I’ve read many of Ron Unz’s essays over the years (as well as his comments at Sailer’s blog). His essay on Hispanic crime was flawed. His recent essay on IQ was lacking. But his recent essay on elite college admissions in the USA, “The Myth of American Meritocracy,” is the best thing he has ever written; it’s his magnum opus; it’s one of the best essays of the year. In the essay, Unz demonstrates:
1) A ceiling has been set on Asian admissions into elite universities.
2) High IQ whites are underrepresented at elite colleges.
3) Black and Hispanic affirmative action has come at the expense of white admissions (not Jewish).
4) Jewish academic achievement at the top end has collapsed.
5) Jews are the most overrepresented group in elite college admissions (and it’s due to ethnic nepotism, not academic merit).
Interestingly, Unz’s essay received much attention, but nearly all the responses dealt with point (1) above. Very little was said about the other points, when the most interesting finding of the essay was the collapse of Jewish intellectual achievement and the over-representation of Jews at elite schools. Even if Ashkenazis have higher average IQs than whites, there are many more whites than Ashkenazis. Given a normal distribution of IQ scores, high IQ whites (as Lynn and others have noted) should outnumber Ashkenazis 7:1. Yet, there is almost a 1:1 ratio of Ashkenazis and whites at elite colleges, although Ashekanazis only make up over 2% of the population and whites 63% of the population.
But to the victors go the spoils, which raises the interesting observation that the nearly complete replacement of WASPs by Ashkenazis at elite institutions in the US is one of the most revolutionary events in US history but it’s something that probably 98% of Americans are unaware of and it’s barely been discussed in the mainstream media. Essays like Unz’s, however, might crack this silence.
Over at his blog, Unz summarizes the Jewish responses to the collapse of Jewish intellectual achievement. Jews find it “depressing,” to summarize the responses in one word.
Regarding whites’ under-representation at colleges, here are a couple other recent studies.
Thomas Espenshade and Alexandria Radford found whites, especially lower-income whites, to be the most under-represented in college admissions. Russell K. Nieli writes of their study:
“When lower-class whites are matched with lower-class blacks and other non-whites the degree of the non-white advantage becomes astronomical: lower-class Asian applicants are seven times as likely to be accepted to the competitive private institutions as similarly qualified whites, lower-class Hispanic applicants eight times as likely, and lower-class blacks ten times as likely. These are enormous differences and reflect the fact that lower-class whites were rarely accepted to the private institutions Espenshade and Radford surveyed. Their diversity-enhancement value was obviously rated very low.”
And The Center for Equal Opportunity (CEO) recently released a report showing anti-white admissions policies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:
“The odds ratio favoring African Americans and Hispanics over whites was 576-to-1 and 504-to-1, respectively, using the SAT and class rank while controlling for other factors. Thus, the median composite SAT score for black admittees was 150 points lower than for whites and Asians, and the Latino median SAT score was 100 points lower. Using the ACT, the odds ratios climbed to 1330-to-1 and 1494-to-1, respectively, for African Americans and Hispanics over whites.
For law school admissions, the racial discrimination found was also severe, with the weight given to ethnicity much greater than given to, for example, Wisconsin residency. Thus, an out-of-state black applicant with grades and LSAT scores at the median for that group would have had a 7 out 10 chance of admission and an out-of-state Hispanic a 1 out of 3 chance—but an in-state Asian with those grades and scores had a 1 out of 6 chance and an in-state white only a 1 out of 10 chance.”
Former classics professor Steven Farron also has a book out, The Affirmative Action Hoax: Diversity, Character, and Other Lies (which Dennis Mangan reviews here), which provides a history of affirmative action, chronicles its injustices and absurdities, and shows the lengths to which universities will go to accommodate under-performing blacks and Hispanics all in the name of diversity!
Also noteworthy is law professor Amy Wax’s recent article “Disparate Impact Realism,” which argues that under disparate-impact laws whites will be the ultimate losers, as lower-IQ blacks and Hispanics will always be under-represented in higher IQ positions, which, when rectified by disparate-impact affirmative action, will turn away more qualified whites.
Bravo to Unz, Farron, Wax and others for exposing the lies of American college admissions!