The 5th Circuit Affirmative Action Ruling—–Some thoughts

     I was pleased that 5th Circuit allowed race to be a factor in admissions at the University of Texas at Austin. I read that the student in the lawsuit was not in the top ten of her class and her scores did not allow her automatic admission to UT.  I tried to recall if any of my Black friends had such low scores and class rankings at the time that I attended.  I know that in my inner circle there was no one who scored as low as she even in my time.  What makes this more interesting is that the student today is much weaker than the student of my day.  When someone says “those weak Black students” were admitted, I think of Randy Farris who is now a medical doctor, Jasper Rowe who was a physics undergraduate major who obtained an electrical engineering degree and law degree at the same time, Kenneth and Lenneth McKinzie who were #1 and #2 in their class.  Kennneth was the first pharmacy major at the University of Texas. There were many engineering students who were Black at UT.  Engineering was one of the most racist programs at UT at the time.  Most of the students attended summer programs at NASA Math and Science Institute, Harvard, Yale, MIT, Georgetown.  These students graduated and yet the white establishment still considers them to be weak students.  I was one of those weak students.  When I went to see my bar scores before taking it the last time, I was told by one examiner that I had made the second highest score on the agency, corporations and partnership exams.  On the Michigan Bar Exam I scored perfect 10 out of 10 on all the questions but three on the bar exam.  My lowest score was a seven. I passed that exam the first time.  I do not know why Black students are considered weak because they are discriminated in grading in the south.  If they would give the whites their true grades, many of more of them would not get into institutions of higher learning to take the place of those alleged weaker Black students. Eliminate racist grading and then all students will take their place.  Until discrimination in grading is eliminated, the issue of who is the weaker student is moot.  The system is not fair in the first place.  

     I am reminded of a program for Blacks run by my friend’s sister some time ago in Dallas. Students were improving reading by three or more levels a year.  Math scores were also improving.  Whites sued arguing reverse discrimination because it was a program for minorities and disadvantaged to help them improve math and science scores.  The courts ruled in their favor and wwhites then took over the program.  Think of the special program for medicine and law for minorities.  More than one half of the class is white alleging some type of disadvantage which entitles them to these places.  When I attended UT/Austin, only ten minorities were in our group.  By the time I graduated, there were 300 minorities in 39,000 whites.  I am sure those percentages have increased but not much.  I do not believe very many minorities were accepted with a class ranking or scores as low as the student who is currently suing.  Weak minority students could not have survived the intense grade discrimination of the early days. These white students who think they are being treated so unfairly should make a 98 or 99 in a class and receive a grade of “D” or “F” and see how they would feel.  Do they think this was fair to us when it happened.  Fair is in the eye of the beholder.