Kevin Gaines, a professor of history and Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan and one of the plaintiffs in the Schuette case the Supreme Court will hear next week, believes that prohibiting the state from discriminating on the basis of race (as Proposition 2 did) has created a chilling effect on his classes. As he “discussed the history of the civil rights movement in a University of Michigan class recently,” the Detroit Free Press reports, “he said he found himself looking at 15 white faces and two African-American faces. That lack of diversity,” the deprived professor complained, “made having robust class discussions difficult.”
Professor Gaines may well deserve our sympathy, or something, for his inability to generate a “robust class discussion” with only two black students in his class (whether he had any Hispanics or Asians or Native Americans or Muslims or Jews was not mentioned in the Free Press article, suggesting that Prof. Gaines may not need them for his discussions), but his inability hardly seems a sufficient reason for the Supreme Court to tell the citizens of Michigan that they do not have the right to require their state agencies to treat everyone without regard to race.
Although Prof. Gaines was teaching — or rather, attempting to teach — a history class, math would seem to have some relevance to his difficulty and his demand for more blacks. Concentrating as we must on what affirmative action forces us constantly to contemplate — not the content of the heads or the quality of the character of the students in Prof. Gaines’s class but the color of their faces — it is worth pointing out that 11.7% of them were black. Since the University of Michigan prides itself on being a national, not a parochial, institution, Prof. Gaines might well have been pleased that his black-deprived class had about the same proportion of blacks as the United States as a whole, where blacks make up 12.6% of the population. Is adding nine-tenths of a black person to Prof. Gaines’s class of sufficient importance for the state of Michigan to be given a license to discriminate on the basis of race?
Wait, you say that Prof. Gaines and his fellow plaintiffs are not asking for proportional representation, which would too closely resemble a “quota” that they, for some never explained reason, claim to oppose? The last time that question came up, in Grutter, they said they wanted only a “critical mass,” but they never said how large that was, and the percentages they had been admitting never varied very much from what looked like, well, a quota.
But again, is it really necessary for the Supreme Court to conclude that prohibiting discrimination based on race violates the 14th Amendment’s requirement of equal protection in order to provide Prof. Gaines with his quota or critical mass of blacks? It is true that if Prof. Gaines cannot generate robust discussions in class without more blacks, his non-black students are being deprived of the education they deserve, but since he had only two in class there was obviously an enormously large number of blacks on campus who did not choose to enroll. Why not draft several of them and require them to take his class? Many of them,, after all, were admitted to provide “diversity” to others. Why not assign them to a few classes where they’re really needed?
If race can be “taken into account” in admitting students (and refusing to admit others), as Prof. Gaines and his fellow plaintiffs want, surely it can be taken into account in assigning them to classes. That, after all, is precisely what the school boards of Seattle and Louisville sought in the Parents Involved case, and I’m sure that Prof. Gaines and his fellow Schuette plaintiffs supported their effort.
Perhaps a court would hold, echoing Chief Justice Roberts in Parents Involved, that Michigan does not have a right to mandate enrollment in various classes by race. On the other hand a creative court, echoing Chief Justice Roberts in the Obamacare case, might hold that a mandate is impermissible … but Michigan could impose a fee on any student who refused to enroll in suggested classes.
First of all, the popular “diversity” argument for Affirmative Action in college admissions is not a valid one. Here, the definition of “diversity” is called into question – do we define diversity in terms of skin color? or should diversity really be defined by different ideas, values, or cultures? Perhaps, the definition of “diversity” to many college admission officers is only skin deep. It is not only shallow but wrong. Are we saying all Asians share the same culture or all Blacks share the same idea? Many studies have pointed out colleges and universities are willing to set their AA “beneficiaries” for failure due to mismatch, simply so that the preference dispensers can look out upon their “diverse” student body and know that they are morally superior to the rest of the society and public based on their flawed “diversity” ideology.
Secondly, even if we all agree on “diversity” definition, to what extent should the diversity be implemented? Every school? Every campus? Every program? Every classroom? In U.T. Texas’ case, the school is trying to implement “diversity” in every classroom and every program even URM students number increased significantly under the top 10% state law without any racial preference treatment. This is where the school, in my view, loses its justification.
Thirdly, the notion that a school’s student population mix needs to strictly follow population racial profile is ludicrous. Are we saying all racial and ethnic groups work hard in the same degree and value education to the same extent? If one group of people are willing to work harder, why wouldn’t they be over-represented in colleges? Why should any student be punished just because he/she belongs to the hardworking group? Shouldn’t we all be judged by our individual characters instead of our race or color of skin as Dr. King eloquently said in his dream speech?
Lastly, diversity can’t be put ahead of equality. This country is founded on the basis of equal rights and equal protection. My argument is simple – why would one want to live in a “diverse” society where there is no equality?
Please visit Asian Americans Against Affirmative Action facebook page https://www.facebook.com/AgainstAA
So, if I understand Prof. Gaines’ position correctly, it would then logically follow that it is not possible to have a “robust discussion” in an online course, since in a format of that type it would not necessarily be possible to even know the racial makeup of one’s fellow classmates. And exactly how is this ‘class proximity’ supposed to occur via the aether of the internet?
It is hard to take Gaines’ arguments seriously, but apparently many in the intellectually isolated academic communities do.
And there is no longer any such thing as “equal protection”; blacks and, to a lesser extent, latinos are much more protected than whites and asians. Unfotunately to their detriment. No one, including the ‘protected’, have any idea whether they are capable of achieving on their own, without help and ‘protection’. How is that substantially different from the ‘protection’ arguments that slaveowners used to argue that freeing slaves would be detrimental to their welfare, and that for their own good they needed to remain slaves, where they were ‘protected’. For all their vaunted arguments against discrimination, the liberals are much closer in attitude to slaveowners than anyone else the most extreme right-wing segment.
“Of all the tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
—C.S Lewis (1898-1963)
…than anyone EXCEPT the most extreme right-wing segment….
Sheeeesh. Fumble-fingering everything today. Sorry.