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When I saw the headline “U. Michigan courts minority applicants despite affirmative action ban,” I thought the story would be another example of leftist reporting. The headline, egregious though it is, is misleading. It seems to express the sentiments of Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan and hater of Proposal 2, rather than the college reporter. If that’s the case, I’ll cut the “junior journalist” some slack.
Coleman, on the other hand, is a different story. In the minds of leftists, anyone who favors equal treatment in the college admissions process is somehow against “diversity” (read: blacks).
Pandering to a black audience at a black church (sound familiar?), Coleman “delivered a resounding reaffirmation of the university’s dedication to diversity” and got a “standing ovation.” Based on her previous statements about Proposal 2, the Michigan law that bars skin color preferences in government hiring and admissions, I suspect her pabulum speech was a rant against the people of Michigan for having the gall to believe in equal treatment over preferences. What the article fails to mention and what liberals rarely get right is that being anti-race preferences is not the same as being anti-black.
Pay attention, Ms. Coleman:
The original purpose behind affirmative action was to reach out to Americans once excluded from certain admissions and hiring processes because of race and include them in a wider pool of candidates. The idea was to give qualified blacks an opportunity to apply to colleges and for jobs previously closed to them. What affirmative action turned into was a racial spoils system by which underqualified blacks were admitted or hired, despite not being as qualified as everyone else in the pool. Do you see the distinction?
If Coleman had been speaking to a room full of black conservatives, I can tell you this, she wouldn’t have received a standing ovation. More like a telling-off. 
Liberals like Coleman make Proposal 2 sound like a throwback to Jim Crow. To liberals, banning race preferences means being anti-black. To the contrary. If one favored turning away equally or more qualified blacks in an admissions or hiring pool because they’re black, he/she most definitely could be considered anti-black. That’s not what’s going on, however, and Coleman knows it. But she’s part of the keep-black-folks-stupid movement, so what can you expect?
I’m one of only a few black bloggers/writers speaking out against lowered standards for blacks (which makes me a “hater†of my people), and sometimes it’s maddening. But being a “voice in the wilderness” is what I’ve been for three years. Here’s to 30 more…
Update: For unbelievers in the audience, here’s just a sample of what goes on at colleges and universities with separate admissions tracks (i.e., race preferences). I linked to this article some months ago, but in case you missed it the first time around (emphases added except section heading):
The studies are based on data supplied by the University itself, pursuant to freedom-of-information requests filed by CEO and the Michigan Association of Scholars. The studies were prepared by Althea Nagai, a resident fellow at CEO, and can be viewed on our website, www.ceousa.org.
Severe discrimination favoring black applicants over white and Asian applicants was found at all three schools in all four years for which data were received (1999, 2003, 2004, and 2005, the most recent year for which data were available). Hispanics were also favored, but by less; frequently whites were given preferences over Asians, although to a still smaller extent.
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Undergraduate Admissions
It is noteworthy that race and ethnicity are apparently more heavily weighted in undergraduate admissions now than in the system declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 2003.In the most recent year for which data were available (2005), the median black admittee’s SAT score was 1160, versus 1260 for Hispanics, 1350 for whites, and 1400 for Asians. High-school GPAs were 3.4 for the median black, 3.6 for Hispanics, 3.8 for Asians, and 3.9 for whites.
In the four years analyzed, UM rejected over 8,000 Hispanics, Asians, and whites who had higher SAT or ACT scores and GPAs than the median black admittee—including nearly 2700 students in 2005 alone.
The black-to-white odds ratio for 2005 was 70 to 1 among students taking the SAT, and 63 to 1 for students taking the ACT. (To put this in perspective, the odds ratio for nonsmokers versus smokers dying from lung cancer is only 14 to 1.)
In terms of probability of admissions in 2005, black and Hispanic students with a 1240 SAT and a 3.2 high school GPA, for instance, had a 9 out of 10 chance of admissions, while whites and Asians in this group had only a 1 out of 10 chance.
These disparities are reflected in subsequent academic performance at the University of Michigan, where blacks and Hispanics earn lower grades, and are less likely to be in the honors program and more likely to be on academic probation than whites and Asians.
Whether or not you support race preferences and how ever you justify supporting them, you can’t argue, with a straight face, that blacks admitted under the University of Michigan’s admissions system are just as qualified as other applicants. Based on Roger Clegg’s research, one can truthfully make this statement: Black applicants are underqualifed compared to whites and Asians.
Argue that it doesn’t matter, if you like, or that special treatment is historically justified, or quibble over the term “underqualified,” but you can’t argue away the numbers.
This system of lowered standards for blacks is what University of Michigan president Mary Sue Coleman supports.
Also, see this recent article in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Although the article makes at least one erroneous assumption, it’s still worth reading. An excerpt referencing the University of Michigan (emphases added):
Far more disturbing is the poor black student graduation rate at the academically selective University of Michigan. This is a huge state university of 40,000 students. And performance there is a national bellwether. Only 67 percent of entering [black] students at the University of Michigan go on to graduate. Currently there are nearly 1,900 black students at the University of Michigan, the largest black enrollment of any high-ranking college or university. If these black students graduate at the same rate as their peers in the recent past, more than 600 of them will fail to earn their bachelor’s degree.
As for the nation’s other high-ranked institutions, only three other schools have a black student graduation rate below 70 percent. They are the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Colby College, and Carleton College.
Update II: Commenter Ben makes a good point (emphasis added):
You know what’s really painful about this?
In a school like that, the typical white or asian student is going to be, on the rough average, better prepared academically than the average black student. And it’s going to show, and everyone is going to see it, and it will only reinforce racial stereotypes all round. By saying “we will accept a poorer level of academic preparedness from blacks†the faculty will create a disparity where none existed! What good is diversity if it only adds to the problem? In a class of a hundred, 3 black kids who are every bit a match for their white counterparts will be a strong example against stereotypes, but 10 black kids who are there because the standards were lowered for them will make it worse, and even obscure the effect of the 3!
