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Rue II

In the immediately preceding post I discussed higher education officials ruing the lack of ?diversity? in science and engineering.

?Diversity,? of course, is lacking all over, at least enough of it to satisfy the diversifiers. For example, both men and minorities (presumably of both genders) are woefully ?underrepresented? in study abroad. It?s not clear to me exactly why the lack of ?diversity? is a problem among Americans who study abroad, but then (see preceding post) it?s also not clear why it?s a problem in domestic education, either.

I?ve said it before, and I?ll say it again: if not enough men or minorities choose to study abroad, or not enough minorities choose to study science, draft ?em!

1) If the yield [of admitted minority students who chose not to attend the University of California] has declined over the past 10 years, that is not the result of 209. That is, 209 didn?t keep those who were admitted but chose not to attend from attending. That was their own choice. [Not altogether frivolous aside: If ?diversity? is as important as its advocates claim, draft them! Why should they be allowed to choose not to attend a college that needs them so much when K-12 students who want to attend a different school from the one to which they are assigned are often held hostage to ?diversity,? i.e., not allowed to transfer because their leaving would deprive the remaining students of the advantage provided by being exposed to them.

2) If our national security really depends on having more women engineers, perhaps women should be drafted and sent to engineering schools.

3) I?ve said it before and I?ll say it again: if ?diversity? is important enough to the education of non-minority students at selective institutions to justify sacrificing the right of applicants to be free from racial discrimination, it?s important enough to draft some minority students and require their attendance at those schools. Why should their merely personal and individual interest in their own freedom of choice trump the needs of large numbers of otherwise diversity-deprived students to be exposed to them, especially since the trespassing on the drafted minorities? freedom of choice would affect only a relatively small number of individuals.

Every time an applicant is rejected who would have been accepted in the absence of ?diversity?-justified preferences, we confirm that individual choice must be sacrificed to some supposedly greater national good. Thus, since we have already established that ?diversity? can trump individual choice, as I concluded here, ?drafting a few minorities and women [and men to study abroad] to provide such an essential service would seem to be a small price to pay for something on which our society depends.?

Full post as published by Discriminations on December 04, 2008 (boomark / email).