Washington Voters Say No to Campus Racial Discrimination

One of the least publicized but still highly significant results from this year’s elections came last week in Washington state, where voters rejected a move promoted by the state’s progressive establishment, allowing state universities to pursue affirmative action policies that favored some racial groups over others.

In November 1996, the voters of California approved the California Civil Rights Initiative, making it unconstitutional to discriminate in favor or against someone on the basis of sex, ethnicity or race in governmental hiring, contracting or public education, including admissions at state universities. Successful in California, the promoters (led largely by African-American entrepreneur Ward Connerly) successfully had similar legislation (not always constitutional amendments) approved in several other rather large states, including Washington and ultimately (2006) Michigan. The Washington Initiative 200 passed with more than 58% voter support in 1998.

Fast forward to 2019. Progressives in the university community and in the legislature do not like the restraints the civil rights initiative imposes, especially the legal difficulty it creates for race-conscious admissions decisions. As the continuing Harvard legal action clearly attests, race is importantly considered in admissions at most of the nation’s top universities, and from university rhetoric “diversity and inclusion” seems to trump learning as a primary objective at some schools.

The Washington legislature, dominated by progressive Democrats and supported by the governor and other political heavyweights, decided to enact legislation effectively negating Initiative 200, which was not an amendment to the Washington constitution. But they did not reckon on the fierce and ultimately successful opposition of a growing political force: the state’s large population of Asian ancestry. They mobilized to put on the ballot the pro-affirmative action proposition approved by the legislature. They were effectively outspent, as they had to devote considerable resources merely to get petitions signed to get the issue put before the voters. Nonetheless, they narrowly prevailed.

Washington is a pretty left-leaning state. Nine of its 12 Members of Congress are Democrats, as is its governor. Democrats solidly control both the House of Representatives and Senate. Yet the voters sided with the Asian-Americans arguing that race (and other biological attributes) should not be a factor in making decisions about who to admit to colleges and universities. The nearly religious devotion of college administrators and faculty to making hiring, contracting and college admissions decisions partly on racial considerations does not comport with the wishes of the people.

Again, I observe: in a democracy, there are limits to the extent to which universities, heavily supported by governments, can pursue policies that the American people mostly disagree with. Ultimately universities, even so-called private ones, are wards of the state, receiving large direct government subsides (state university appropriations), or indirect subsidies, such as tax deductions for university gifts.

The American people do not like the fact that loud protesters can disrupt individuals from expressing their opinions on campus; they don’t like the racism arising from universities picking a student for admission over another more academically qualified student because some racial designations are considered better than others. They don’t like the excessive costs of schools either. Hence, opinion polls have shown public support for universities is trending downward.

Add to all of this some disquieting fiscal reality. Our nation is heavily debt-ridden, with the federal government currently borrowing $3 billion a day to pay its bills at a time of near-record low unemployment. Talk of expensive new government programs like “free college” or student loan forgiveness simply is not fiscally responsible, unless we increased taxes by, say, 20% at the federal level.

To be sure, not all higher education is created equal. Harvard will be a major institution 50 years from now unless American capitalism itself dies, if for no other reason than it has an endowment approaching $40 billion. But, using a Washington state example, will Evergreen State College survive? A school with a far left reputation, Evergreen’s enrollment has trended sharply downward, particularly since the infamous 2017 incident where white students and faculty were asked to stay away from campus for a day. Citizen tolerance for seemingly outlandish behavior is very limited. Universities are not “islands unto themselves.”

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Why Do We Have Business or Education Schools in Universities?

Walk into the Faculty Club at a major university and ask the occupants, “What do you think of your business school?” In a large percentage of instances, the reaction likely will be negative. The perceived intellectual content of business courses is vacuous, with low standards of rigor. Often there is anger because business schools pay their faculty more, and have luxurious office and classroom facilities. The general reaction is, “They teach less for more money in fancier facilities.”

Yet the disdain for the business school is often exceeded by that for the school of education. At the top schools such as those in the Ivy League, there is typically either no education school or it is limited to those already having undergraduate degrees in a respectable subject (that is true with respect to business schools too at most top universities). To the rest of the university, the education school is often viewed as the intellectual bottom of the heap, teaching pablum and applying ludicrously non-rigorous standards to evaluate students, who often are perceived as being less qualified than those majoring in the liberal arts, fine arts, or engineering.

These perceptions have had an impact on enrollments. While business school enrollments soared for several decades, there is some souring on business degrees. The M.B.A., previously the ne plus ultra of executive education, has fallen into some disfavor, with a number of respected universities (e.g., the University of Illinois, University of Iowa) essentially abandoning their full-time programs. There has also been a precipitous decline in the education schools’ market share of undergraduate enrollment over time, although talk of teacher shortages may be changing that.

My profession of economics is at the core of business education, but economists often feel more comfortable in liberal arts colleges, rebelling against the narrow materialistic mindset and perceived modest academic standards prevailing in business schools. My own department voted to move from the business school to the arts and sciences college decades ago, despite some trepidation it may cost it resources (it has).

Steven Conn, a historian at Miami University, has written a provocative new book, Nothing Succeeds Like Failure: The Sad History of American Business Schools, arguing that the case for collegiate business schools was weak from the beginning. Some late 19th and early 20th century writers argued the growing complexity and scale of American business necessitated collegiate training in running commercial enterprises. Conn argues in reality business leaders wanted college degrees in order to elevate their social status, helping them, for example, attain admission to the best clubs. Some private clubs (full disclosure: I belong to one) formed in the early 20th century required members to have a college degree.

The broader question is: should universities be sophisticated trade schools, preparing students for specific vocations? Few today, I think, question the value of collegiate training of engineers or those studying the hard sciences. Why is business or education training any different? One answer: those trained as teachers often do no better or even worse than those with a college degree in a subject matter instead of education, and some prominent business leaders did fine with degrees in history, philosophy, or perhaps a liberal arts-oriented economics degree.

Many, most notably Bryan Caplan (The Case Against Education) note, I think correctly, that a college diploma is primarily a signaling device, not any indication of vast and productive “human capital formation” arising from collegiate learning of practical things. My read of the data on worker earnings suggests that a very large portion of the nation’s stock of human capital is created on the job, not in school. To learn on the job, one needs to be able to reason critically and have a knowledge base aligning worker perceptions with real world realities. I think that a broad liberal arts education may be better in achieving that than one centered on courses in management and marketing. While some accounting and finance training probably is vocationally useful and even necessary for success in those areas of business, I find that less true in other business areas. Maybe Conn is right, and the history of business schools is indeed “sad.”

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Fraud in Higher Education

This year’s education scandal saw parents shelling out megabucks to gain college admittance for their children.

Federal prosecutors have charged more than 50 people with participating in a scheme to get their children into colleges by cheating on entrance exams or bribing athletic coaches. They paid William Singer, a college-prep professional, more than $25 million to bribe coaches and university administrators and to change test scores on college admittance exams such as the SAT and ACT.

As disgusting as this grossly dishonest behavior is, it is only the tiny tip of fraud in higher education.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2016, only 37% of white high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 70% of them. Roughly 17% of black high school graduates tested as college-ready, but colleges admitted 58% of them.

A 2018 Hechinger Report found, “More than four in 10 college students end up in developmental math and English classes at an annual cost of approximately $7 billion, and many of them have a worse chance of eventually graduating than if they went straight into college-level classes.”

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, “when considering all first-time undergraduates, studies have found anywhere from 28 percent to 40 percent of students enroll in at least one remedial course. When looking at only community college students, several studies have found remediation rates surpassing 50 percent.”

Only 25% of students who took the ACT in 2012 met the test’s readiness benchmarks in all four subjects (English, reading, math, and science).

It’s clear that high schools confer diplomas that attest that a student can read, write, and do math at a 12th-grade level when, in fact, most cannot. That means most high school diplomas represent fraudulent documents.

But when high school graduates enter college, what happens? To get a hint, we can turn to an article by Craig E. Klafter, “Good Grieve! America’s Grade Inflation Culture,” published in the Fall 2019 edition of Academic Questions. In 1940, only 15% of all grades awarded were A’s.

By 2018, the average grade point average at some of the nation’s leading colleges was A-minus. For example, the average GPA at Brown University (3.75), Stanford (3.68), Harvard College (3.63), Yale University (3.63), Columbia University (3.6), University of California, Berkeley (3.59).

The falling standards witnessed at our primary and secondary levels are becoming increasingly the case at tertiary levels. “Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses” is a study conducted by professors Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa. They found that 45% of 2,300 students at 24 colleges showed no significant improvement in “critical thinking, complex reasoning and writing by the end of their sophomore years.”

An article in News Forum for Lawyers titled “Study Finds College Students Remarkably Incompetent” cites a study done by the American Institutes for Research that revealed that over 75% of two-year college students and 50% of four-year college students were incapable of completing everyday tasks.

About 20% of four-year college students demonstrated only basic mathematical ability, while a steeper 30% of two-year college students could not progress past elementary arithmetic. NBC News reported that Fortune 500 companies spend about $3 billion annually to train employees in “basic English.”

Here is a list of some other actual college courses that have been taught at U.S. colleges in recent years: “What If Harry Potter Is Real?,” “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame,” “Philosophy and Star Trek,” “Learning from YouTube,” “How To Watch Television,” and “Oh, Look, a Chicken!”

The questions that immediately come to mind are these: What kind of professor would teach such courses, and what kind of student would spend his time taking such courses? Most importantly, what kind of college president and board of trustees would permit classes in such nonsense?

The fact that unscrupulous parents paid millions for special favors from college administrators to enroll their children pales in comparison to the poor educational outcomes, not to mention the gross indoctrination of young people by leftist professors.

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New report on antisemitism at Columbia University, Barnard points to a ‘Hotbed for Hate’

The American NGO Alums for Campus Fairness released a comprehensive report last week that documents what ACF describes as “systemic antisemitism and an ingrained delegitimization of Israel” at Columbia University and its sister school, Barnard College.

The 33-page dossier documents more than 100 incidents that have made Columbia and Barnard “a hotbed for hate” since the 2016-17 academic year.

The catalogue categorized each act into one of these categories: antisemitic expressions, meaning language, imagery or behavior that would be considered antisemitic according to the guidelines outlined by the US State Department’s definition of antisemitism; incidents targeting Jewish students and staff; or activity related to the anti-Israel BDS movement.

In one such incident, Students for Justice in Palestine held a “die-in” on the Columbia campus in May and released a statement that condoned terrorism, denied the right to Jewish self-determination, and accused Israel of ethnic cleansing and genocide.

SJP also claimed that violence on the Israel-Gaza border was part of “a path which concretely spells out the racist objective of Zionism: to create an ethno-supremacist state with no place for the indigenous Palestinians.”

The report also reviewed “various bigoted and antisemitic statements, publications and actions” from Columbia and Barnard faculty and staff. ACF implemented sourcing and categorizing methods based on those used by the non-profit organization AMCHA Initiative.

Avi Gordon, executive director of ACF, told JNS, “This report reveals the disturbing truth about antisemitism at one of the highest-regarded universities in the United States. In this time of increasing hatred against Jews, Alums for Campus Fairness believes that it is paramount that the public, media and policymakers have the tools to address this climate of bigotry.”

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