I don't care much about whether the president decides to weigh in on the upcoming Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of racial preferences in college admissions or not. The notion that a Bush administration might decide to sacrifice principle for politics is not exactly a concept unthinkable in this universe.
One of the reasons for my indifference is that regardless of how the issue is decided, it is certain that the giant rock which covers the pernicious insects of affirmative action will be removed one day. Then it will be interesting to see some of the most shameless cockroaches of American culture scurrying for cover when the harsh light of truth exposes the devastating impact of their self-serving arguments.
I do not subscribe to the belief that personal experience is a substitute for logic. But for those of you that do, I will say that I happen to know far more about the problems faced by American blacks seeking higher education than the average white boy. This is because as a NCAA Division 1 athlete competing in an area dominated by blacks of West African descent, I was in the distinct minority. There's not a lot of melanin-challenged individuals in the sprinter-jumper-hurdler group at that level, so to paraphrase Jack Kemp, I've showered with more black men than many of you have ever known.
But the fact that I was down with P.E. before they went political or that I can still drop the lyrics of NWA's "F--- Tha Police" upon request is irrelevant. What is relevant to the debate is what I saw happen to my teammates, who, thanks to the drive for diversity at our elite institution, were thrown into an impossible situation and left to flounder by the very people who claimed to have their best interests at heart.
Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams and Ward Connerly have written volumes about the theoretical flaw with affirmative action in education – namely, that it systematically sets up young men and women for inevitable failure. I, like many others, can testify that this flaw is not theoretical, but real, and furthermore, it affects the majority of black students seeking college degrees. There is a very solid reason that black dropout and failure rates are so much higher than those of other races, and it has nothing to do with discrimination, past or present.
I particularly remember a required statistics course in which I had little interest. The material was basic and I was rather occupied with an interesting independent study so I didn't even bother going to class most of the time. Two of my black teammates happened to be in the same course, but despite excellent attendance, doing all the homework and studying very hard, they ended up with Ds. I don't recall ever getting less than B+ on a test, on the other hand.
These girls weren't stupid, nor were they poorly prepared or suffering from bad study habits. But as I learned when I tried to help them, it was quite clear that they simply weren't operating at the intellectual level required to keep up with the rest of the class. It was sad to see how they fell further and further behind as the class blew through a new chapter every week. The situation was no better for most of the black students on campus, as despite the daily study sessions which the two black fraternities made mandatory at the library, many of their members spent their entire college career on some form of academic probation. But we had diversity!
There was one success story, however. A good friend of mine from the soccer team had attended a top prep school and done very well on his entrance exams, but he chose our university over a more prestigious choice because of our school's notorious dedication to Greek symbols and fermented beverages. He had no problem with his classes, graduated from medical school and established a successful practice in a difficult specialty.
But he should have been failing out of Harvard, I suppose. Does it serve anyone's interest to have kids who could succeed at the state schools bombing out of the private colleges, while those who would have been fine at the second-tier schools struggle at the elite institutions?
Only the insects of affirmative action who wish to wield the whip as overseers for their race, and those who seek to keep black Americans on a political plantation.