The following is an excerpt from OpinionJournal.com’s “Best of the Web” written by the editor, James Taranto.
We Suggest ‘Up’
“With Shuttle’s End, Space Firms Seek New Direction”–headline, Associated Press, April 29
Bottom Stories of the Day
“Prince of Liechtenstein Threatens to Quit”–headline, Agence France-Presse, April 27
Questions Nobody Is Asking
“What’s Going On in Azerbaijan?”–headline, The Weekly Standard, May 7 issue
Orwell Lives–I
Speaking of “diversity,” check out this anecdote in an Associated Press story about the University of California, where racial admissions preferences are banned under a 1996 ballot initiative:
Junior Magali Flores, 20, said she experienced culture shock when she arrived on the Berkeley campus in 2009 after graduating from a predominantly Latino high school in Los Angeles.
Flores, one of five children of working-class parents from Mexico, said she feels the university can feel hostile to students of color, causing some to leave because they don’t feel welcome at Berkeley.
“We want to see more of our people on campus,” Flores said. “With diversity, more people would be tolerant and understanding of different ethnicities, different cultures.”
In Grutter v. Bollinger (2003), the U.S. Supreme Court approved of the use of racial preferences in order to obtain “the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.” Assuming that such benefits exist, it is the non-Latino students at Berkeley who would be impoverished by the paucity of Latinos. If you buy the Grutter rationale, Flores is very lucky to be surrounded by so many people from different backgrounds.
Yet she’s complaining that the lack of “diversity” deprives her of contact with people of her own ethnicity. It almost makes you suspect that the Grutter justification is a mere rationalization.
For more “Best of the Web” click here and look for the “Best of the Web Today” link in the middle column below “Today’s Columnists.”
