Diversity or Merit

It is not just that diversity is not our strength. Anyone who believes that should be examined. The problem is that diversity quotas, the heirs to affirmative action programs, are seriously damaging American higher education. And, as the highly estimable Heather Mac Donald explains, they are spawning a massive diversity bureaucracy-- wasting university resources on follies. And, of course, increasing tuition to a point where college is unaffordable.

Take the Medical Licensing Exam. Apparently, minority students were far more likely to score poorly on the test. So, those who conduct the test move on to pass/fail, lest minority candidates do not find themselves in better residency programs. 

Now, you know, that in most cases, when you find a minority candidate in an upscale residency program, you can feel assured that the candidate has not earned his or her way.

Consider Step One of the United States Medical Licensing Exam, which tests students’ knowledge of basic physiological processes. Step One changed to a pass-fail grading system last year because black and Hispanic students disproportionately got low scores, impeding their ability to land the residency of their choice. Whether the students who will now squeak by with a pass are the most qualified candidates for those residencies is of no interest to the gatekeepers.

As for diversity quotas in colleges, the failure to produce proportionality in classes merely reflects different levels of competence. Apparently, black students do not make the grade. Even if you admit them to schools where they are not qualified, they still do not make the grade.

Reality check: the reason why colleges are not proportionally diverse has nothing to do with bias or exclusion. The reason is large racial differences in academic skills. This is an uncomfortable subject, and one that is taboo on college campuses, but if we are going to indict American universities and other institutions for systemic racism, we should get our facts straight.

In truth, MIT admitted a larger number of unqualified students a couple of years ago. The result, the students could not pass Freshman math. They were so far behind that they could not even make up the difference. MIT had to end its diversity program.

As for achievement levels of black high school students, Mac Donald explains.

In 2019, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, 66 percent of black twelfth-graders did not possess even partial mastery of basic twelfth-grade math skills, such as being able to perform arithmetical calculations or to recognize a linear function on a graph. Only 7 percent of black twelfth-graders were competent on those basic twelfth-grade math skills, and the number who were advanced was too small to show up statistically. The picture was not much better in reading.

Of course, we hasten to add that, in all likelihood, children who attend charter schools, like Success Academies, tend to outperform. Naturally, in New York City, teachers’ unions are doing their best to destroy such charter schools. 

As for being college ready, Mac Donald reports the sad news.

In 2021, the American College Testing organization rated only 10 percent of black high school seniors as college ready, based on their combined math, general science, and reading scores on the ACT. Whites were five times as likely to be college ready.

So, diversity is the enemy of merit. High standards are the enemy of diversity. 

They mean that, at present, you can have diversity, or you can have meritocracy. You cannot have both. It is mathematically impossible to produce 13 percent black representation in chemistry, nuclear biology, or medicine, say, without lowering meritocratic standards.

In truth, you can end diversity programs and admit candidates to schools where they can compete. At the least, they will have learned to earn their way and will command respect.

When you are going to choose a physician and you see that the doctor has graduated from one of our great medical schools, if the doctor is non-white and non-Asian you are more likely to dismiss his credentials. Thereby you will be judging people on the basis of their race.

So, too, for the recipients of race preferences. They would be academically competitive in colleges where their qualifications matched those of their peers, but when they are catapulted into schools for which they are not prepared, they struggle, as numerous studies have documented. Racial-preference beneficiaries intending to major in STEM are far more likely to switch out of their intended major than their nonpreferred peers. The DEI bureaucracy then informs them that their academic difficulties are the result of their school’s systemic racism. The solution to their struggles is of course to increase the size and power of the diversity bureaucracy.

By now, there are so many beneficiaries of diversity programs that one does not quite see how we are going to dig ourselves out of them.