Extra marks

for diversity
Monday’s middle-of-the-road decision by the U.S. Supreme Court approving affirmative action but not point systems used to achieve racial diversity probably won’t change college admissions procedures one whit. “Point” systems will just be called something else.

Colleges – public and private -must employ some measure to implement affirmative action. Some, like the University of Michigan, use hard and fast point systems. Others, like Bates College, don’t assign points but do weigh race as a factor for admission. Although different, both systems require some kind of extra mark for minority students. How else could college counselors, who review thousands of applications every year, ever tag minority applicants?

The court ruled on two cases, each in which defendants argued they were denied admission to the University of Michigan system because they weren’t minorities. They argued that the admission process should be color blind, that no one should get special treatment based on race.

That’s an overly idealistic argument.

Affirmative action is special treatment, to be sure. On the scale used to measure special treatment in our society, though, it’s a morsel compared to the discriminatory “special treatment” minorities routinely encounter in neighborhoods, at work, in borrowing to buy a home, in public parks and private parties.

Affirmative action is a tool, ruled to be constitutional, we can and must use to balance other kinds of destructive special treatment society has stubbornly adhered to. Unfortunately, even with affirmative action, most colleges don’t even come close to mimicking the racial mix found outside their ivy-covered walls.

If students enter college to study for the real world, student populations must fairly represent that world.


A costly filter
Nearly every public library has a book that contains Pastor Martin Niemoller’s oft-misquoted sermon decrying the Nazi regime:

“First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Social Democrats, but I was not a Social Democrat, so I did nothing. Then they came the trade unionists, but I was not a trade unionist. And then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew, so I did little. Then when they came for me, there was no one left to stand up for me.”

For our libraries, that is now more than a quote. It’s a warning.

The government wants to order public libraries to filter online pornography. We can do nothing because the U.S. Supreme Court has approved this interference of free speech.

What’s next?

What will the government decide children cannot view?

What will it decide adults cannot read?

What will it decide any of us must not see?

The court-approved interference isn’t mild. It carries a financial penalty if libraries don’t comply.

They must install filtering software, if ordered by the government, or forego federal funding. That’s hardly a choice for cash-strapped libraries.

Public acceptance of Internet filtering could be easily stretched into acceptance for removal of certain books from shelves. Who will make those decisions and about what content?

Who will be left to stand up for freedom?

The ideal of free speech is absolute because imprinting personal morality and values, even to protect children, confines speech, which then constricts information and confounds free thought.

The end result is a society of suppressed, tax-paying drones.

Is that our future?


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