Victor Davis Hanson // Private Papers
Just appearing this week in the news are stories that our elite colleges have sent out letters of admissions. White applicants at many universities have been accepted at historic lows of about 28 percent (of a population base of 68-70 percent), despite the supposedly cherished tradition of ‘proportional representation.’
Will the most aggrieved at the new racialist discrimination and reduced slots be the suburban, bicoastal white liberal professional classes? They put a high premium on the quality and branding of their children’s education? Did the Left, then, strangle many of its own?
If a teenager works nonstop for four years, achieves all the requisites that universities say they require, from grades to test scores to “community activities,” and then is rejected by these schools due to being a white or Asian male, will it work to say, “Your rejection is a small sacrifice that America must pay to become truly diverse?”
We should assume that when athletes and legacies (e.g., their alumni parents or grandparents gave a lot of money) are factored in, the new admissions will also eliminate entirely the white lower- and middle-classes, who without privilege lack both the correct appearance and the money, influence, and leverage to navigate around the woke gospel.
If admissions are now adjudicated by race (and not just merit, class, or intellectual diversity), do grades and test scores either no longer matter, or have to be arbitrarily “adjusted” for the necessary beneficiaries?
Does this ying prompt a yang? That is, if thousands of highly prepped students are being turned away from tony colleges for reasons other than their transcripts and scores, would not the beneficiaries be a Hillsdale College or other superb but often neglected traditionalist campuses that enshrine merit as still essential for admission, while appearance is incidental? Should we not see these alternatives even further ascend?
Are there larger currents here? United Airlines will now institute pilot training by racial allotments. Are they assuming that the old meritocratic standards were unnecessary constructs, and thus those who did not meet them still had the requisite skill, in the age of computers, not to crash planes and kill passengers?
Discussion (9)
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Overall I agree with the article. However, get over of this United Airline quota thing. I was in the pilot training business (simulators) for several years and would like to point out that anyone who has certain skills, and puts in the requisite flight time can become an airline pilot, which has at least two meanings. One is the name of the FAA certificate, the other a job description. As far as airline safety goes, just because the airline reduces its pool of potential pilots, it doesn't affect safety as long as those chosen from the smaller pool have met the requisite standards.
Perhaps United will market their new system so that travellers might choose their flight by flight numbers that no longer designate destination or route but by the flight crew. First two letters to designate Captains Race and Gender, thus alphabetically Asian, Black or White, Second letter FMT Female Male Transgender and naturally, of course, Gay stands alone then the next three letters for the Copilots designation. Should prove popular and easily defined as the flight of your choice!
Not to worry. The Aircraft has been made woke enough not to crash when the pilot is non-white.
The speed at which our country is being "transformed" must startle even it's most recent startegist, Mr. Obama. As my father used to say "Who woulda thunk it?".
Also overlooked is that some large number of the whiter admitees at the elite universities are of European Jewish ancestry. Add that in to equation along with the legacy admitees and the upper middle class and wealthy whites and you see that all other whites in America are present in the student bodies of these institutions only in vanishing numbers. That said, who came down some mountain with some stone tablets on which it was written, Harvard and Yale run everything and even the rest of Ivy's only get to pick up the pieces that are left. A long time ago, I coined the term "The Crisis of the New Order." The crisis has reached a boiling point now, fueled greatly by the fact (and it is a fact) that everyone is trying to be an opportunist and no one is willing to think their way out of the crisis even though the necessary adjustments really are relatively simple.
Merit, competition and diligent farming of history's lessons got us to the moon, the opposite leads to despair and want.
Take the Carlsonian next step and tell us - of the 28% "whites" - how many are Jews? - subtract them from "whites" - and then what percentage are we? Robert Siesco
Oh yes! And I'm being both amused and highly irritated with the new welcome and open doors for "Climate Refugees". I thought they were all the old ladies who moved to Florida to get away from snowy winters!6 This administration is likely to go along with the "Green New Deal" because they can't be bothered to read the science that points out that in the last 100 years, the climate has warmed by maybe a single degree. All the fuss in Georgia because nobody can be bothered to read what Georgia's new voting regulations actually say. Racism intrudes. Maxine Waters is widely condemned for commenting on the Chauvin trial, but nobody criticizes the President of the United States' intrusion into the jury decision to tell them how he wants them to vote. That one should call for a new trial..
When the best and the brightest cannot gain admission or be considered for jobs, we are all losing out on those future opportunities that may result from innovation and inventions by these overlooked individuals. Recently United Airlines announced their policy to increase diversity based on race and not qualifications. Quite honestly, I don't want to fly on a plane that is not piloted by the BEST person. Mediocrity does not appeal to me at all. We never taught to be 2nd best in anything. These policies are just plain stupid. https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/06/united-airlines-to-open-flight-school-plans-to-increase-diversity.html