Notwithstanding the fact that 73% of Americans oppose “blatantly racist” college admissions laws, Washington legislators want to repeal a ban on consideration of race in state colleges’ admissions process.
By Donald Jeffries
Showing the usual disdain for those they supposedly represent, Washington state legislators have passed a measure that could take effect in one year. The new law proposes to repeal a ban on colleges considering race and ethnicity in the admissions process. The fierce opposition includes a new petition that states, “I-1000 [the measure passed by the legislature] can be summed up in one sentence: It would abolish the standard of equality for all, regardless of race, as required by I-200, and replace it with a system that uses different rules for people of different races.”
Ana Mari Cauce, president of the University of Washington, epitomizes the ironclad social justice warrior mindset evident in virtually all of our institutions of higher learning.
“I-200 puts the University of Washington at a competitive disadvantage when seeking to hire the best faculty and staff to lead our university,” she said. “It also hampers our ability to attract and enroll the strongest students from underrepresented backgrounds, who are so highly sought after by other universities because having a diverse student body creates a richer learning environment for all students.”
Cauce recently complained: “As one of our nation’s top research universities, we compete with institutions like Stanford, Texas, Wisconsin, and UNC Chapel Hill when trying to attract the most talented faculty to teach and lead cutting-edge research with our students. To those top faculty and staff that we wish to recruit, I-200 sends the message that the UW, and Washington state as a whole, does not welcome or value diversity, and when we lose out on attracting these desirable teachers, researchers, innovators, and administrators, it is our students and our state that pay the price.”
College Republicans at the University of Washington held a bake sale to protest the new measure, as they have done in the past over Affirmative Action in general. The group cleverly based the prices for their baked goods exclusively upon race, explaining, “Our bake sale prices are based on affirmative action, which as of last week is a legal policy in the state of Washington. I-1000 allows for race to be a factor in college admissions. This is a policy that has historically discriminated against Asian-American students and blatantly allows the government to discriminate based on race. We are against this blatantly racist law, and we hope to see it repealed.”
Cauce, predictably enough, was not amused. While acknowledging that it was appropriate to have “difficult conversations about affirmative action,” she stated that the bake sale did not encourage such conversations. Again sounding more like a parody than a professional educator, Cauce went on to denigrate the bake sale, which “appears to mock not so much just a policy, but individuals who belong to racial, ethnic, and gender groups that have historically been marginalized and that have often experienced very real prejudice, discrimination, and oppression. Indeed, the way that the poster advertising this event juxtaposes race and price is reminiscent of a time when persons in some of these groups were literally bought and sold. Regardless of its intent, this sale humiliates and dehumanizes others. It is no surprise that so many on our campus and in our community are deeply offended by it.”
This controversial new law comes at the same time that a lawsuit against Harvard University over Affirmative Action may be appealed to the Supreme Court. If that happens, it could have a huge impact on colleges nationwide. Eight states, including Washington state, have banned the consideration of race in university admissions, and the Supreme Court outlawed strict racial quotas in 1978. However, a large number of colleges circumvent this with what they’ve dubbed “racial preferences.” In a March 2019 Pew poll, some 73% of Americans said that race or ethnicity should not be a factor in college admissions. This included solid majorities among all racial groups, including blacks and Hispanics. Even a majority of Democrats opposed such race-based factors.
Edward Blum, the primary organizer behind the lawsuit against Harvard, wasn’t surprised by the Pew poll results. He declared that his view remained unchanged from what he said in response to the last poll, which showed a slightly smaller but still solid majority opposed to race-based admissions: “Racial classifications and preferences are deeply unpopular with a significant majority of all Americans. It is to be hoped that the courts will soon end these divisive and unfair practices.”
Such race-based policies, whether they are called Affirmative Action, quotas, or racial preferences, fly in the face of the kind of meritocracy Thomas Jefferson once dreamed of. Carried to its logical extreme, identity politics will not be satisfied until transgenders of all kinds and those “identifying” as animals or perhaps inanimate objects are granted “equal access” to everything our society has to offer.
Donald Jeffries is a highly respected author and researcher whose work on the JFK, RFK and MLK assassinations and other high crimes of the Deep State has been read by millions of people across the world. Jeffries is also the author of two books currently being sold by the AFP Online Store.
“I-200 puts the University of Washington at a competitive disadvantage when seeking to hire the best faculty and staff to lead our university,” she said. “It also hampers our ability to attract and enroll the strongest students from underrepresented backgrounds, who are so highly sought after by other universities because having a diverse student body creates a richer learning environment for all students.”…..what a load of Bullshit. Her statement can be distilled down to this: “we will ramp up bigotry, hate, prejudice against white people at all institutes of higher(LOL) learning.”