Scalia: A Big Fat Giant Racist

Oh, I meant Michael Moore.

Seems the Internet is abuzz a little about statements Antonin Scalia made during a recent Supreme Court hearing on the University of Texas' use of race as a factor in admissions. 

From the LA Times:

Scalia was addressing Gregory Garre, a lawyer for the University of Texas, who was defending the university’s policy of counting race as one factor in a “holistic” review of applicants (which also includes factors such as extracurricular activities, socioeconomic background and “hardships overcome”).

“There are those who contend that it does not benefit African Americans to -- to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a less -- a slower-track school where they do well.”

You can read that entire editorial, here, as it attempts to explain to the terminally lazy, what was actually being discussed here.

Those (a lot of them black kids who have done quite well at very hard schools) have taken on Scalia’s questioning (in an annoying hashtag campaign, ugh!) in an effort to point out (correctly) 1)that many black and disadvantaged kids do quite well at tough schools, while being an (incorrect) participant in the Progressive meme that 2)Scalia is a racist and 3)that affirmative action is the only remedy keeping blacks from beign relegated to awful, predominantly black universities.

The first part of that is laudably correct and I applaud these smart, successful children of color for going to bat for their race and for also being role models for others in their community.  Those voices are needed and if they inspire anyone to stick it to “the man” (represented by Scalia, if that’s what they want to do), then I applaud them.  Trotting out the exceptions to the rule, however, forgets that WE.ARE.NOT.TALKING.ABOUT.THEM. 

We’re talking about the average and below average kids.  More later.

The second part (racist Scalia!) is truly unknowable.  Unless you KNOW Antonin Scalia, you really can’t judge his heart and whether he’s racist.  This line of questioning, being as it is, a lawyerly effort to seek out answers to the questions that will be debated in this case, is not evidence of racism.  SO sorry, Progs, but it isn’t.  I know how much you hate Scalia and Thomas, but, just STOP.

Item 3 is really what we should be discussing. 

There is a school of thought, the “Mismatch Theory” and you can read more about this elsewhere, but friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed in this case in support of the Mismatch Theory.  In a nutshell, it contends that generally, African-American kids admitted to schools under race-based quotas and admission requirements, tend to have less successful outcomes than those not admitted under those circumstances and that kids with similar academic backgrounds who attend lower-tier schools have better outcomes.

Without getting too much into what the Progressive Left considers a wildly controversial subject, let’s consider for a moment that if a kid admitted this way enters Georgia Tech and wants to be an Aeronautical Engineer, but because Tech does a highly effective job in weeding out the week from its Engineering programs (mainly through Freshman Calculus and Physics as I recall), and that kid decides after a year of stress and bad grades, to transfer over to UGA and become a Sociology major, that certainly doesn’t serve the cause of having a minority pursue a career in STEM, does it?  As sciency as sociology is, the world needs more Physics majors, not more social workers.  Mismatch Theory would suggest that if that kid had gone to say, Southern Poly (or Auburn or Clemson) and studied AE there, he would do just fine at those lower tier schools and exit with an AE degree and not just pursue his actual dream, but be given the full chance of success at it.  And, also do it in a reasonable amount of time, saving himself, or the taxpayers, or granters, or whoever is paying the bills.

So, if you Progs want to debate that theory, and the implications of it, then let’s have that debate.  But leave the personal attacks out of it.  IK know that’ll be hard for you, since personal attacks are part of the Alinsky (and thus, your) playbook, but I’ll stop you when you devolve to that.