Affirmative Action: Absurdity and Beyond

Glenn Ricketts

You keep wondering – and hoping -if we’ve finally reached the outer limits of idiocy and self-deception in the academy’s affirmative action fixation. Unfortunately, we’re not there yet. 

This recent piece over at NRO by NAS’s Carol Iannone surveys the ever-expanding perimeters of affirmative absurdity, as college admissions offices relentlessly probe the shades of pigmentation or proportion of your blood lineage that might qualify you as a member of an underrepresented minority group and thus contribute to their school’s efforts at “diversification.” 

Some unwitting and ringing reinforcement of Carol's description of the unending inanity  comes from this anonymous piece at IHE (doesn’t that speak volumes about the state of things?) by one of those doggedly recruited “diversity” hires.  Wouldn’t it be nice, he asks, if he could simply be known for his academic competence and accomplishments, rather than his skin color? 

It sure would.

  • Share

Most Commented

July 30, 2024

1.

Don’t Cry for Them, Academia

The dark secret of anti-Semitism is that ignorance alone cannot explain it away or absolve those who adhere to it. If anything, the most vivid episodes of history’s anti-Semitism have......

June 6, 2024

2.

Backlash: Sometimes It Hurts So Good

We have undermined the leftist status quo in higher education for decades with the persistence of Morlocks. You really should be more alarmed about us than you are. Not that I’m going......

August 6, 2024

3.

An Elephant Walks into Class

An assessment of the Republican higher education platform....

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

September 6, 2024

2.

Professor Alleges "Widespread" Discriminatory Hiring Coverup at University of Washington

Audio acquired by the National Association of Scholars describes allegations of coverup race-based hiring coverup at the University of Washington...

October 12, 2010

3.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...