For the last several years, we have constantly heard demands for “equity” in education, which means that everything must be apportioned so that the various racial and ethnic groups share equally in the goods. It’s a demand for comprehensive government social engineering based on the assertion that the U.S. is so hopelessly racist that fair outcomes can never happen except through coercion.
Scholars who dissent from that are apt to face reprisals, so it takes some guts to argue that black individuals should be individually responsible for their success. That is just what Florida State professor Michael Creswell does in today’s Martin Center article.
He writes, “To this end, many colleges and universities have begun changing their admissions standards to ensure there will be a representative number of black students on campus. One initiative is to no longer require applicants to take a standardized test. Colleges are also altering their curricula in ways designed to help black students do better in the classroom. Efforts along these lines include eliminating or relaxing academic requirements that some educators claim are racist.”
But that approach has not done and will not do any good. Black individuals have a responsibility, too, to do the work to close the racial achievement gap, beyond looking to institutions or government.
Why? For one thing, Creswell says, “Lowering enrollment standards in order to admit more black students whose academic skills are measurably inferior to those of other admittees inevitably consigns many of the black students in question to the lower spectrum of the academic performance scale. This cruel fate will surely undermine their self-respect.”
The “equity” movement merely breeds a sense of victimhood, although that might be the hidden purpose.