Affirmative Action…In Israel – The

Affirmative Action…In Israel – The Chronicle of Higher Education reports (link requires subscription) this morning that “Israel’s Hebrew U. Starts Affirmative-Action Program, and Sets Off Controversy.”

The plan, now under attack, was to admit 400 students from low-income neighborhoods into the humanities and social sciences division. They would be required to have high school diplomas but would not be required to take the standardized tests other applicants must take for admission to Israel’s elite research university.

Some of the controversy is uniquely Israeli, having to do with the power of the Finance Minister to promote the plan. But other parts are all too familiar. Silvan Shalom, the Finance Minister, described his plan as a “social revolution.”

As a parliamentarian, before being appointed finance minister last year, Mr. Shalom was a vocal advocate of open admissions at Israel’s public universities. He has been particularly critical of the standardized admissions exam, which he says discriminates against disadvantaged students. Most disadvantaged students in Israel are, like Mr. Shalom, the descendants of Jews who came to Israel from the Islamic world.

I find it interesting that the Israeli plan is structured and presented in economic terms (“low income neighborhoods”) even though its apparent purpose is at least partially ethnic (if that’s the right term): to help Jews who immigrated from Islamic countries as opposed to Europe or Russia.

It is not clear from the article whether the Israelis use the term “affirmative action” or whether the Chronicle, the leading newspaper of record for higher education in the U.S., applied it to the Israeli debate for the benefit of its American readers. But in either event, to me the most significant thing about the article is how unconsciously but pervasively “affirmative action” has come to be regarded as synonymous with lowered standards.