John Stossel is not the first, and will not be the last, to call out the inequities of letting different races into competitive colleges. "Diversity" is a positive feature, because it is not academic achievement alone that determines one's position later in life. Evolutionary biology teaches us that monocultures are extremely vulnerable to perturbance, and an all-asian-and-white, legacy-children-from-Exeter-and-Andover student body is a sitting duck for any major cultural or sociatal shift. That is why it makes sense to admit athletes with lower test scores and grades - athletes tend to make significantly more money later in life (and then gift it their alma maters) than non-athletes with comparable admissions scores.
The question I would ask is not what the cause of these policies is, but what is the effect? We have a generation and then some of diversity admissions programs. What has the effect been? Have the diversified schools benefited in any objective measure, and which measures? Do African American Ivy graduates go on to make more money, or start more non-profits, or file more patents, or win more elections than white ivy graduates? Do hispanics Ivy graduates acheive executive positions, or sell more albums, or publish more journal articles, or defend more cases, than their asian brethren?
I never understood the use of race as a stand-in for diversity. I understand cultural diversity - Economics, religion, ethnicity, country of origin, whether you were raised by one or two parents - these all are huge contributors to value systems and learned experience that can make a community of any kind more resilient. A school enriches itself by bringing in new perspectives; but it enriches itself more by bringing in the white South African ghetto superstar than well-educated, upper middle class black South African. Without evidence to the contrary, I believe using race as a stand-in for diversity is lazy, divisive, and counter-productive.
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