University of Oxford Chancellor Says Affirmative Action Lowers Standards
Saying such a thing is pretty much a form of heresy on college campuses these days.
Business Insider reports.
The head of one of the best universities in the world says that affirmative action means ‘lower standards’
Responding to criticism about dismal diversity metrics, Chris Patten, the chancellor of the University of Oxford, disparaged the concept of racial quotas, as Quartz reported.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Patten said that quotas lower standards:
I am in favor of universities recognizing their responsibilities for promoting social inclusion. But I don’t think that if you want high-class universities, you should expect them to lower their standards in order to make up for some inadequacies in our secondary education system.
Nobody will explain to me how you can make a system of quotas work while retaining the highest admissions standards. Quotas must mean lower standards. There are better ways of addressing social inclusion at universities.
Patten’s remarks blame high schools, rather than Oxford, for failing to prepare certain students for acceptance into prestigious universities.
Earlier this year, British Prime Minister David Cameron specifically chastised Oxford in public remarks because the university accepts people of color at significantly lower rates.
“Too many in our country are held back – often invisibly – because of their background or the color of their skin,” Cameron said in January, citing the fact that a mere 27 black students were admitted among a class of 2,500 for the 2014 school year.
“We must be far more demanding of our institutions, do even more to raise aspirations, and be relentless in the pursuit of creative answers,” he continued.
The head of one of the best universities in the world says that affirmative action means 'lower standards' (Business Insider)
Comments
Schools and colleges are for education, not indoctrination or social engineering in the cause of “fairness”. Intelligence and the ability to learn is color and gender blind.
Quotas must mean lower standards.
Of course.
What else can quotas possibly be?
Some group (a school, a profession, a team, a club) which is in some sense exclusive—that is, not everyone automatically qualifies for membership or inclusion—lowers its standards until some particular population unqualified for membership magically becomes qualified. That’s what Affirmative Action is. Then, to keep those new positions open for the target population, those also newly qualified but not from the preferred target population must be kept out. That’s what quotas do.
AA and quotas aren’t the same thing, but they’re flip sides of the same coin. They’re all about pretense. Much like the Hutus chopping the legs off Tutsis in Rwanda; it doesn’t make the Hutus taller, but it makes them seem as tall as the Tutsis.
Oh ya think????? When DNA content and phenotype are more important than achievement, then of course standards lower. Academia did this to itself by playing that game in the name of fairness. It isn’t fair to give things to those who didn’t earn it. It creates resentment.