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Mona Charen: Civil Rights Commission Blunders Again
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (yes, it’s still around and, yes, it’s outlived its usefulness) is about to subtract from national wisdom about college admissions by focusing on exactly the wrong problem.
The commission has undertaken an inquiry to determine whether colleges may be discriminating against female applicants. The question turns on whether admissions officers, in an attempt to maintain rough gender parity on campuses, are putting a thumb on the scale in favor of underrepresented male applicants, thus disadvantaging the more qualified females.
That this is happening — though it theoretically violates the law for public institutions — is an open secret. Women now earn 62 percent of associate degrees, 58 percent of bachelor’s degrees and 60 percent of master’s degrees. Women’s dominance in higher education would be even more pronounced if colleges were truly gender blind in admissions. But they are not.
Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania admitted 19 percent of male applicants last year but only 14 percent of females. The College of William and Mary, a public college in Virginia, admitted 43 percent of its male applicants and 29 percent of its female applicants last year. Administrators worry that a severe imbalance of women to men will make the campus less desirable for all applicants. Henry Broaddus, director of admissions, told US News & World Report, “Even women who enroll ... expect to see men on campus. It’s not the College of Mary and Mary, it’s the College of William and Mary.”
US News estimates that most of the 1,400 colleges that participate in its annual survey are offering more favorable admissions standards to male than female applicants. Boys now need the extra help.
So we seem to have a problem here. For every 100 women who earn a college degree, only 73 men do. These statistics practically shout “boy crisis.” Yet the Commission on Civil Rights apparently sees the problem as one of discrimination.
Let’s suppose the commission finds the discrimination it is seeking (which won’t be hard). And let’s imagine that it issues a blistering report exhorting Congress and the nation to remedy this injustice. Will women be happier at campuses in which men make up only 35 percent to 40 percent of the student population? Will our society be better off with women outpacing men in education and income? Or might it be better to address the flagging achievement of boys in our school system?
As nearly everyone who is not president of Harvard can acknowledge, boys are the intellectual equals and sometimes superiors of girls. Despite their diminished numbers in higher education, boys continue to perform narrowly better on verbal standardized tests than girls, and significantly better than girls in math. IQ experts agree that boys are more represented at both ends of the bell curve than girls.
James Q. Wilson summed it up: “There are more male geniuses and more male idiots.” But girls are racking up the As in primary, middle and high school. They are excelling at extracurricular activities. They are assuming leadership posts, multitasking and polishing the kinds of resumes admissions officers admire.
Christina Hoff Sommers argued nearly a decade ago in The War Against Boys that in our zeal to remedy past discrimination against girls, we had managed to pathologize normal male behavior. The schools in particular, she wrote, discouraged male strengths such as competition and drive in favor of female strengths such as cooperation and detail work.
Let’s concede that the campaign to boost girls’ performance succeeded very well. But with more than two decades of data showing diminishing achievement by boys, it is past time to focus on reviving their fortunes. Is it the schools’ bias against competition? It’s worth examining — particularly when we know that all of our kids, boys and girls alike, will be competing against highly disciplined students from India, China and elsewhere who work twice as hard.
Or could it be another aspect of male brain development? The New York Times profiled a fast-growing service catering to upper-middle-class parents in New York — organizational tutors. They help kids (overwhelmingly boys) who are capable students but who can’t seem to hand in assignments on time, keep their backpacks orderly or their notes current. “The guys just don’t seem to develop the skills that involve organization as early,” psychologist Judith Kleinfeld said.
The boy crisis may be an artifact of our weakened families, or our feminized school environments, or Take Your Daughter to Work Day — or all of the above. But as the mother of three sons, that messy backpack with crumpled math homework due last week really resonated.
The Commission on Civil Rights can do us all a favor by going away. Bring on the organization gurus!
— Mona Charen writes for Creators Syndicate. Click here for more information or to contact her.
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» on 12.15.09 @ 09:56 PM
As usual…you are right on target. It is the “chickification” of our young men. As my son was growing up I had to assure him that it was “great to excel, lead don’t follow, always respect women, always strive to be the best, and protect those that are weaker. Be competitive and do not let anyone or any system, beat you down. He is now a Battalion XO on his third tour in Iraq, leading both men and women.
» on 12.16.09 @ 06:05 PM
Ms. CHAREN = Although seldom or never publicized, WHITE WOMEN have been the acknowledged chief beneficiaries of “affirmatve action” goals, quotas and time-tables - expressly forbidden and never intended by the “Civil Rights Law (1964)” passage during the Vietnam War/Era’s LBJ presidential administration.
In US congressional testimony a few weeks ago before the House of Representatives’ Small Business sub-committee, shocked elected legislators heard - apparently for the first time - that WHITE MALE JOB DISPLACEMENT “IS NOT[!] BEING COUNTED in Federal civil rights progress reports”.
This is the same House sub-committee which heard in other sworn public testimony just a few weeks earlier—from the US Small Business Administration administrator—that already funded FY 2009 mandates for outreach to veterans - “... had NOT EVEN BEGUN STARTED IN A PLANNING STAGE BY THE S.B.A.”!
Meanwhile, at the U.S. Justice Department - A few months ago, the Attorney General announced—to a Blacks-only advocacy group—“we’re back in business”, with the recent reactivation of that department’s Civil Rights Division.
A ‘message’ was beng sent, to and for Blacks only!
“The Washington Times” daily newspaper reports that the U. S. Commission on Civil Rights [CRC]” IS THE ONLY[!] Federal Government entity NOW IN A POSITION TO ADVOCATE for “civil rights” of ALL CITIZENS and LEGAL RESIDENTS - without regard to accidents of birth.
The CRC admittedly has only the “power of the bully pulpit” and has no enforcement powers, by legal design!
* * * * *
PERSONALLY = I’M SEEKING 45 years in “back wages” from my country of birth [which I had served honorably in USAF military uniform during wartime].
REASON - the [1964] “Civil Rights Law” has been for FAR TOO LONG & erroneously mis-construed, by too many self-appointed “civil rights adovcates”, as being allegedly “OVER-QUALIFIED” FOR FULL EMPLOYMENT FOR THE PAST FOUR and A HALF DECADES!
Under that “civil rights law”, that formal procedure is called “MAKE WHOLE RESTITUTION” - heretofore ‘CLOSED to WHITE MALES’ under those U.S. laws passed during the LBJ presidency simultaneous with the Vietnam War escalations.
» on 12.17.09 @ 12:23 AM
Stop the pollitical correctness, and treat women as equal if it is equal?? I know that men are faster stronger and allow women power, but they could take it away anytime—lets stop the protending—we are different..Men do many jobs MUCH better than women..and so do women—its not equal..Get it..
» on 12.20.09 @ 02:16 PM
Thanks for the excellent article Mona. I wanted to do a blog post today about the feminization of education and since your article said pretty much everything I wanted to say I cited a bunch of quotes from it and linked here. My post is here: http://ping.fm/8X9Bt
Thanks again,
Jay
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