Admission to Colleges

This week at the White House a reporter asked the press secretary if people in the administration thought affirmative action policies at colleges discriminated against white students in a manner suggesting holding such an opinion would be at least a hideous breach of etiquette and probably something far worse.  (The question was probably inspired by  information leaked  to the New York Times about  Department of Justice hiring lawyers to look into the question of discrimination in admissions to colleges and by the reactions to it of  various Democratic politicians and their friends.  It turned out that the investigation apparently will deal with claims of discrimination against Asian students. The Times missed that, whether carelessly or perhaps on the premise that its audience would appreciate the evil of the thing more readily if the possible beneficiaries were white.)

The accepted  hypocrisies and taboos  of a society require that certain things not be publicly mentioned or considered even if they are not only  true but  obviously so.  Affirmative action in college admissions is a good example. Admission policies  which set lower standards   for black and Hispanic applicants than for white and Asian ones discriminate against the latter two. By excluding them from admission, these policies harm all white and Asian applicants  whose qualifications are below the white/Asian acceptance point(s)  but above the black/Hispanic one(s).   It is possible to argue honestly (though I think wrongly) that such discrimination is a good thing, but it is not possible to argue honestly that the discrimination does not exist.  If person A has higher overall qualifications for admission  than person B before  the race of either is considered  but is rejected while B is accepted once  the race of each is considered, then A has been discriminated against on the basis of race.

The dust up this week illustrates how well accepted the hypocrisy and taboo on this issue are. It also indicates more than a little fear among those who favor something they may not be able to defend.