A pair of studies released recently by the Center for Equal Opportunity, a libertarian think tank, reveal severe discrimination based on race and ethnicity in undergraduate and law school admissions at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, with African Americans and Latinos given preference over whites and Asians. The studies are based on data collected by the University itself, which they refused to release until a state supreme court ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Center for Equal Opportunity.
The odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1330-to-1 and 1494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.
For law school admissions, the racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance—but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.
CEO chairman Linda Chavez noted: “This is the most severe undergraduate admissions discrimination that CEO has ever found in the dozens of studies it has published over the last 15 years.” Chavez also noted: “The studies show that literally hundreds of students applying as undergrads or to the law school are rejected in favor of students with lower test scores and grades, and the reason is that they have the wrong skin color or their parents came from the wrong countries.”
Roger Clegg added: “The latest census figures have dramatically underscored that America is increasingly multiethnic and multiracial. In such country, is simply untenable for our institutions—including public universities—to engage in politically correct but divisive and unfair discrimination.”
When Clegg tried to hold a press conference to address the concerns, a mob of leftist students and other assorted sheeple stormed the venue, forcibly took over the microphone, and forced Clegg to leave.
Clegg also said that the University of Wisconsin was one of the most racist and least cooperative schools they encountered. He described the school as “certainly toward the less-cooperative end of the spectrum” since “maybe they knew they had something to hide.” He also said that “the odds ratios were the highest (that is, the worst) for undergrad admissions of any we’ve ever seen.”
Clegg denounced racial discrimination, including ‘affirmative action’, and said that it does not make sense in modern America. “The use of racial and ethnic preferences will end, sooner or later” he says, adding “they cannot be justified, they are legally vulnerable, and most Americans dislike them. They become harder and harder to justify with every tick of the clock, as the Jim Crow era becomes more and more distant, and as America becomes increasing a multiethnic and multiracial society. The fact is that it is simply untenable for our government institutions, including public universities, to have policies in 2011 that discriminate on the basis of skin color and what country someone’s ancestors came from.”
Clegg points out that “America is more and more a multiracial and multiethnic country,” adding the details that “since the last census, the Latino population has grown by 43.0 percent, and the Asian population has grown even faster: by 43.3 percent. The black population has grown by only 12.3 percent, and the white population by only 5.7 percent.”
Clegg sums up his argument as “In such a country, as I said, it is simply untenable for the government to classify and sort people on the basis of skin color and national origin, and to treat its citizens differently—some better, some worse—depending on which silly little box is checked. In a country like ours, the only system that will work is one where the government plays no favorites. Anything else is a recipe for disaster—for division, strife, and balkanization.”
Polls of Hispanics have shown majority or supermajority support for affirmative action programs. White voters, the slowest growing demographic group, are the most likely to oppose affirmative action. Unfortunately, unless we see a cultural shift in opinion, changing demographics combined with the liberal bent of the court system could very well lead to the “division, strife, and balkanization” that Clegg fears.
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