Abysmal Coverage Of Race In The New York Times (Cont’d) (Cont’d)

A couple of days ago I discussed the Abysmal Coverage Of Race In The New York Times (Cont’d) (“Cont’d,” because I had discussed the same thing a year and a half ago, here).

The Adam Liptak article that prompted my recent post was so full of it objectionable stuff that of necessity I didn’t respond to everything that deserved comment. Now an email from a friend pointed to a particularly slow pitch, from UC Davis law professor Vikram Amar, at which I should have taken a hard swing.

Amar, as quoted by Liptak, argued that prohibiting admissions officers from discriminating on the basis of race had reduced the proportion of blacks “systemwide” in the University of California (which does not include the state colleges and universities, city colleges, etc.) “to about 3 to 4 percent from the 5 to 7 percent it would have been.” That, he continued, “creates practical problems.”

For example, the entering law school class at Davis has fewer than 200 students, and the new students are divided into three large sections in their first year.  The handful of black students, he said, may all be assigned to the same section to avoid “creating feelings of isolation.”  Other sections may have no black students.

“3 to 4 percent” of 200 is 6 to 8 students. I think a strong argument can be made that intentionally assigning all of them to one section, for whatever reason, violates Prop. 209’s now constitutional obligation to treat students without regard to their race.

It is also worth pointing out that this sort of racial assignment also violates the sacred tenets of “diversity” worshipped by proponents of racially preferential admissions, because assigning all the blacks to one section deprives all of the students in the other two sections of the magical and marvelous (and, it is always asserted, educationally essential) rewards of “diversity” that those black students would have provided to their now-deprived peers.

In the old days, of course, before Prop. 209 required students to be treated as individuals and not as racial and ethnic ciphers, perhaps 4 to 6 of the 10 to 14 black first year law students (using Amar’s numbers, and assuming that Davis no longer considers race in admissions) would have been admitted specifically for the purpose of providing that “diversity,” i.e., they would not have been admitted based on their own non-racial merits.

Liptak, the New York Times, et al. want us to lament the passing of those days. On the evidence of extensive polling data, most of us don’t.

Say What?