Trump Justice Department attacks on diversity as usual misguided and racist

 

Last November, the effort to overturn that stain on he state of Washington’s alleged “progressiveness”—the anti-affirmative action I-200—went down to a narrow defeat. I-1000 had been passed by the Washington legislature and signed by the governor, but opponents gained enough signatures to put Referendum 88 on the ballot for an up or down vote on the initiative.  But it may surprise some people who were the most vocal opponents of the initiative, which I wrote about at the time: Chinese immigrants, led by activist Kan Qiu; town halls were typically packed with them decrying the initiative. Like most Chinese immigrants, Qui comes from a society is that racist to the core (we only need to observe ethnic Chinese treatment of Tibetans and Uighurs), and regardless of how many voters Qiu personally swayed, the barely one percent margin likely indicates it was enough to carry the day against the initiative.

It thus should come as no surprise that it is Chinese immigrants who are the “face” in front of the Justice Department’s lawsuit against Harvard and Yale University for alleged “discrimination” against whites and “Asian-Americans.” In fact, when the racist Jeff Session initiated the “investigation,” Asian-American student leaders at both universities wanted no part of it, but Chinese immigrants, who are ignorant of the history of this country, and seem to demand a “share” they do not deserve—and likely to take what they learn here back for home use as a  “technology transfer”—have been only too happy to have the Trump administration in their corner.

To white nationalists in the Trump administration, diversity is “bad.” Non-whites and non-Asians cannot get into Harvard or Yale if they are not “smart,” and higher scores on rote memory tests does not necessarily mean that people are “smarter” than others—it is how you use it that matters. But what is particularly ironic is that whites are not being “threatened” by under-represented minorities, but by Asians. At the University of Washington, black enrollment is a miniscule 3 percent (a large percent athletes on scholarships), while Asian enrollment—including international students—is ten times that. Whites are thus a bit hypocritical in complaining about black and Hispanic students.

Yale University has prided itself on the diversity of its student body, but the Trump Justice Department doesn’t see the value in it, which only underlines the racist motivation of their action. Let’s take a look at some numbers. 60 percent of the population in the U.S. is “white-only,” meaning whites who do not claim Hispanic heritage. Yale has a 45 percent white undergraduate enrollment. Blacks are 13 percent of the population; at Yale, they are 7 percent of the enrollment. Hispanics are 18 percent of the population; at Yale, they are 12 percent of the enrollment. Asians are 6 percent of the population; they represent 18 percent of the enrollment. International students—most of them also Asian—represent 11 percent of the enrollment. Most Hispanic students self-identify as being of “white” ethnicity, just as most do in the general population, or at least that is how the Census “defines” them if they are “mestizo” or “mixed ethnicity.”

So what do these numbers tell us? Hispanic and black enrollment, while relatively “high” compared to most schools, is still only 60 percent of what the general population is. Asian citizens and legal residents are represented at three times their percentage of the population. And if you throw in the mostly Asian international students, we are approaching 30 percent of the student enrollment at Yale. Asian-Americans students are certainly aware that there is an undercurrent of resentment against this state of affairs, even if it is not openly discussed, and for whites they are a tougher target to attack for the moment. But the reality is that even if we discount international students, if the Asian student presence was in line with their percent of the population, and all the “overage” was filled by white students, then the latter would be representative of their percent of the population, given the still substantial under-representation of other groups at Yale. But the truth is what the Trump Justice Department action will do, if it goes by the "letter" of their intent, is benefit Asian students over white students simply because they generally score higher on rote memory tests. Will whites then start demanding their own "affirmative action" program?

We can discuss the “numbers” until the cows come home, but the Trump Justice Department’s attacks on underrepresented minorities at Yale and Harvard only underscores its belief that certain groups simply do not have students who are “smart” enough to attend elite schools, because it give the lie to the usual “bell curve” racial theories of people like Charles Murray. If too many of those stereotyped as being of “low intelligence” are in elite schools, that just means that certain other groups are not as “elite” as they like to think. Take Trump for example, who according to Mary Trump paid someone to take his SAT test for him so he could get into an “elite” school, by his definition.