Education

Nice Try, Columbia! (Well, Not Really…)

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Universities and colleges have made it pretty clear so far that they fully intend to continue to engage in “good racial discrimination” in admissions despite the Supreme Court finally declaring affirmative action what it is and has always been: unfair, illegal and unconstitutional. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the majority opinion in the Harvard and University of North Carolina cases, inadvertently (or not) gave the green light for this: he noted that a black applicant could still get an edge by signalling his or her diverse “experiences” and exemplary character in the face of adversity by writing an essay about dealing with the traumas of racism. Now administrators know they can favor black applicants over white and Asians (who can be seen above at Harvard demonstrating for discrimination against themselves) on the basis of race if they’re clever enough about it.

This wasn’t clever enough: Columbia Law School’s admissions page on its website this week announced that “all applicants” had to submit a 90 second video answering a “question chosen at random.” You know, like “What race am I?” The requirement was supposedly intended to “allow applicants to provide the Admissions Committee with additional insight into their personal strengths and academic or other achievements.”

All it took was a wave of critical social media posts flagging Columbia’s lame trick to persuade the law school that it needs to come up with something else. The video requirement didn’t even last the day.

A spokesperson told reporters that the video statement requirement was “posted in error.”

Sure.

Comment Of The Day: “I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged…”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Humble Talent has provided a nicely provocative snapshot of the frustrating and weird state of the quest for fair college admissions. Here is his Comment of the Day on the post, “I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged Because The Problem Is Easy To Fix. So Fix It.” (It also touches on the “disparate impact” scam, discussed here in another context.)

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What I have trouble dealing with is how incoherent some of the positions some of the people are taking are.

Legacy admissions are a great example. We all know why they’re happening: Legacy admissions are a great way of enticing future philanthropy out of donor parents. While I’m sure there are some racists in admissions, that’s financially driven, not racially driven. But we pretend it’s a racial issue because of disparate impact.

In fact, we’re supposed to pretend that legacy admissions are a resource of white supremacy, despite the fact that legacy admissions are almost perfectly proportionate, at least for white applicants (hovering very close to 70%). I don’t know about you, but if I were designing a system that was supposed to privilege my race over others, I might devise a system where my race isn’t almost perfectly proportionately treated.

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I’m Sick Of Hearing These Arguments That College Admissions Favor The Wealthy And Privileged Because The Problem Is Easy To Fix. So Fix It.

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Nicholas Kristoff, a another New York Times progressive pundit but one who occasionally makes sense, has an intermittently valid op-ed in today’s paper titled, “The Real College Admissions Scandal,” which is, he argues, “affirmative action for the rich and privileged.”

Kristoff immediately knee-caps his own credibility by writing, perhaps to please his Dark Woke Masters, “I wish the Supreme Court had ruled differently on affirmative action for race, but unfortunately it blocked that path for diversity.” It’s a stupid statement. The Constitution blocked that path, and so did the 1964 Civil Rights Act. What his statement literally means is that he applauds “good racial discrimination and prejudice”, but deplores it when it adversely affects groups he cares about.

He also comes close to setting off the hypocrisy alarm, but at least is transparent. While including “legacy admissions” in his list of “affirmative action for the rich and privileged,” Kristoff says, “I was a member of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and my wife, Sheryl WuDunn, is currently a member and previously served on the Princeton and Cornell boards; our three children also attended Harvard.” Hmmm. So, having benefited from the policies he condemns while doing nothing to reform them, the pundit now want to stop others from benefiting from them! Cool. He also is silent about how much money he has given to his alma mater over the years. Donors also get an edge for their kids when they apply to prestige colleges.

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Our Woke Education Apocalypse Update: The Failure Of The “I Promise” School, And Other Horrors

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

With great fanfare, NBA immortal LeBron James established the “I Promise charter school in 2018 to educate “at-risk” students. The I Promise School, which teaches children from 1st to 8th grade, promises:

With education as the driving force of change, the LeBron James Family Foundation is not only spreading that impact and improving lives of inner-city students and families, but also shifting the course of an entire community. Focusing on his hometown of Akron, the Foundation’s I PROMISE program provides year-round resources, access to opportunities, supportive skill development, constant encouragement and other wraparound supports to more than 1,300 Akron Public School students who have all been guaranteed college scholarships if they do their part. These efforts have culminated in the groundbreaking new public school – the I Promise School – that is taking an innovative approach to providing a challenging, supportive, and life-changing education, creating a new model for urban public education.

Soaring and inspiring words…it’s too bad that the Akron Beacon Journal reported this week that the 2023 “class of eighth graders at the I Promise School hasn’t had a single student pass the state’s basic math test since the group was in the third grade.” Moreover, “The state has also issued its first concern about the school: two of I Promise’s biggest subgroups of students, black students and those with disabilities, are now testing in the bottom 5% in the state, landing the school on the Ohio Department of Education’s list of those requiring targeted intervention.”

The response from those responsible? “Huminahuminahumina…” Stephanie Davis, the new principal of the school this year who was introduced as “the perfect person to lead the I Promise School and all of our families to the success we know they will achieve,” according to the school district, had no immediate explanation.

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Unethical Website Of The Month: American College of Forensic Examiners Institute

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

This post is juuust a little bit late. The website in question is still up, but has been involved in “website maintenance” for years, though promising to be back in “a few days.” It won’t be: GOOD. However, it is instructive to consider the saga of this epically unethical website in light of the recent revelation that the most famous forensic expert of them all, Dr. Henry Lee, used fake forensic evidence to help send two teenagers to prison for 30 years for a crime they didn’t commit. It is also useful perspective for the current fealty the political Left and the mainstream media wants Americans to pledge to “experts” who will explain why progressive policy cant just “follows the science.”

When it isn’t performing its tax-payer funded role as a progressive propaganda mouthpiece, PBS is still capable of doing valuable investigative journalism. In 2012, a notable example was the Frontline series called “The Real C.S.I.,” blowing the whistle on the forensic science racket then being extolled weekly on network TV as all-but-infallible. There were a lot of head-exploders in the series, among them that fingerprints might not be as unique as we have assumed, but one of the main discoveries in the series was that criminal trials all over the country were being influenced by “graduates” of the American College of Forensic Examiners Institute (ACFEI), an on-line diploma mill founded and operated by a shady entrepreneur named Robert O’Block. ACFEI would certify someone as a forensics expert essentially for cash, though there was an “exam” that had a more than 99% pass rate. PBS interviewed a reporter who took the exam and got her certification despite knowing little more about forensic science than the average “C.S.I Miami” fan. O’Block, meanwhile, had turned fake credentialing into an empire, with 14 separate certification scams. These in turn churned out an estimated 70,000 fake forensic experts who were routinely admitted as legitimate testifying expert witnesses by judges who accepted O’Block’s meaningless certificates as sufficient proof of expertise.

O’Block also sent one certification to a prison inmate and bestowed another on his cat. ACFEI was never recognized by the US Department of Education’s Distance Education/learning Department, or the Federal Trade Commission/FTC, but most of the time neither judges nor defense attorneys took the time to check.

In 2017, O’Block, then 66, fatally shot himself after killing his 27-year-old girlfriend. On the disciples of this pillar of rectitude and ethics did a substantial segment of the American criminal justice system and its juries place their trust as they sent accused American to prison.

Investigative reporter Radley Balko wrote in part upon the occasion of O’Block’s demise,

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Apparently “Bite Me!” In Response To Woke Pseudo-Social Science Research Is Facism

/ Jack Marshall / 44 Comments

Frequent commenter Other Bill gets credit for the headline as well as the pointer to a telling, if ridiculous, story.

Oregon State University researchers had circulated a survey regarding LGBTQ students in STEM to engineering undergrads. As described in the scholars’ paper, published in the Summer 2023 edition of the “Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies,” many of the students surveyed resented the questions about their gender as well as the premise of the research, and demonstrated their disapproval by entering gag and satirical responses to request for their gender and ethnicity.

Among the answers:

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It’s Unethical For Democrats, the News Media And Activists to Gaslight The Public, But On The SCOTUS Affirmative Action Smack-Down, They Did It Anyway

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The coverage of the recent rulings in Students for Fair Admissions v. University of North Carolina and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard almost universally created the impression that they were further attacks on democracy by a rogue Supreme Court, foiling the will of the people. In particular, these decisions blocking institutionalized institutional racist discrimination, which is what higher education affirmative action is, were assailed as creating disastrous hurdles to black Americans as they strive to succeed in this nation plagued by systemic racism.

Two recent polls show that this narrative was fake news from the news media and misinformation from the Left. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey found that 65% of “Likely U.S. Voters” approve of the rulings, with 49% approving “strongly”. Just 28% disapprove of the conclusion that the prohibition on discriminating by race means no discrimination by race. You can read how the questions were posed here. Another poll from YouGov/The Economist asked “Do you approve or disapprove of Supreme Court’s ruling on affirmative action?” Both sexes, all races, every age group, and every level of income approved more than not. (See here.)

Yeah, I know: polls. In this case, however, these easily manipulated surveys perform a service. The Supreme Court’s function does not and should not involve following the mob, but appealing to mob emotions has been a central strategy by progressives as they seek to de-legitimize the one branch of the government they don’t control. An accompanying myth is that the Roberts Court is an obstacle to “the will of the people,” even when, as in this case, the will of the people is supported by the Constitution and our laws.

Even after a concerted and ongoing effort to inflict Marxist goals, racial quotas and “good” discrimination on the culture, our core values have stood up to the propaganda siege—so far.

There is hope.

“Curmie’s Conjectures” #3: Confucius and the Fourth Circuit

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

by Curmie

Twentysomething years ago, a few months after completing my PhD, I got a phone call from my mentor in Asian theatre, who, upon learning job search wasn’t going as well as I might have hoped, asked if I wanted to teach a couple sections of the university’s Eastern Civilizations course.  I asked if I was really qualified to teach such a course.  His response: “You know something, and you can read.” 

Based largely on his recommendation, I got an interview for the position.  I made no attempt to conceal my ignorance of a lot of what I’d be teaching.  But the department had struggled with grad students who had lost control of their classrooms, and I’d taught full-time for ten years before entering the doctoral program; I got the job.  The head of the Eastern Civ program closed the interview with “There are some books in my office you’ll want to read before you start.”  I knew something, and I could read.

That’s relevant to my consideration of the recent ruling of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Porter v. Board of Trustees of North Carolina State University, in which a tenured faculty member claimed to have been punished for arguing against certain initiatives undertaken by his department.  I’m no lawyer, so there’s some legalese I’m not so sure about, and I have no interest in chasing down all the precedents cited by either the majority or the dissent to see if they really say what these judges say they say.  But I know something and I can read. 

More to the point, one of the texts I taught in that Eastern Civ course was Confucius’s Analects, which I had to get to know a lot better than I did previously in order to teach it to someone else.  One of the central tenets of Confucian thought was his argument against having too many laws, as no one could possibly predict all the various special circumstances surrounding every dispute.  Context matters; timing matters; motives matter.  Confucius’s solution was to turn everything over to a wise counselor (like him) who would weigh all the relevant elements on a case by case basis.  That’s not the way our justice system works, nor would it be practical, but it’s easy to see its appeal… in theory, at least.

Significantly, Confucius’s reservations about laws’ inability to anticipate all the possible combinations of circumstances are the first cousin if not the sibling of what Jack calls the “ethics incompleteness principle” which asserts that there “are always anomalies on the periphery of every normative system, no matter how sound or well articulated.” 

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Of Local Radio, Law vs. Ethics, Ruthless Capitalism And “It Is What It Is”: The WOAS Saga

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

WOAS 88.5-FM is a high school radio station, one of only 200 remaining in the U.S., that has been broadcasting from the Ontonagon High School building in Michigan since 1978. It has only10 watts of broadcasting power, but is still one of only two radio stations in Ontonagon, on Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula. Not only does it provide some listening variety for the town, it also is a valuable educational and recreational vehicle for high school students. Two snack vending machines inside the school largely cover WOAS’s costs, and everyone is a volunteer. After school hours, members of the community volunteer their time as disc jockeys.

WOAS is a Class D station, the lowest FCC classification, covering low-power, noncommercial radio stations. These are considered too weak and disposable to warrant regulatory protection, so when unprotected” from other broadcasters, which can legally overpower its signal or simply apply to take over the station’s place on the dial. WHWL 95.7-FM, with10,000 times the broadcasting power of the school station, applied to the FCC to take over its frequency and place on the radio dial. The FCC said, “Sure! Go ahead!” granting a license for a new station on 88.5 FM, where WOAS lives. The high school radio station now has to find itself a frequency, which costs money, or go gently into that good night.

When the high school asked the radio giant why it chose its place on the radio dial to invade, the answer was classic Bill Clinton: it did it because it could. The big station said it needs to expand and FCC rules allow them to just take over. A consultant looked at available frequencies available to WHWL to add stations, and it deemed 88.5 FM “the best.”

The fact that a high school was currently operating from there was not, apparently, part of the equation, or considered at all.

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A.I. Ethics Updates

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

1. Apparently Alexa and its ilk are causing heartburn among legal scholars. How should conversations over-heard by virtual assistants be treated when they are offered as evidence in court? Among the analogies that are being run up the metaphorical flagpole is a comparison with …parrots, as an eavesdropper who can accurately repeats information it overheard but was not expected to disclose. Courts have refused to admit testimony by parrots. In one case, a parrot named Max repeatedly cried out, “Richard, no, no, no!” after the murder of his owner. The defense attorney in the case wanted to have this evidence admitted the accused murder’s name was Gary. The attorney argued, unsuccessfully, that the “testimony” was not hearsay, but rather like a recording device. Despite expert testimony that that breed of parrot had the ability to accurately repeat statements, the evidence was excluded.
In another case, Bud the Parrot, began incessantly repeating, “Don’t fucking
shoot!” after one of his owners shot the other.

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