HOW MUCH EVIDENCE WILL YOU REQUIRE TO REVISE YOUR PRIORS?

I used to cause the Diversity Weenies fits by suggesting that using different admission standards for different categories of people might have something to do with the "incivility" that would follow.

It's not as if the Diversity Weenies weren't warned.

Heterodox Academy member Amy Wax sent us the text of an astonishing letter written in 1969, at the dawn of racial preferences, from Macklin Fleming, Justice of the California Court of Appeal. Judge Fleming had written a personal letter to Louis Pollack, the dean of Yale Law School. Fleming was concerned about the plan Dean Pollack had recently announced under which Yale would essentially implement a racial quota – 10% of each entering class would be composed of black students. To achieve this goal, Yale had just admitted 43 black students, only five of whom had qualified under their normal standards. (The exchange of letters was later made public with the consent of both parties; you can read the full text of both letters here.)

Judge Fleming explained why he believed this new policy was a dangerous experiment that was likely to cause harmful stereotypes, rather than reduce them.

They're not listening, they're not listening still.

Nearly all selective American universities have engaged in this “explosive sociological experiment” for more than 40 years, and things have played out largely as Judge Fleming predicted. The experiment may have helped black students in some ways, but it seems to have harmed them in other ways. We cannot evaluate the net effect of the experiment because social scientists are generally reluctant to talk about the downsides of affirmative action. (The fear of discussing politically unpopular hypotheses is a problem we are trying to fix at Heterodox Academy.)

And so the experiment continues, and it is likely to continue for many more decades unless the Supreme Court intervenes. Black students are (at least in some ways) the victims of the experiment. And in response to their legitimate anger, universities will now intensify their commitment to the experiment.

Perhaps they never will.

Students know they’re not ready, though often they don’t understand the nature of their own under-preparedness until they’re in college or a demanding workplace.

Employers know that their candidate pool is too small, that students of color and from diverse backgrounds are woefully underrepresented, and that their new hires are often lacking basic skills and require further training.

There's nothing like a small candidate pool to sweeten salary packages.

Policies that are intended to reduce inequality simply increase it.  Kindly stuff your good intentions.