Scalia and conservative misconceptions about afirmative action

[SpankMe]

Not that I'm defending the vicious and ass-holeic Fat Tony Scalia, but I think his reprehensible statements are based on the false idea that lesser qualified minorities are being admitted to universities over more qualified whites just to pump up the minority numbers. It's partly racism and partly a willful misconception of how affirmative action is being implemented.

While it's true that most affirmative action processes do result in more minorities being admitted at the expense of white applicants, these minority individuals are equally as qualified, or even more so, as their white counterparts.

Universities are still accepting the best of the best, generally. It's just that the minorities they're accepting in order to met their diversity goals are NOT under-performing compared to white candidates that are being displaced.

Since Fat Tony subscribes to the "under-qualified minority is accepted over a highly qualified Caucasian" lie, he's suggesting that these lesser qualified minorities should seek education at less challenging institutions (like, Univ of Phoenix over Harvard for example) rather then use their minority status to bump out a higher qualified white person.

As a general proposition, I agree with this - but, that's with ALL under-performing candidates of ALL races. If you're a white guy whose lower qualifications can't get you into Harvard, then you, too, should seek out an education at a less elite institution.

Accepting lesser qualified minorities over better qualified whites does occasionally happen based on the make-up of the applicant pool vs. the diversity goal. But, it's so rare that it's not worth mentioning or using as a rationale to rule against affirmative action processes as currently practiced.

[el_bryanto]

1. I think you might be giving him too much credit

As a result, university officials claim in court filings that even if Fisher received points for her race and every other personal achievement factor, the letter she received in the mail still would have said no.

It's true that the university, for whatever reason, offered provisional admission to some students with lower test scores and grades than Fisher. Five of those students were black or Latino. Forty-two were white.

Neither Fisher nor Blum mentioned those 42 applicants in interviews. Nor did they acknowledge the 168 black and Latino students with grades as good as or better than Fisher's who were also denied entry into the university that year. Also left unsaid is the fact that Fisher turned down a standard UT offer under which she could have gone to the university her sophomore year if she earned a 3.2 GPA at another Texas university school in her freshman year.

This is from an article at Pro Publica on her initial run at the Supreme Court.

Either Scalia is unaware of these facts (which would be shocking if true) or he basically believes that whites should receive preferential treatment over blacks. He seems to be specifically arguing that race should matter in these decisions.

Bryant

[hifiguy]

2. Agreed.

Fat Tony knows damn well what his weasel words are meant to convey.