Robert Weissberg makes a very compelling case on this topic at Minding the Campus:
The Affirmative Action Failure MachineAffirmative action in today’s colleges and universities is a giant failure machine. Every year thousands of black and Hispanic students, who have been led to believe that a college degree is well within reach and a first step toward economic success, are admitted to schools for which they barely qualify. The inevitable consequence is failure, whether that means dropping out due to low grades, enrolling in remedial courses, or switching majors from a STEM field to a less demanding “studies” department. It’s not pleasant to always be at the bottom of the grading curve while classmates regularly out-perform you. Tellingly, this psychological injury cannot be ameliorated by celebrating diversity and creating segregated dorms. That academically troubled blacks and Hispanics often excelled in their high schools and enjoyed sky-high self-esteem will only deepen their feelings of inadequacy.Failure per se is not the problem; it’s the reaction to falling short that is critical. Being unsuccessful is ubiquitous in a meritocracy that celebrates success. Elite schools reject nearly all applicants, while professional sports teams ruthlessly cull the inept. Most business start-ups fail. Of the utmost importance, however, is that those who try out for a sports team or start a business know from the very beginning that failure likely awaits them. They thus accept disappointment, albeit often painfully. It’s all part of the rat race—nothing ventured, nothing gained.Unfortunately, the beneficiaries of racial preferences do not seem to exhibit this quiet acceptance of failure. Rather than being thankful for the opportunity to compete with the very best, those who come up short often grow bitter and resentful. Such anger might seem rational, and is certainly understandable. These beneficiaries might ask: Who enticed me to enroll in a school where I was doomed to fail? Not me. Who’s responsible for telling me to waste years of my life? Not me. Or to acquire all this debt? Not me.Anger then turns political, as the beneficiaries denounce the college or university as racist, biased against people of color, a bastion of white privilege, or worse. It would be as if those cut by an NFL team excoriated professional football as an evil scheme run by rich, white men designed to humiliate people by insisting on arbitrary, unrealistic standards for speed and dexterity.
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