Tag Archives: freedom

College Admissions and Diversity

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Harvard is claiming that it needs to select preferentially for race in its admissions in order to achieve its student body diversity goals.

…it has tried alternatives to race-conscious affirmative action to diversify its undergraduate student body, but such efforts would harm both the diversity and academic strength of the class.

This is nonsense.

“Affirmative action” programs, giving preferential treatment as they do (however small the preference is claimed to be) to persons based on their race (and/or sex in most other such programs), are fundamentally racist. More broadly, when there are limited classroom seats (let’s say) discriminating in favor of one group—whether by race or by merit—necessarily discriminates against other groups: those not preferred.

Harvard’s claim that they need race-based affirmative action admissions is at best cynical. Were Harvard serious about improving diversity, they’d be moving to improve the quality of education in K-12 schools so that diversity would fall out of the merit of those graduates and not out of race-based selection. Harvard is silent on its actions in that milieu.

There Are Votes

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…and there are votes.  In a Letter to the Editor in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal, a writer notes that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez got only about 16,000 votes out of a population of around 700,000—let’s say, with a naïve guess, 175,000 voters and out of a skosh under 28,000 votes actually cast in her primary.

That’s true as far as it goes. However, now she’s getting much more important votes—and lots of them—in the Progressive-Democratic Party as more and more Party members enthusiastically embrace her ideas.  She’s well and truly succeeding in moving the Party toward an outright socialist platform.

Another Role for UNRWA

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A writer of a Letter to the Editor of The Wall Street Journal wondered why the UNWRA still was involved in handling Palestinian refugees instead of the UNHCR, which handles all other refugees worldwide.  This includes Palestinian refugees in the Gulf states, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, but not those in Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Gaza, and other geography close to or abutting Israel.

Here’s what the UNWRA did in support of its “refugees,” in particular Hamas’ 2014 terrorist war against Israel in furtherance of their own Gaza “refugees.”

  • warehoused the terrorists’ rockets for them
  • allowed the terrorists to dig their tunnels under UNRWA facilities
  • participating in the terrorists’ staged propaganda

As another letter-writer in the same chain noted, UNRWA exists because those supporting terrorism demand it—especially, contra that writer, those in the UN.

Tolerance

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According to the Left.  It seems that liberal actor Mark Duplass had tweeted some praise for the Conservative Ben Shapiro.  Duplass committed the unpardonable sin of saying Shapiro was a “genuine person,” and he

encouraged “fellow liberals” to follow Shapiro if they are interested in hearing perspective from the other side of the political aisle.

Oh so tolerant (and loudly and proudly tolerant) Left got on Duplass about that.  Rather than going on about his business, ignoring that wind in the trees, though, Duplass cowered under his desk and apologized for his offense.

So that tweet was a disaster on many levels. I want to be clear that I in no way endorse hatred, racism, homophobia, xenophobia, or any such form of intolerance.  My goal has always been to spread unity, understanding, and kindness.

As Shapiro put it in response to the diatribe,

…write a nice tweet about someone with whom you disagree politically, get labeled a racist sexist homophobe. Good stuff, guys. Really showing that tolerant streak[.]

Duplass’ cowardice has demonstrated the Left’s hatred and intolerance.

Rights

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Some people have more of them, others have fewer.  That’s the position of the People’s Republic of China.

The Hong Kong National Party is being threatened by the PRC government, through its Hong Kong Secretary for Security, John Lee Ka-chiu, with being banned.  The heinous crime of which the party (and its leader, Andy Chan) is speaking too freely in favor of freedom for Hong Kong.

Or, as another man put it a while back, some people are just more equal than others.