By JAMES K. FITZPATRICK
I wonder how many Americans would be opposed to affirmative action programs being used in college admissions, if the process were carried out fairly and without a political axe to grind? I bet not many. My guess is that most people would agree that a conscientious minority student from a dysfunctional inner-city high school may have more academic potential than a wealthy student who attends private schools and expensive SAT prep programs — even if the minority student’s scores on standardized tests are significantly lower than the wealthy student’s.
One can see why colleges would want to find a spot for minority students like that. They are not “inferior” candidates, and well may bring great prestige to a university as they move forward in their careers. The problem is that most of us suspect that affirmative action programs do not operate in this manner, and that political correctness counts for more than an earnest search for the best students.
A recent column by David French on the May 19 online edition of National Review confirms those suspicions. French served on the admissions committee at Cornell Law School, and, in his words, “saw firsthand how not just race but ideology distorts the admissions process.” French was prompted to write his column by the complaints filed recently with the Justice Department by 60 Asian-American groups, alleging systematic discrimination against Asian applicants in the college admission process.
“They’re right, of course,” says French. “Colleges do systematically disadvantage Asian students….I’ve seen it with my own eyes. To provide room for black, Latino, and — yes — white students, deserving Asian Americans are pushed aside.”
While he was on the admissions committee at Cornell, black and “the right kind of Latino” students would often receive admissions offers with “test scores 20 or 30 percentile points lower than those of white or Asian students.”
But might not these black and Latino students be the kind of deserving students described above, bright and hard-working young people with great potential, struggling to achieve success in a disorderly inner-city high school with low academic standards? French says that is not the case; that affirmative action’s lowered entrance requirements are often applied for “rich black and Latino kids,” the children of minority “doctors and lawyers” who “get dramatic advantages, as well” in the admission process, thereby creating “an enhanced-opportunity program for favored rich kids.”
In other words, race, not the search for a level playing field, is the determining factor.
It gets worse when ideology comes into play. Black or Latino applicants will not get favored treatment if they are interested in pursuing what French calls “white” professions, “such as, say investment banking. A Mexican American who writes an admissions essay about defending the rights of migrant farm workers” will be a “dream candidate, but a black candidate who aspires to work for Goldman Sachs” will be seen as “less diverse.” French insists he is not exaggerating for emphasis; that “these are real-life examples.”
French describes “one of the most memorable incidents” during his time on the admissions committee at Cornell. The “committee almost rejected an extraordinarily qualified applicant because of his obvious Christian faith (he’d attended a Christian college, a conservative seminary, and worked for religious conservative causes).” French’s fellow committee members spoke openly about whether they wanted this young man’s “Bible-thumping” on campus. French objected, noting that his own background was “even more conservative” than the applicant’s. “To their credit, the committee members apologized and offered him admission.”
I guess this is encouraging. But one cannot help but ponder how few admissions committees around the country have members like French to shame the politically correct liberals into giving conservative and Christian applicants for admission the benefits of the “diversity” that they insist is central to a just society.
French closes his article with an observation about the unfortunate unintended consequences of these “lowered expectations” for black and Latino students: “Even achievement-oriented students tend to work hard enough to accomplish their goals — and no harder. Why tell the best and the brightest black and Latino students that they don’t have to do as well, that they can take their foot off the accelerator and still attend the best schools?”
It is not just students applying for admission who face left-wing biases; those who apply for faculty positions get the same treatment, even at Catholic colleges. A reader forwarded to First Teachers an ad for an opening to teach a course in “Christian Ethics to begin in the fall of 2016” in the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Villanova University in Pennsylvania. (You can find the advertisement by going to higheredjobs.com and entering Villanova University.)
Villanova is not one of those Catholic colleges that has moved to fully secularize itself. The university’s website notes that school was “founded in 1842 by the Order of St. Augustine,” and that “to this day, Villanova’s Augustinian Catholic intellectual tradition is the cornerstone of an academic community in which students learn to think critically, act compassionately, and succeed while serving others.”
It sounds like a university that would welcome on its faculty a Catholic scholar like Jacques Maritain or Christopher Dawson, doesn’t it? But I couldn’t help but wonder how Maritain or Dawson would be treated if they responded to Villanova’s faculty opening, wherein Villanova informs us the applicant to teach the course on Christian Ethics should be “conversant with Catholic moral theology and contemporary cultural issues. Particular consideration will be given to individuals with demonstrated interest in global poverty, the global common good, praxis-oriented ethics, liberation ethics, contextual ethics, or comparative ethics.”
The announcement goes on to note that Villanova welcomes “applications from colleagues who work in an interdisciplinary way so as to advance the department’s academic focus on the Augustinian tradition of faith engaging culture. We especially encourage applications from ethnic minorities and members of other underrepresented groups.”
Specifically, the university states it is seeking applicants who understand the extent to which “diversity and inclusion have been and will continue to be an integral component of Villanova University’s mission.”
Liberation ethics? Contextual ethics? Comparative ethics? Perhaps it would be unfair to assume that this means an endorsement of moral relativism and the brand of liberation theology that Pope John Paul II went to such great effort to condemn for its Marxist underpinnings. Perhaps those in charge of the Department of Religious Studies and Theology at Villanova would welcome the insights to these matters that would be provided by someone like Maritain and Dawson. But I wouldn’t bet on it.
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Readers are invited to submit comments and questions about this and other educational issues. The e-mail address for First Teachers is fitzpatrijames@sbcglobal.net, and the mailing address is P.O. Box 15, Wallingford, CT 06492.
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