Sad Irony of Affirmative Action

Overwhelming data suggests affirmative action not only doesn't work, but has a negative impact on students it is designed to assist.

It is the mounting empirical evidence that race preferences are doing more harm than good — even for their supposed beneficiaries. If this evidence is correct, we now have fewer African-American physicians, scientists, and engineers than we would have had using race-neutral admissions policies. We have fewer college professors and lawyers, too. Put more bluntly, affirmative action has backfired.

The irony:  colleges know it.  Numerous studies show the same thing -- being mismatched in academic credentials with your college decreases student performance and frustrates their academic and career progress.  This applies to not only minority students given admission advantage, but also legacy students.  The logic is not difficult to understand.

Despite knowing the numbers and being unable to refute or challenge the results -- college continue to practice affirmative action and in some cases -- are looking to boost the practice to apply to specific majors and so forth:

Texas, however, takes the position that it needs "critical mass" not just in its student body as a whole, but in each classroom, program, and major. Under the "top 10%" policy, Texas had likely already achieved a "critical mass" of minorities across its student body. Classroom-level "critical mass," however, requires much more extensive preferences; it could conceivably justify racial discrimination in course registration and other more aggressive discriminatory practices.

Rational people knew affirmative action was a hoax and now there is a data to support it.  But it continues, not because it works, but because it is a political litmus test of your liberal credentials, and because it "feels" like justice.  Racial justice on the cheap.

This is what happens when you choose emotional truth over rational truth.  Look for it in many of our current policy debates.