Monday, October 01, 2018




DOJ civil rights investigation expands from Harvard to include Yale, Brown and Dartmouth affirmative action policy

The Department of Justice took a stand against prejudice last month when the department filed a complaint against Harvard College for discriminated against Asian American students. Now, the DOJ has taken this a step further by expanding their complaint to include three other universities known for discrimination in their admissions process. By expanding the scope of their complaint, the DOJ is reaffirming their commitment to justice and equality for all.

The Wall Street Journal reported this week that the DOJ is investigating Yale, Brown, and Dartmouth colleges for holding Asian-American students to a higher standard than students of other races and use an illegal quota to cap the number of admitted Asian American students.

The Asian American Coalition for Education continued in a Sept. 2018, “Compelling evidence indicates that Yale University and many other selective colleges in the U.S. fail to comply with [antidiscrimination] laws. On the contrary, they have applied de facto racial quotas, racial stereotypes and higher admissions standards to discriminate against Asian American applicants. After extracurricular activities and other factors are adjusted, an Asian-American applicant has to score on average 140, 270 and 450 points higher than a white student, a Hispanic student and a black student on the SAT, respectively, in order to enjoy the same chances of admissions. Such blatant and widespread discrimination against Asian American children needs to be stopped.”

According to the Wall Street Journal report, Yale has “unequivocally” denied any discrimination in admissions proceedings.

The Department of Justice and Asian American groups blame this discrimination on affirmative action policies, which are meant to provide historically marginalized minority groups with greater access to higher education. Unfortunately, Asian Americans are not viewed as marginalized enough to receive equal opportunities.

When the DOJ began investigating Harvard University in August, Attorney General Jeff Sessions noted, “No American should be denied admission to school because of their race. As a recipient of taxpayer dollars, Harvard has a responsibility to conduct its admissions policy without racial discrimination by using meaningful admissions criteria that meet lawful requirements. The Department of Justice has the responsibility to protect the civil rights of the American people. This case is significant because the admissions policies at our colleges and universities are important and must be conducted lawfully.”

In the lawsuit filed against Harvard, Students for Fair Admissions argued if the admissions process was based on an “academic-only” model, Asian Americans would comprise of 43.4 percent of the admitted class. Instead, this group makes up only 18.7 percent of the Harvard class. The Wall Street Journal found that Asian American students only make up 21.7 percent of the incoming class at Yale.

Clearly, discrimination is going on in universities across the country. A process intended to be built on fairness and merit has become one based on oppression Olympics and identity politics. Schools who collect taxpayer money cannot be allowed to discriminate against hardworking Asian American students or anyone else and the DOJ took a strong stance against this racism by combating these elite university policies.

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Sexual Assault on Campus: Advice for Parents

The Department of Justice apparently has plans to create a Title IX sex offender database, a development rife with problems of inadequate due process for the accused, according to Independent Institute Research Fellow Wendy McElroy, in an op-ed for the Daily Caller. Nevertheless, headlines about sexual assault and American campus life have many parents justifiably worried. Independent Institute Research Fellow Samuel R. Staley offers them advice in a recent op-ed published at Inside Sources and elsewhere.

Parents should be on notice: Extracurricular campus life may be more extreme today than they remember it from their own college years. Two great resources for becoming informed are American Hook-Up: The New Culture of Sex on Campus, by sociologist Lisa Wade, and We Believe You: Survivors of Campus Sexual Assault Speak Out, by two assault survivors, Annie E. Clark and Andrea L. Pino. The books offer a variety of illuminating perspectives about the problem and its consequences for young people and their parents. Staley also offers his own book on the topic, Unsafe On Any Campus? College Sexual Assault and What We Can Do About It, which explains why, in Staley’s words, “a pro-active and comprehensive approach to addressing the problem is crucial.”

“The first step for parents to help their children navigate the dark side of modern college life is to become better informed,” Staley writes. “The second step is to show unqualified compassion and empathy. The third step is to help guide our children onto a path toward healing and recovery. Together these steps can build emotional connection and offer buoyancy to young lives otherwise at significant risk of being lost at sea.”

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Scientists should be disabused of their pseudoscientific beliefs about learning

When I first met the physics professor, it was explained to him that I was a science teacher. This prompted something of a reaction. As an aside to the real purpose of the meeting, he proceeded to tell me how school science teaching should be improved. He explained, as if he was the first person to ever think of the idea, that students should learn through doing experiments and that they would remember concepts much better if they discovered them for themselves. He related an anecdote of a hands-on lesson he taught to secondary school teachers who visited his lab at the university. I couldn’t be bothered to argue back. We had other matters to address, limited time available and anyway, where do you start with such ignorance? But I think I missed an opportunity.

It can be baffling.

Science professors are often at the forefront of campaigns against pseudoscience. They will warn us against alternative medicines, promote vaccination and tirelessly point to the evidence that climate change is real. But when it comes to education itself, they often believe the woolliest load of old bunk. Why?

Firstly, I don’t think many of them realise that there is evidence about the most effective approaches to teaching and learning. I think they assume that it’s all a matter of opinion and, to be fair, hard evidence is the Cinderella of our education faculties.

Secondly, they suffer from a number of biases. The curse of knowledge means that they underestimate the vast amounts of specialist knowledge they possess and therefore downplay the role of education in imparting that knowledge. There is also evidence that people often remember concepts and ideas without remembering how and when they learnt them. Again, this could lead to scientists underestimating the role of schooling in this process. Perhaps they think they just quickly picked-up concepts as and when they needed them or independently from books.

It is also the case that professional scientists are likely to be outliers. They will have a high level of general intelligence and a high level of intrinsic motivation. An investigation that they imagine will be motivating for school children may be nothing of the sort. It is true that students generally like doing experiments, but it is not the case that this is always because of the science – sometimes students are motivated about playing with the equipment or having a break from reading and writing.

If you meet a profsplaining scientist, call them out. I did this with Brian Cox. I copped a bit of flak but I reckon it was worth it. If your scientist waxes lyrical about inquiry learning then point to the negative correlational evidence from PISA. If they show an interest in investigating further then send them to Kirschner, Sweller & Clark (2006), which does a good job of covering a lot of ground. Stay classy but stand your ground.

It would be great if we could persuade scientists to apply the same standards to educational ideas as they do to their own fields of expertise.

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