I found this article interesting because it seems to prove that affirmative action simpy doesn’t work. Read the article, then I’ll explain:
Black enrollment at Harvard Law tanks by more than half after affirmative action ruling
The article cites a New York Post story:
“Harvard Law enrolled 19 first-year Black students, or 3.4 percent of the class, the lowest number since the 1960s, according to the data from the American Bar Association. Last year, the law school’s first-year class had 43 Black students.”
But here’s the problem: affirmative action in school admissions, where race is considered as a factor in admissions, did not produce increased levels of competency in the black student applicants. This seems contrary to presumed goal of equalizing the participation and competency of African-Americans in the education system for professional fields. If it had, then we would expect the current crop of black applicants to Harvard Law to compete equally with applicants of other races. Instead we find – 50 years later – that without consideration for race black students do not compete on an equal footing with other applicants.
How can this be? Why are black Harvard applicants not competing at an equal level with other applicants when race is not considered (or known) in the application process after more than 50 years of affirmative action? Can it still be racism, or is there another explanation?
I’ve discussed this before, but it’s worth bringing up again so here we go: affirmative action produces a separate class of applicants that only have to compete with each other and not the general population. The result is that affirmative action does not eventually produce equality by forcing people to compete on the same level; it only produces a racial caste system for education. Affirmative action will never result in equality; it will only lead to different classes of capability segregated by race. This will, as expected, increase racism – not defeat it.
It is time for affirmative action to end. It has not, nor will it ever, work. It’s time to correct the root causes – not pretend that they don’t exist. Only then will true equality be possible.