Many universities and their affiliates are now dividing people by color with regard to scholarships and grants. They see no problem with this, even though it is the opposite of what we figured out during the Civil Rights Movement.
"It's as if they think the law no longer applies to them," said Heriot, who also sits on the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights. "What worries me is that with the present administration, they may be right."
If we tweak (or totally revamp) education, can we turn lackluster students into excellent students? Freddie DeBoer claims that, with some exceptions, no. The answer to this question bears substantially and harshly on many public policy issues. First, an excerpt from DeBoer's essay, "Education Doesn't Work 2.0: a comprehensive argument that education cannot close academic gaps":
The brute reality is that most kids slot themselves into academic ability bands early in life and stay there throughout schooling. We have a certain natural level of performance, gravitate towards it early on, and are likely to remain in that band relative to peers until our education ends. There is some room for wiggle, and in large populations there are always outliers. But in thousands of years of education humanity has discovered no replicable and reliable means of taking kids from one educational percentile and raising them up into another. Mobility of individual students in quantitative academic metrics relative to their peers over time is far lower than popularly believed. The children identified as the smart kids early in elementary school will, with surprising regularity, maintain that position throughout schooling. Do some kids transcend (or fall from) their early positions? Sure. But the system as a whole is quite static. Most everybody stays in about the same place relative to peers over academic careers. The consequences of this are immense, as it is this relative position, not learning itself, which is rewarded economically and socially in our society.
This phenomenon is relevant to the question of genetic influence on intelligence, but this post is not about that. The evidence of such influence appears strong to me, and opposition to it seems to rely on a kind of Cartesian dualism. However, one need not believe in genetic influence on academic outcomes to recognize the phenomenon I’m describing today. Entirely separate from the debate about genetic influences on academic performance, we cannot dismiss the summative reality of limited educational plasticity and its potentially immense social repercussions. What I’m here to argue today is not about a genetic influence on academic outcomes. I’m here to argue that regardless of the reasons why, most students stay in the same relative academic performance band throughout life, defying all manner of life changes and schooling and policy interventions. We need to work to provide an accounting of this fact, and we need to do so without falling into endorsing a naïve environmentalism that is demonstrably false. And people in education and politics, particularly those who insist education will save us, need to start acknowledging this simple reality. Without communal acceptance that there is such a thing as an individual’s natural level of ability, we cannot have sensible educational policy. . .
I fully support the mission of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR). That mission is expressed in "The Pro-Human Pledge" of FAIR:
Fairness. “I seek to treat everyone equally without regard to skin color or other immutable characteristics. I believe in applying the same rules to everyone, and reject disparagement of individuals based on the circumstances of their birth.”
Understanding. “I am open-minded. I seek to understand opinions or behavior that I do not necessarily agree with. I pursue objective truth through honest inquiry. I am tolerant and consider points of view that are in conflict with my convictions.”
Humanity. “I recognize that every person has a unique identity, that our shared humanity is precious, and that it is up to all of us to defend and protect the civic culture that unites us.”
For more information on FAIR and to sign the pledge, you are invited to visit FAIR.
Andrew Sullivan, a gay man who was attacked by both the political right and left when he promoted the idea of gay marriage in a 1989 article in the New Republic, "Here Comes the Groom."
The Thread continued:
Matt Stoller offers this excellent presentation of the commonly used fallacy of confusing correlation for causation:
For years, we’ve been told that while drinking too much is bad for your health, having just a glass of wine with dinner, as the French do, can be good for your heart. And many studies do indeed show such an association. But what we’re discovering is that this correlation is an illusion. In fact people who drink a small amount of wine every night are healthier, but only because it means they aren’t drinking soda. Even small amounts of alcohol are bad for you, but as academics are coming to understand, if you drink a glass of wine every evening, you also tend to exercise, eat fruits and vegetables, and refrain from smoking. And it is those habits, not the wine, that improve health.
This logical fallacy is known as confusing correlation with causation, or assuming that because A happened and then B happened, that A caused B. The media loves these kinds of associations, because they seem correct, but they are often just coincidence, or a result of a variable that’s not being observed. Sometimes correlations are silly, like saying that “there are more sick people at hospitals, therefore hospitals cause sickness.” They can even be ridiculous; one famous study found that shark attacks are common on beaches with more ice cream sales, the theory being that sharks like to eat people full of ice cream.
Every aspiring law student encounters this fallacy; it’s fundamental in law to understand when something is causal vs coincidental or associative. It’s such a commonly taught error to avoid that it was the basis for one of the first episodes of the famous show The West Wing, an episode named “Post Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc” after the latin phrase describing this fallacy. Lawyers understand the difference between correlation and causation. So do academics. An entire generation of would-be lawyers who watched the West Wing understand it. It’s not a mystery.