The Week

He would hire gays for the police force, says San Francisco Police Chief Charles Gain. In fact, there are twenty of them on the force now, and they should “come out of the closet” because they would “have the full support of the police.” The San Francisco force, says Chief Gain, should reflect the makeup of the community, including its homosexual population. Well, maybe so. But “reflecting the makeup of the community” constitutes a totally inclusive principle. What about crooks, maniacs, morons, the senile, the bedridden, and infants? Chief Gain has proclaimed the ultimate non-discriminatory principle, but he has a ways to go in living up to it.

Caught by the virtual bankruptcy of New York City, the City University of New York finally chose—after seven weeks of debate during which students rioted and the city threatened to shut down the University altogether —to end open admissions. Under the five-year-old open admissions program, CUNY had achieved a record dropout rate—40 per cent of its provisional students couldn’t pass a single remedial course. The debate was spirited. The chancellor first proposed that applicants to community colleges (who must be high school graduates) be required to pass an eighth-grade reading test. Furor! So he suggested a high school average of 70—or graduation in the top three-quarters of the class. Those who cannot pass those stringent requirements must enter a one-year remedial “transition program.”

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He would hire gays for the police force, says San Francisco Police Chief Charles Gain. In fact, there are twenty of them on the force now, and they should “come out of the closet” because they would “have the full support of the police.” The San Francisco force, says Chief Gain, should reflect the makeup of the community, including its homosexual population. Well, maybe so. But “reflecting the makeup of the community” constitutes a totally inclusive principle. What about crooks, maniacs, morons, the senile, the bedridden, and infants? Chief Gain has proclaimed the ultimate non-discriminatory principle, but he has a ways to go in living up to it.

Caught by the virtual bankruptcy of New York City, the City University of New York finally chose—after seven weeks of debate during which students rioted and the city threatened to shut down the University altogether —to end open admissions. Under the five-year-old open admissions program, CUNY had achieved a record dropout rate—40 per cent of its provisional students couldn’t pass a single remedial course. The debate was spirited. The chancellor first proposed that applicants to community colleges (who must be high school graduates) be required to pass an eighth-grade reading test. Furor! So he suggested a high school average of 70—or graduation in the top three-quarters of the class. Those who cannot pass those stringent requirements must enter a one-year remedial “transition program.”