The discussion over quality in higher education and maintaining standards of academic excellence in American colleges took an ugly turn March 2nd when Harvard law professor and former Clinton Administration lightning rod Lani Guinier declared that standardized testing is racist.
Guinier’s remarks were part of a televised forum on C-SPAN about the “state of the black union” in America, during which she told moderator Tavis Smiley that standardized testing, such as that used in the college admissions process, is a form of “modern scientific racism.”
For those of you who cannot quite recall Guinier’s brief appearance on the national political stage, she was Bill Clinton’s choice for assistant attorney general for civil rights in 1993. I recall some initial excitement over the fact that a black woman had been nominated for such high position but her nomination quickly unraveled as her record came to light.
Guinier’s agenda of pure racial quotas and proportional racial representation in local elections was so profoundly radical that Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun, the only black woman in the U.S. Senate at the time, urged Clinton to withdraw the nomination, which he did.
Guinier is bringing the same incendiary brand of racial politics to higher education. In Guinier’s world, “when they talk about tests and they talk about metrics and they talk about looking at empirics, that is a way of making racism invisible.” Tell that to the millions of young black men and women who have successfully applied themselves to academic achievement and careers beyond it.
Guinier goes on to insult hard working students and diminish their academic success in explaining her rationale, saying, “the reason that I’m calling it racism is because it is a state of mind that is indifferent to the fact that these tests, whatever you think about them, are having a disparate impact on different populations and violating that first principal that talent is equally distributed among all groups.”
The audacity in this assertion is exceeded only in its staggering absurdity. Different people perform differently on standardized tests because people are, well, different. I may score high on tests involving history or language, but fear my expertise in higher mathematics is woefully lacking. The same holds true for those in vocational fields. An aptitude for auto mechanics doesn’t automatically translate into great skill in dental hygiene, welding, or any other trade. The facts are simple; talent is not, never has been and never will be “equally distributed among all groups,” as Guinier preposterously claims.
Guinier’s goal is simple and predicable. Agree with her and all is right with the world; disagree and you are a racist. The overwhelming bulk of data and research over many years prove the case for standardized testing for college admission, and Guinier turns to racial slander and political intimidation to advance a position that no serious person considers valid.
These tactics are reminiscent of how ideology was enforced in the Soviet Union. Russians who believed Soviet Communism to be anything other than an ideal social and political construct were deemed insane and exiled to the gulags. Similarly, Guinier seeks to marginalize those who disagree with her bizarre notions of educational excellence with accusations of racism.
The role of testing in college admissions deserves better than the race baiting duplicity we’re seeing from individuals like Guinier and political organizations like Fair Test, which shares Guinier’s desire to abolish standardized testing. They represent the new radical front in altering higher education in America and should be shunned or we risk the entire disassembly of the concepts of academic merit and excellence.
There is racism here.
paulincolo Monday, March 9th at 2:06PM EDT (link)And it is in the form of Lani Guinier. Someone who sees racism in everything from salt to snow to black type on white papered tests is the very definition of racism.
Oh, I suppose she could have a point, I remember having math problems where the answer was 1,776 and think how anti-indian it was or when the answer was 69 and thinking how sexist and offensive to women this answer was, so I changed it to 96, wrong answer but I felt sooooooooo good about myself.
You are right about that charlatan Guinier
E Pluribus Unum Monday, March 9th at 2:15PM EDT (link)That woman is a menace to any healing or coming together regarding racial issues. And she’s a dolt too.
This racial muckraking like she does, and like frankly Eric Holder does, only serves to inflame blacks and feed them false grievances, and to alienate perfectly innocent whites who are anything but racist.
Carthago delenda est
Right Back to Pre-Civil Rights
red4ever Monday, March 9th at 3:33PM EDT (link)The reason black children do not do as well on standarized tests is because educators (most indoctrinated in left wing teacher’s programs) have given up trying to educate them. It’s all about understanding their culture and language (ebonics as a foreign language anyone?) rather than make sure that Jimmy can read, write and cipher. It’s about teaching how racist everything is, than seeing a child with a mind that is waiting to be opened to the wonders of learning.
The tests are only racists because the schools have failed to teach the students basic skills under an assumption that the kids can’t learn. Which is a racist thought in itself.
The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in times of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
Dante
The Three Rs: Racism, Recycling, and Reproduction. nt
Achance Monday, March 9th at 8:47PM EDT (link)In Vino Veritas
University Commencement Revisited
kfpickett Monday, March 9th at 4:04PM EDT (link)Seeing Lani Guinier’s name, one I hadn’t thought of for awhile, raises the hackles on the back of my neck. Five years ago (2004), the then-ultra-liberal female chancellor of the University of Illinois invited Ms. Guinier to be the keynote speaker at the institution’s May commencement. My son, who had just completed the two-year M.B.A. program in the School of Business, participated in the graduation ceremony.
In her remarks, Ms. Guinier proceeded to chastise the hard-working parents of central and southern Illinois graduates because, she said, they should have been footing the bill for more minorities to come out of the city of Chicago to pursue degrees at the University of Illinois. I thought my wife and a lady behind us were going to come out of the stands and chase Ms. Guinier out of Assembly Hall. My son had taken out nearly $50,000 in loans to pay for the graduate degree from our own state university, for which we pay taxes every year. The people behind us were farmers and couldn’t get any financial aid because they owned farmland.
Lani Guinier, the epitome of what Barack Obama is all about.
The most racist thing I have seen on TV
Tbone Monday, March 9th at 6:47PM EDT (link)is Tavis Smiley on Celebrity Jeopardy.
Envisioning when all that is Left is the Right.
More Alinskism here
Deskpilot Monday, March 9th at 7:57PM EDT (link)find a fault, identify it, and pillorize it. More importantly, BLAME SOMEONE (or someting really close to that) except the person brusshing your teeth.
If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you can still read it in English, You’re Welcome
Deskpilot, AM(H)1 (AW), USN (Ret)
Join the RedState Strike Force
Liberals believe in Equality, Conservatives believe in Freedom
Scope Tuesday, March 10th at 6:26AM EDT (link)and this paragraph is the proof of the ideology of the liberals-
Guinier goes on to insult hard working students and diminish their academic success in explaining her rationale, saying, “the reason that I’m calling it racism is because it is a state of mind that is indifferent to the fact that these tests, whatever you think about them, are having a disparate impact on different populations and violating that first principal that talent is equally distributed among all groups.”
You can be free OR equal, but you can’t be both. You can’t redistribute talent.
Our education system has been lacking for many years, ever since the Liberals took over the Universities, and now it goes all the way down to Grade School. With the current administration, education is doomed to get even worse.
Mr. Blackwell, thank you for posting here at Redstate. I supported you for RNC Chair, and oh how I wish you would have won. That is becoming more obvious to many.
HOW much does a Harvard education cost?
Next93 Tuesday, March 10th at 9:38AM EDT (link)The very fact that this woman is teaching at Harvard is living proof that there’s racism in the higher education system, and why it should be abolished. I sat down and completely demolished her logic in three paragraphs (less than 1000 words), and I’m “only” and engineer.
If she’s teaching anything other than arts and crafts, someone at Harvard is getting seriously ripped off.
Constitutional limits on the powers of the federal government:
It’s not just the law, it’s a good idea!