Affirmative action: an idea whose time has come... and gone

Yesterday, in an update to "Hey whitey! You'll never work for the CBC again!", Walt mentioned that the cover story in this week's Economist is a briefing entitled "Time to scrap affirmative action". The "briefing" consists of three articles, examining the reasoning (?) behind and consequences of affirmative action policies in the USA, South Africa and Malaysia. Here are the titles and a few select quotes.

Unequal protection (on access to universities in the USA)

Lino Graglia, holder of an endowed chair at the University of Texas at Austin law school, thinks "lower[ing] standards to admit members of preferred groups" is "a bad idea".
Black law students fail the bar exam at four times the rate of whites.

A study...found that black students with average grades and test scores were almost three times more likely than Asians with similarly average qualifications to get into medical school.
More black than white high-school seniors aspire to science and engineering careers, but once in college twice as many black students as white abandon those challenging fields.

Universities can ensure diversity without race-based affirmative action. If [the Supreme Court's] ruling...helps bring America's experiment with well-intentioned discrimination in universities to a close...it will not be because the country has entered...a "post-racial" period. It has not. Blacks and Hispanics will still lag behind white in income and education levels, and still exceed whites in incarceration rates. But one set of injustices does not excuse another.

Fool's gold (on South Africa's black empowerment policy)

Black empowerment has not worked well. Nor will it end soon.

The white elite at the top of South African business has been joined by a sliver of super-rich blacks. ...Cyril Rampaphosa, a union-boss-turned-tycoon who is now the ANC's number two (and therefore perhaps the next president of South Africa), is worth $675 million.
The lot of poorer blacks, however, has not improved much.

The binding constraint on greater black participation in the economy is education.... It is no good setting quotas if there are not the skilled workers to fill them....

A Never Ending Policy (on policies favouring ethnic Malays in Malaysia)

The policies which favour ethnic Malays and other indigenes at the expense of Malaysia's ethnic Chinese and Indian citizens are an oddity. [These citizens] chafe at being second-class citizens. Quotas in university admissions are particularly resented. Chinese and Indian students flock to private and foreign [universities]. Those who leave often stay away.

Critics of [the policy] worry that it dulls [Malays'] incentives to excel. There is evidence of a skills gap.
A survey...found that 71% of Malaysians agreed that "race-based affirmative action" was "obsolete" and should be replaced with a "merit-based policy".

Further reading in this week's Economist, and by far the leader in online comments is this week's editorial, "Time to scrap affirmative action"

Note from Ed.: The Economist has a paywall, so the links may or may not work for you. If they don't, and the fallacy of affirmative action concerns you, consider buying a copy of the print edition, if you can find a newsstand or other store that still sells magazines.

Or you might think about subscribing. The Economist is the one and only magazine Walt actually pays to get. And no, we're not getting paid to say so.  

And one more note... This is Walt's 1500th post. Congratulatory messages may be written on the back of a cheque (or "check", if you're American) and sent to the usual address.

Queer students campaign against Christian law school

Yesterday Walt passed on a report that 2/3 of the self-identified Christians in Notsogreat Britain felt they have become a persecuted minority in their own land. Persecuted, that is, by "aggressive secularists" supported by their own government, headed by "Conservative" Prime Minister David Cameron.

Today we look at Canada, where one would think freedom of speech, freedom of religion and, indeed, freedom of thought, would be guaranteed by the Charter of Rights, thus safe from the predations of political correctness. One would be wrong.

Walt takes you now to Langley, British Columbia, the home of Trinity Western University.

TWU is a small(ish) university compared with behemoths like UBC, but it has a wide range of programmes, offering undergrad and graduate degrees in the humanities, education, even medicine. It would like to start a faculty of law, but its attempt so to do is meeting with opposition from the usual gang of social activitsts and secular humanists.

Why the fuss? It's because Trinity Western University is... wait for it... a "faith-based" institution of higher learning. That right, dear reader. Those people are religious!

The idea of having a law school where students would be taught real ethics and religious ideals is being challenged in a petition by students from eight other Canadian law schools. Their reasoning (if such it can be called) is that TWU's Christian policies discriminate against... wait for it (again)... the LGBT (queer) "community".

The homophiliacs' petition asks the Federation of Law Societies of Canada and the BC Ministry of Advanced Education, Innovation and Technology [Why do the names of these government departments get longer and more complex every year? Ed.] to reject the accreditation of TWU's proposed law school, claiming parts of the university's student handbook are contrary to the rights of LGBT students, faculty and staff.

Here's the deal. If you want to study or work at TWU, you're asked to sign a Community Covenant Agreement, outlining the university's conduct expectations, and your rights and duties as a member of the institution. OK so far? It's normal, surely, for a school, company, social club, government agency -- any organization -- to have policies and procedures which you must accept, either explicitly or implicitly, if you want to belong.

But... TWU's Community Covenant Agreement contains a clause that requires community members to abstain from "sexual intimacy that violates the sacredness of marriage between a man and a woman." Shock! Horror!

The handbook says that if a student fails to comply with the agreement after signing it, the university "reserves the right to discipline, dismiss, or refuse a student's re-admission to the University". In other words, if you break the agreement you signed, you exclude yourself from the organization.

But OUTlaw -- a group representing the LGBT gang at the University of Alberta -- doesn't see it that way. A spokesthingy, Christopher Ghesquier, told CBC Radio (natch!) "This discriminatory policy really does not represent Canadian law. I think it definitely does offer a less welcoming environment for LGBT students to attend [TWU]... Despite the fact that the law recognizes same-sex marriages, the school seems not to."

To which Walt says, so what, Chrissy?! You don't have to go to TWU if you don't think you will be welcome there. And you are already going to the University of Alberta law school, eh? So what's it to ya?!

Trinity Western was a little more moderate in its response. Their statement regarding the petition says the agreement being challenged was "rigorously researched and developed" after consultation with legal experts. "While we value and respect differing views, we trust that a faith-based community still has the religious freedom in Canada to maintain its beliefs and participate fully in society."

Walt hopes TWU's trust that Canadian law societies and governments uphold the rights of religious minorities -- such as practising Christians -- is not misplaced. Walt hopes... but will not bet. Lifetime pct, like freedom of religion in our secular society, does not apply.