Diversity Trumps Education In CA

Katy Grimes: Since when are race and ethnicity “front and center in the state’s education system”? Isn’t education supposed to be the goal?

In an op-ed in the Sacramento Bee, Linda J. Wong, executive director of the Center for Urban Education at the University of Southern California, touted the Obama administration’s decision to make it easier to consider race in promoting a diversity agenda in California public colleges and universities.

Wong’s op-ed is devoid of fact. Instead it promotes the violation of Proposition 209, the California constitutional amendment approved by voters in 1996. Prop. 209 prohibits the government from granting educational or employment preferences to individuals based on race. But that hasn’t stopped the affirmative action crowd.

I am sure that there are good students in every college class who were admitted under race and ethnicity policies, and benefitted from attending college. However, there are many more that just take up valuable space, eventually dropping out. Because race and ethnicity guidelines are not promoting excellence or merit, it is just another California entitlement — and the recipients know it.

The term “diversity” is nothing more than a politically correct name for racial discrimination policy, and the exploitation of divisiveness, a well-worn tool of the left.

Affirmative Action Policies

Ask any person of ethnicity who achieved all “A” and “B” grades in high school, and legitimately earned a seat into university, what they think about the guidelines. I have asked. I’ve been told that diversity and racial preference policies are offensive to those who worked hard and know they made it to college on their own merit.

In 2011, the Obama Department of Justice ordered the Dayton, Ohio police department to lower its entrance exam scores in order to allow more blacks on its police force. Yet, Dayton NAACP President Derrick Forward replied, “If you lower the score for any group of people, you’re not getting the best qualified people for the job. … The NAACP does not support individuals failing a test and then having the opportunity to be gainfully employed.”

“While 13 percent of our population, blacks are 80 percent of professional basketball players and 65 percent of professional football players and are the highest paid players in both sports,” wrote George Mason University Economist Walter E. Williams. “By contrast, blacks are only 2 percent of NHL’s professional ice hockey players. There is no racial diversity in basketball, football and ice hockey.”

Exposing the ridiculousness and uneven application of diversity policies, Williams asked, “What should Attorney General Eric Holder do about the lack of diversity in sports?”

If merit is the sole guideline in sports, why isn’t it in education and the workplace?

‘White American Culture’ 

In the comments section of the Bee op-ed, “Multicultural Professor” wrote, “Diversity means an educational curriculum that isn’t completely dominated by European American history and perspectives. It means understanding cultures other than the White American culture that we grow up consuming through media and education. It means not being a racist that doesn’t understand or acknowledge the importance of all other races and ethnicities succeeding as well. I think you should get it right and stop spreading your racist viewpoints here.”

Whoa. How does understanding cultures other than the White American culture fit into teaching actual U.S. History, Ancient History, United States Government, Comparative World Governments, or even World History — all mandatory curricula taught in California public high schools?

Wong never addresses other ethnic groups who are not Hispanic or black. Not satisfied with promoting only Hispanic and black students into college ahead of students who met college guidelines, Wong admitted that admission policies have been the traditional target of diversity efforts, but that the new Obama administration diversity guidelines “make other — and potentially more promising — approaches feasible.”

“The state’s education leaders should take advantage of Obama’s new diversity policy and move aggressively to expand college opportunities for Latino and black students,” said Wong. But Latinos and black students have been the target all along.

Where do the ethnic people of the Middle-East, Asia, the Orient, India, Indonesia, Japan and the Philippines fit in?

Apparently they don’t need extra help to succeed.

Racial Policies Promote Mediocrity

Race and diversity policies remove the work ethic component from achievement. Race and diversity policies erase the time-honored reward that anyone, regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or disability, who works hard and wants to achieve in an academic setting, can and will get an education. It just may not be at Harvard or Stanford.

Diversity policies discriminate because of race, and assume that those being preferred and promoted are incapable of achievement without help from the government. And that’s offensive.

It’s a shame that these same people who promote affirmative action and racial preferences don’t follow up on their college students during college and after graduation, into graduate school or when they become employed.

“Which serves the interests of the black community better: a black student admitted to a top-tier law school, such as Harvard, Stanford or Yale, and winds up in the bottom 10 percent of his class, flunks out, or cannot pass the bar examination, or a black student admitted to a far less prestigious law school, performs just as well as his white peers, graduates and passes the bar?” asked Williams. “I, and hopefully any other American, would say that doing well and graduating from a less prestigious law school is preferable to doing poorly and flunking out of a prestigious one.”

“Black people can’t afford to have our youngsters turned into failures so that in the name of diversity race hustlers and white liberals can feel better,” Williams added.

I’ve worked with affirmative action recipients who clearly were promoted through school because of race, as well as the grant money attached to them, and not because of achievement. And unfortunately, racial preferences often instill a detrimental attitude, allowing recipients to think that they don’t have to work hard, compete or achieve, to be advanced. When they are finally bounced out of a job for poor performance, they are shocked.

The Future of Affirmative Action in California

With farcical policies like affirmative action, I see employers in the future turning away California’s public university graduates. The only employer left to hire them will be the government, which is where many currently seek refuge.

Racial preferences are racism. Diversity is an politically correct term used by liberal elites to try to bring honor and virtue to policies that are racist.

The term “progressive” is now used to make liberals look more appealing; they don’t like being called “liberal.” But there is nothing progressive about offensive racial policies that demean the best, brightest and most talented of America’s ethnic communities, and locks out many of the best, brightest and talented non-ethnic students.

Katy Grimes