Glass Ceiling on Scholars
When Dr. Ward Connerly heard that the University of California (UC) Regents academics had spearheaded a system-wide rule change, he wasn’t surprised.
Connerly, president of the American Civil Rights Institute and architect of Prop. 209, the 1996 policy that effectively banned affirmative action state admissions, recently wrote in mindingthecampus.com that since state school administrators weren’t exactly ecstatic about the skyrocketing Asian enrollment, they recently approved a change in policy.
Starting in 2012, “UC will no longer automatically admit the top 12.5% of all students…Instead the eligibility pool will be expanded by a projected 40% by eliminating” the SAT requirement…
The situation reminded Connerly of his chat several years ago with a UC administrator who favored a guided “admissions policy instead of letting the chips fall where they may,” since that might result in too many Asians.
When Connerly asked what would be wrong with that, the administrator said that Asians are “too dull—they study, study, study,” adding that “If you ever say that I said this, I will have to deny it.”
But facts are facts. In the wake of Prop 209, the percentage of Asian enrollment “in the nine undergraduate UC campuses is over 40%, in a state where Asian population is about 13%.”
It has taken Asian civil rights groups a while to realize that they should lead “grassroots opposition” to this emerging policy change.
But Dr. Connerly noted that the time has come to confront “the not-so-subtle hand of discrimination against Asians that masquerades as ‘building diversity’ at many elite colleges.”
The problem, he said, is that some of them are still stuck in a mindset of believing that this new diversity track will benefit “those devilish whites.”
Deborah Lambert writes the Squeaky Chalk column for Accuracy in Academia.
Deborah Lambert
