Federal
prosecutors have charged more than 50 people involved in cheating and bribery
in order to get their children admitted to some of the nation’s most
prestigious colleges and universities such as Georgetown, Yale, Stanford,
University of Texas, University of Southern California and UCLA. They often
paid more than $100,000 to rig SAT or ACT exams. In some instances, they bribed
college officials and secured their children’s admissions to elite schools
through various fraud schemes. As corrupt and depraved as these recent
revelations are, they are only the tip of the iceberg of generalized college
corruption and gross dishonesty.
According to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, 70 percent of white high school graduates in 2016 enrolled in
college, and 58 percent of black high school graduates enrolled in college.
However, that year only 37 percent of white high school graduates tested as
college-ready but colleges admitted 70 percent of them. Roughly 17 percent of
black high school graduates tested as college-ready but colleges admitted 58
percent of them.
About 40 percent of college
freshmen must take at least one remedial course. To deal with ill-prepared
students, professors dumb down their courses so that students can get passing
grades. Colleges also set up majors with little or no academic
content so as to accommodate students with limited academic abilities. Such
majors often include the term “studies”: ethnic studies, cultural studies,
gender studies or American studies. The major selected by the most ill-prepared
students, sadly enough, is education. When students’ SAT scores are ranked by
intended major, education majors place 26th on a
list of 38.
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One
gross example of administrative dishonesty surfaced at the University of North
Carolina. A learning specialist hired to help UNC athletes found that 60
percent of the 183 members of the football and basketball teams read between
fourth- and eighth-grade levels. About 10 percent read below a third-grade
level. These athletes both graduated from high school and were admitted to UNC.
More than likely, UNC is not alone in these practices because sports are the
money-making center of many colleges.
It’s nearly impossible to listen to college presidents, provosts and
other administrators talk for more than 15 minutes or so before the words
diversity and inclusion drop from their lips. But there’s a simple way to
determine just how committed they are to their rhetoric. Ask your average
college president, provost or administrator whether he bothers promoting
political diversity among faculty. I’ll guarantee that if he is honest — or
even answers the question — he will say he doesn’t believe in that kind of
diversity and inclusion. According to a recent study, professors who are
registered Democrats outnumber their
Republican counterparts by a 12-1 ratio. In some departments, such
as history, Democratic registered professors outnumber their Republican
counterparts by a 33-1 ratio.
The fact is that when college
presidents and their coterie talk about diversity and inclusion, they’re
talking mostly about pleasing mixtures of race and sex. Years ago, their agenda
was called affirmative action, racial preferences or racial quotas. These terms
fell out of favor and usage as voters approved initiatives banning choosing by
race and courts found solely race-based admissions unconstitutional. People had
to repackage their race-based agenda and call it diversity and inclusion. Some
were bold enough to argue that “diversity” produces educational benefits to all
students, including white students. Nobody has bothered to scientifically
establish just what those benefits are. For example, does a racially diverse
undergraduate student body lead to higher scores on graduate admissions tests
such as the GRE, LSAT and MCAT? By the way, Israel, Japan and South Korea are
among the world’s least racially diverse nations. In terms of academic
achievement, their students run circles around diversity-crazed Americans.
I’m not sure about what can be done
about education. But the first step toward any solution is for the American
people to be aware of academic fraud that occurs at every level of education.
Walter
E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished professor of economics at George
Mason University, and a nationally syndicated columnist. To find out more about
Walter E. Williams and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and
cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page.
Copyright © 2019 Creators.com
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