusion. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton, who evidently believed the same, quickly preempted this strategy.
So opportunity is a good starting point. It speaks to the aspirations of constituencies who have been drifting Democratic, such as the Hispanics and young women, and promises them a better future. Moreover, it tells them this future is in their own hands.
But we need more. We need a renewed call to greatness. Obama has been playing “small ball” and this should be used against him. He keeps on picking at small-scale grievances so as to gather a coalition of those who feel as if they are on the outside looking in.
Republicans consequently have an opening to appeal to Americans as Americans. How can ordinary people take pride in a country that is limping a long, barely keeping its head above water? How can they feel good about having an ambassador shot or about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons?
Reagan drew on the best in the American people. He told them they would succeed if they helped themselves. More than this, he assured them that they had the stuff to do so. Have we somehow grown feebler since then?
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
By now many commentators have suggested this was a major reason Mitt Romney lost the election. He could not believe that the country would vote for a man who was both dishonest and a terrible steward of the economy. Why, after all, would anyone want a nation that was both poor and weak?
But people did vote for Obama—because they did not perceive that they were given a dynamic alternative. Mitt was a technocrat. He was an honest man with demonstrable economic skills. I still believe this is exactly what we needed; nevertheless it was not what the voters thought.
As commentators such as the economist Thomas Sowell and the newly seated Texas senator Ted Cruz have counseled, now is not the time to go “moderate.” The electoral problem was not that Republicans failed to resemble Democrats; it was that they were ashamed of being full-blooded Republicans.
Conservatives believe in freedom. Conservatives support a free marketplace. They also favor a smaller government. To these ends, they have rightly defended the constitution and sought to lower the deficit. These are noble objectives, but they are not inspirational.
Remember how Ronald Reagan called us to “greatness.” Remember how during his second presidential campaign he told us that it was “morning in America.” These are not conservative themes. They did not look backwards, but forward. They offered visions of a better world, not a return to an old one.
Freedom isn’t an outmoded concept! Nor is a market-based economy! These are the keys to unleashing the energies and genius of ordinary people. This, therefore, is what erstwhile “conservatives” need to stress; it is what will give the young and moderate a reason to vote Republican.
What I am about to say will offend many people, but I must say it anyway because I believe it is the truth. During this last election cycle Republicans put too many eggs into the evangelical basket. They expected religious conservatives to come out in huge numbers, whereas they did not.
This false assumption prompted the party to select candidates, who sounded as if they favored rape, to shape its image. As a result, social issues, rather than the economy or our future, came to the fore and persuaded moderates that Republicans had nothing new to offer.
This must change. Cruz suggests that conservatives pivot and champion an “opportunity” society. Over a decade ago Newt Gingrich came to a similar conclusion. Unfortunately, Bill Clinton, who evidently believed the same, quickly preempted this strategy.
So opportunity is a good starting point. It speaks to the aspirations of constituencies who have been drifting Democratic, such as the Hispanics and young women, and promises them a better future. Moreover, it tells them this future is in their own hands.
But we need more. We need a renewed call to greatness. Obama has been playing “small ball” and this should be used against him. He keeps on picking at small-scale grievances so as to gather a coalition of those who feel as if they are on the outside looking in.
Republicans consequently have an opening to appeal to Americans as Americans. How can ordinary people take pride in a country that is limping a long, barely keeping its head above water? How can they feel good about having an ambassador shot or about Iran acquiring nuclear weapons?
Reagan drew on the best in the American people. He told them they would succeed if they helped themselves. More than this, he assured them that they had the stuff to do so. Have we somehow grown feebler since then?
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Defending Liberty on Campus
As an educator, I am quite naturally concerned with maintaining the highest academic standards we can. It is, therefore, with some disquiet that I have observed the creeping attacks on liberty on campus. Instead of an honest marketplace of ideas, we have witnessed the rise of political proselytization.
This is why I am so pleased that a ringing defense of intellectual freedom has been published to unambiguously positive reviews. I know that people are reading less nowadays, but Greg Lukianoff’s “UnLearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” (Encounter Books, 2012) is worth the time and trouble.
Almost as wonderful as the book’s message is the messenger. Lukianoff, who is FIRE’s (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) chief lawyer an president is an unrepentant liberal. By his own testimony, he has never voted for a Republican in his life—and never plans to.
As Lukianoff himself admits, much of the demagoguery on campus is coming from the left side of the spectrum. That he too recognizes this as a threat to our democratic institutions is a wonderful sign that Americans may yet come together to defend our legacy of freedom.
If we as a nation are to move forward toward “a more perfect union,” it is essential that our colleges and universities create, and disseminate, the innovative ideas that will improve our shared circumstances. This, however, is not possible when only politically correct positions are allowed to flourish.
Almost everyone is aware of how dominant liberals are in the groves of academe. They may be less aware of how this dominance has been translated into censorship and indoctrination. Because he has been fighting these tendencies for many years, Lukianoff provides scores of chilling examples of these trends.
In one well-known instance (from 2007), a student was expelled from an Indiana university for reading the wrong book. This book was about how the KKK had its wings clipped during the 1920’s. In other words, it was aimed at exposing and resisting tyranny.
Nonetheless, an onlooker objected to the book’s cover, which showed robed Klan members, and on this basis alone accused its reader of being a bigot. Solely on these grounds, without so much as a hearing, the school refused to allow the accused to register for any further courses.
Lukianoff also documents cases where university residence halls asked incoming freshmen to reveal their sexual orientation. This was supposedly to facilitate offering special services to gays, but wound up as a device for clamping down on anyone who believed homosexuality is sinful.
Residence programs have also been in the forefront of the battle against racism. This might be applauded if it entailed treating students equally, but all too often “sensitivity” programs have required students to admit that whites are inherently racist, while blacks are incapable of racism.
Disturbingly, when such programs have been challenged in court, the administrators who created them have rallied to their defense. Even when these have been ruled illegal, they introduced subterfuges to keep them going.
In, for me, what was one of the more alarming sequences in Lukianoff’s book, the professional organization to which residence hall officials belong, held a quasi-religious service during which they congratulated themselves on their intransigence.
They lit candles, much as one would in church, to celebrate their devotion to spreading wisdom—as they perceived it. For them, forcing vulnerable students to agree with their own ideological commitments was a sacred cause. That these practices were an affront to freedom of speech and thought never entered their heads.
But it should enter ours. Indeed, it should do more than that. It should arouse us to make certain that self-righteous academics do not confuse their personal beliefs with a liberal education. Higher education should be about examining multiple sides of controversial issues, not foreclosing discussion in the name of pre-determined virtues.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University.
This is why I am so pleased that a ringing defense of intellectual freedom has been published to unambiguously positive reviews. I know that people are reading less nowadays, but Greg Lukianoff’s “UnLearning Liberty: Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate” (Encounter Books, 2012) is worth the time and trouble.
Almost as wonderful as the book’s message is the messenger. Lukianoff, who is FIRE’s (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education) chief lawyer an president is an unrepentant liberal. By his own testimony, he has never voted for a Republican in his life—and never plans to.
As Lukianoff himself admits, much of the demagoguery on campus is coming from the left side of the spectrum. That he too recognizes this as a threat to our democratic institutions is a wonderful sign that Americans may yet come together to defend our legacy of freedom.
If we as a nation are to move forward toward “a more perfect union,” it is essential that our colleges and universities create, and disseminate, the innovative ideas that will improve our shared circumstances. This, however, is not possible when only politically correct positions are allowed to flourish.
Almost everyone is aware of how dominant liberals are in the groves of academe. They may be less aware of how this dominance has been translated into censorship and indoctrination. Because he has been fighting these tendencies for many years, Lukianoff provides scores of chilling examples of these trends.
In one well-known instance (from 2007), a student was expelled from an Indiana university for reading the wrong book. This book was about how the KKK had its wings clipped during the 1920’s. In other words, it was aimed at exposing and resisting tyranny.
Nonetheless, an onlooker objected to the book’s cover, which showed robed Klan members, and on this basis alone accused its reader of being a bigot. Solely on these grounds, without so much as a hearing, the school refused to allow the accused to register for any further courses.
Lukianoff also documents cases where university residence halls asked incoming freshmen to reveal their sexual orientation. This was supposedly to facilitate offering special services to gays, but wound up as a device for clamping down on anyone who believed homosexuality is sinful.
Residence programs have also been in the forefront of the battle against racism. This might be applauded if it entailed treating students equally, but all too often “sensitivity” programs have required students to admit that whites are inherently racist, while blacks are incapable of racism.
Disturbingly, when such programs have been challenged in court, the administrators who created them have rallied to their defense. Even when these have been ruled illegal, they introduced subterfuges to keep them going.
In, for me, what was one of the more alarming sequences in Lukianoff’s book, the professional organization to which residence hall officials belong, held a quasi-religious service during which they congratulated themselves on their intransigence.
They lit candles, much as one would in church, to celebrate their devotion to spreading wisdom—as they perceived it. For them, forcing vulnerable students to agree with their own ideological commitments was a sacred cause. That these practices were an affront to freedom of speech and thought never entered their heads.
But it should enter ours. Indeed, it should do more than that. It should arouse us to make certain that self-righteous academics do not confuse their personal beliefs with a liberal education. Higher education should be about examining multiple sides of controversial issues, not foreclosing discussion in the name of pre-determined virtues.
Melvyn L. Fein, Ph.D.
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University.
Saturday, January 5, 2013
The Year of the Kicked Can
The New Year is upon us and it is time for predictions. No doubt, for the most part, these are like New Year’s resolutions—that is, they are issued with solemnity and with the best of intentions, but they fail to come to fruition.
Nevertheless, I am going to take a stab at reading the tealeaves. Though I too see the future only dimly, there are some things of which we can be certain. One is that taxes will go up and another is that federal spending will rise as well.
Despite all the talk about getting the deficit under control, I see the national debt growing to nearly eighteen trillion before we reach 2014. The reason is simple. Judging from the current evidence, the politicians seem intent on kicking the can down the road once again.
The Republicans have warned that the taxes Democrats are determined to impose will not raise sufficient revenue to lower the annual deficit substantially—and I agree. Yet there seems to be no stopping the liberal juggernaut. In addition to ObamaCare’s hidden taxes, there will be rate increases, even on the Middle Class.
Adding these levies to those of states like California, there is good reason to believe the wealthy will seek to protect their assets. And if they do, revenues will not rise as quickly as projected; hence unfunded spending will grow more rapidly than projected.
Since Democrats also show no inclination to reign in entitlement spending, or discretionary expenditures other than for the military, the gap between government income and outgo should get larger. This may be exacerbated if the economy stalls—as many economists expect.
Under these conditions the need to borrow will continue to mount, as will the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing money. Where this will end is hard to say, but eventually there must be a roaring inflation. The only way this cannot happen is if the laws of economics are suspended.
The reason inflation seems not to have already occurred is that foreigners, whose economies are worse than our own, continue to perceive American bonds as safe. This, however, cannot go on forever. The question is when will the kicked-can explode? It may not be this next year, but it will be some year.
Then there is the international situation. The Middle East continues to boil and Iran keeps getting closer to producing nuclear weapons. Will Obama do anything to reverse this trend? Will Israel?
Again we do not know, but as of now I predict that Barack will maintain the policy he has in the past—that is, he will do nothing. As for Israel, I am not sure it has the strength to save the day without U. S. support.
Where does this leave us? I say in a pretty pickle. There is a very good chance that the economy will slid off the edge and that a host of Islamisized nations will join in an alliance against us. If so, far from achieving peace and prosperity, we will persist in decline and insecurity.
These predictions do not cheer me. They are certainly not intended as an “I told you so” directed at politicians I do, in fact, despise. This is not something I want to happen because, like it or not, we are all in the same boat. Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, will all be hurt if my fears come to pass.
Of course, we could survive another year. Who knows when the horrors of inflation will arrive? It could be years from now. Also, it just might be that a nuclear-armed Iran will behave itself in the short run.
But what of the long run? When will we as a nation begin looking beyond the immediate future? When will the politicians—and the voters—begin to consider the fate of our children and grandchildren?
Melvyn L. Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
Nevertheless, I am going to take a stab at reading the tealeaves. Though I too see the future only dimly, there are some things of which we can be certain. One is that taxes will go up and another is that federal spending will rise as well.
Despite all the talk about getting the deficit under control, I see the national debt growing to nearly eighteen trillion before we reach 2014. The reason is simple. Judging from the current evidence, the politicians seem intent on kicking the can down the road once again.
The Republicans have warned that the taxes Democrats are determined to impose will not raise sufficient revenue to lower the annual deficit substantially—and I agree. Yet there seems to be no stopping the liberal juggernaut. In addition to ObamaCare’s hidden taxes, there will be rate increases, even on the Middle Class.
Adding these levies to those of states like California, there is good reason to believe the wealthy will seek to protect their assets. And if they do, revenues will not rise as quickly as projected; hence unfunded spending will grow more rapidly than projected.
Since Democrats also show no inclination to reign in entitlement spending, or discretionary expenditures other than for the military, the gap between government income and outgo should get larger. This may be exacerbated if the economy stalls—as many economists expect.
Under these conditions the need to borrow will continue to mount, as will the Federal Reserve’s policy of printing money. Where this will end is hard to say, but eventually there must be a roaring inflation. The only way this cannot happen is if the laws of economics are suspended.
The reason inflation seems not to have already occurred is that foreigners, whose economies are worse than our own, continue to perceive American bonds as safe. This, however, cannot go on forever. The question is when will the kicked-can explode? It may not be this next year, but it will be some year.
Then there is the international situation. The Middle East continues to boil and Iran keeps getting closer to producing nuclear weapons. Will Obama do anything to reverse this trend? Will Israel?
Again we do not know, but as of now I predict that Barack will maintain the policy he has in the past—that is, he will do nothing. As for Israel, I am not sure it has the strength to save the day without U. S. support.
Where does this leave us? I say in a pretty pickle. There is a very good chance that the economy will slid off the edge and that a host of Islamisized nations will join in an alliance against us. If so, far from achieving peace and prosperity, we will persist in decline and insecurity.
These predictions do not cheer me. They are certainly not intended as an “I told you so” directed at politicians I do, in fact, despise. This is not something I want to happen because, like it or not, we are all in the same boat. Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, will all be hurt if my fears come to pass.
Of course, we could survive another year. Who knows when the horrors of inflation will arrive? It could be years from now. Also, it just might be that a nuclear-armed Iran will behave itself in the short run.
But what of the long run? When will we as a nation begin looking beyond the immediate future? When will the politicians—and the voters—begin to consider the fate of our children and grandchildren?
Melvyn L. Fein
Professor of Sociology
Kennesaw State University
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