May 26, 2020
Legislatures in California want to bring back racial preferences in college admissions. Some politicians believe banning affirmative action back in 1996 was a big mistake for California and are trying to take steps in appealing Proposition 209. ACA5 will be put into the November ballot, which would allow universities to accept students based on race and not merit.
The political language today is substantially different from 24 years ago. Over 20 years ago, leading up to Proposition 209, many African-American and Hispanic organizations claimed banning affirmative action would benefit Caucasian students. But a funny thing happened, Asian students ended up benefitting because once Prop.209 was passed, the UC system had to accept students based on merit and not race.
The years following 1996, the Asian-American student population at Stanford, UC Berkley, UC Irvine, UCLA, Caltech, UC Davis, and UC San Diego doubled and even outnumber Caucasian-Americans in some schools. Asian-American students accepted into these schools on merit are now nearly half the student population. Hispanic and African-American student population dropped by half following Prop.209; with African-Americans only holding a single-digit percentage of the population—athletes included, according to San Francisco Chronicle. USC being a private school, for example, has never allowed the Asian-American population to surpass 25%.
Progressives and liberals also hate California’s Proposition 209 because it proves their argument about affirmative action benefitting white women wrong, every-single-time.
The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) conducted a comprehensive study comparing the Asian-American student population in California, which does not practice affirmative action to other schools that do practice affirmative action and the differences were quite startling and painful for liberals to admit.
The link to the comprehensive CEO study can be found here
Caltech, which only admits students based on merit had an Asian-American population of 43% and an African-American population of 1%. However, MIT, which admits students based on race and not merit, saw an Asian-American population of only 26% and an African-American population of 6%.
Some argue MIT is simply a better school than Caltech and that’s why the Asian-American population is substantially lower, but if that were the case, why would the African-American or Caucasian population be smaller in Caltech than it is in MIT?
Is racial preference the way to go? Would this way of thinking apply to the NBA or NFL where Asian-American representation is non-existent? Or does it only apply when Asians dominate?
Many progressives love pointing to a McKinsey study, which showed a diverse workforce generates better returns and is more innovative.
The link to that McKinsey study can be found here
However, what that McKinsey study does not mention is the type of diversity in those companies that perform better. They mention companies like Google, Facebook, Intel, Apple, Microsoft…but there’s just one problem, the diversity they claim is better is mostly Asian and Caucasian.
The Asian-American employee population in Google is 39.8%. Blacks are 3.3% and Hispanics are 5.7%. These are the very numbers of diversity progressives hate, yet they brag about the McKinsey study proving diversity works. It does work, but it’s the exact type of diversity they’re arguing against.
Facebook also has a very large Asian-American employee population, as of 2019, standing at 43% of the company. Hispanics are 5.2% and African-Americans are at 3.8%. The McKinsey study shows diversity is beneficial, but once again, fails to mention the type of diversity is not aligned with progressive standards, which wants fewer Asians and more African-American and Hispanics.
Feature Image via San Francisco Chronicle