Tuesday, December 29, 2015

Scalia should be wearing different-colored robes

So Justice Scalia (R-KKK) recently commented in a Supreme Court hearing that non-white students would be better off in less-elite schools because such students would be overmatched in top schools.

He believes in the 'mismatch theory' which claims that non-white students at elite schools are damaged when they don't succeed to the extent of their white counterparts.

In an amicus curiae brief filed in support of the defense, constitutional lawyer Kimberly West-Faulcon writes that mismatch theory ”based on the unproven and unprovable mismatch theory” that posits that when African-American students are admitted to elite schools, that they are damaged in some vague, ill-defined way. While mismatch students' graduating GPAs are somewhat lower, those students have been shown to be better citizens. Studies have shown that when controlled for educational background that the educational outcomes between “mismatch” students and those admitted solely based on academic qualifications disappeared.

Additionally, and tellingly, while proponents of mismatch theory insinuate that beneficiaries of “mismatch” theory are black or Latino, the truth is that most 'mismatch' subjects are white or Asian.

The fact that Scalia makes his claims about the wrongfulness of affirmative action in the Abigail Fisher makes Scalia's white privilege even more galling. She claimed that her place at the University of Texas was taken by a person of color.

Nevermind that she didn't qualify for admission to the University of Texas based on the university's policy that the top 10 percent of high school graduates were automatically admitted.

Neither did she qualify among the remaining 25 percent of the University of Texas' class that granted admission based on a broader range of wholistic experiences that the university values.

Yet Scalia still has the nerve to claim that people should be admitted to university based on their academic qualifications.

I guess legacy admissions don't count as affirmative action.

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