Correspondence: Bowen, Bok, Sowell, &c.
CORRESPONDENCE Sexual Dershowism Mr. Tyrrell's comments on Alan De rshowitz's coinage of the phrase "sexual McCarthyism" overlook one sense in which the phrase is apt ("The Worst Books of the...
...I've read it several times and I'll read it several more...
...We make our home together but she is in a hospital at this time...
...CHRISTINE P. POTOCKI New Hartford, New York I've been a reader for many many years...
...The Mellon Foundation is sponsoring a study of the role of HBCUs in American higher education that will, we believe, complement River...
...Strangely, Sowell ignores entirely the comparison of outcomes, including graduation rates, between the SEL-i and SEL-2 groups of schools (which had, respectively, average SAT scores of 125o and higher, and scores between 115o and 1249...
...To test whether this type of aggregation produced misleading results, we ran a number of tests...
...The May issue with your contributors' monolithic opinions is to me unconscionable...
...As for the historically black colleges, no amount of obfuscation can cover up the plain fact that their large and continuing role in creating a black middle class undermines the Bowen-Bok thesis that it is imperative that blacks get into elite insti76 Ju y 19 99 • The American Spectator tutions under affirmative action if they are to rise into professional ranks...
...It would be interesting to ask Mr...
...Military people everywhere read it, and it is appropriate to note now that many of them look for anything written by Gertz...
...Thomas Vinciguerra the author is a genius...
...This would be a remarkable situation—the suspect or even the criminal who must investigate his own case because it is part of a larger matter that he is duty-bound, as president, to handle...
...And the data in the study show that these benefits are, if anything, perceived as greater by more recent graduates (those in the '89 entering cohorts) than by those who attended these schools in the late 197o's...
...The summary of the article reads: "Republicans say Attorney General Janet Reno is playing politics when she refuses to ask for an independent counsel to probe the Clinton money machine...
...JOYCE MILTON Brooklyn, New York No Excuse I've subscribed to The American Spectator for some ten years, enjoyed your witty editorials, and even contributed a bit of money...
...And while we could not publish results by institution, we often examined the outcomes for each school separately to make sure that the overall results were not driven by a small number of institutions...
...Sexual McCarthyism consists of pointing out similarly inconvenient truths about an individual's sexual secrets...
...By insisting on lumping all minority students together, they evade this question entirely...
...There are no public universities in either of these categories, and there are, in fact, more liberal arts colleges in SEL-2 than there are in SEL-1...
...But don't take my word for it: check out Jude's "Memo on the Margin" web site (www.polyconomics.com), which posted a great Fred Singer piece deconstructing global warming theory back in February...
...As noted in the Preface and in Appendix Table A2, this database contains a very high fraction of all matriculants who enrolled in this set of schools and roughly the same percentage of black students as enrolled in the sector...
...The American Spectator • July 1999 77...
...As is explained clearly in the Preface, our purpose was to examine how well race-sensitive admissions policies have worked within one particular sector of American higher education—the academically selective sector...
...LEONARD MOSKOVIT Boulder, Colorado No Kyoto in Kemp I enjoy reading the Spectator, particularly "On the Prowl," even though it sometimes strays out of the nonfiction category, and the May issue is a good case in point...
...So, please stop...
...Although I've never opened a beer can for him while in our vehicle, as a woman I'm proud of my shotgun riding skills (and an admitted lousy driver...
...Also, Sowell is wrong in implying that our categorical rejection of the "fit hypothesis" (the notion that minority students with, say, lino SAT scores would have been better off if they had gone to a school where the average SAT for all students was in the noo range than if they went to a school where the average SAT score was much higher) depends on the heavy presence of public universities in our SEL-3 category of schools (where the average SAT score in 1976 was 1125 or below...
...Each of these approaches has both advantages and disadvantages, but the proverbial bottom line is that there is no evidence that the grouping we used distorted the results...
...JACK KEMP Distinguished Fellow Competitive Enterprise Institute Washington, D.C...
...Plus, I ate my hot dog and drank my beer without babbling incessantly about things not related to baseball...
...If you haven't heard about it, it is probably because we have not done a very good job of promoting our ideas — a situation I hope to help remedy...
...Tyrrell's comments on Alan De rshowitz's coinage of the phrase "sexual McCarthyism" overlook one sense in which the phrase is apt ("The Worst Books of the Year," TAS, May logo...
...Racial and Ethnic Preference in College Admissions," in Christopher Jencks and Meredith Phillips (eds...
...However, I have her approval in writing this letter...
...As one official says, "This building still goes by print...
...DR...
...How can these other factors repeatedly and consistently—year in and year out, for decades on end, in colleges, universities, engineering schools, and military academies, all across the length and breadth of this country—always turn out to favor those with lower test scores and grades...
...In some analyses, we controlled for the size of the school...
...WILLIAM G. BOWEN -DEREK Box The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation New York, New York Thomas Sowell replies: No serious discussion of "affirmative action" policies will be possible so long as its proponents insist on making a distinction without a difference between racial quotas and such euphemisms as "race-sensitive admissions...
...Recently I delivered us intact to a Baltimore Orioles home game...
...in others, we controlled for whether the institution was a liberal arts college, a private university, or a public university...
...Moreover, very large majorities of white and black graduates of these schools believe that their colleges and universities should either maintain or strengthen the emphasis they place now on enrolling diverse student populations...
...Thus, McCarthyism was in part the act of pointing out an aspect of a victim's political beliefs which he or she preferred to keep silent about...
...The Shape of Statistics Thomas Sowell misreads the intent of our study (The Shape of the River...
...As for political "experts" looking for "a slightly greener conservative wing" for the Republican Party, we already have it...
...They should understand she's unlikely to ask for one until the president she serves gives her the go-ahead...
...Still on the subject of statistics, we are puzzled by Sowell's continued reference to a black graduation rate at Berkeley of 3o percent...
...Still, the same consistent (Continued on page 76) "conservative," "right-wing," or "hardline," and their reluctance to call anyone "liberal" or "left wing...
...Second, the exclusion of the HBCUs from the database used in River, was not, as Sowell asserts, because these institutions "did not have affirmative action policies," but rather because they did not enroll sufficient numbers of white students to permit comparisons of outcomes by race...
...El Reno's testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on April 30,1997, specifically her arguments against appointing an independent counsel to investigate the president's fundraising abuses leading up to the 1996 election, form the heart of the article...
...Out of the Loop...
...The less we read or hear about politics, the better we feel...
...The NCAA study of graduation rates at all Division I schools shows that 61 percent of the black students who entered Berkeley in 1989 graduated within six years...
...I enjoy all the different parts of TAS, from the front to the back...
...After all, the issue is not whether any minority students should be admitted to selective colleges, but whether those admitted should meet the same standards met by others...
...Now that we're married, we use Easy Pass...
...First, contrary to the language used in places by Sowell, we do not equate "race-sensitive admissions" (which means taking race into account as one factor among many) with quotas...
...This is not at all the result one would obtain if Sowell were correct in suggesting that differences between liberal arts colleges and larger universities bias our findings...
...However, I do bow to the male gender when it comes to choosing radio stations...
...As a lifelong conservative, I am aghast at Mr...
...There is every reason to believe that the College & Beyond (C&B) database is highly representative of this sector...
...We do not expect to live to see this country recover from Clinton, the psychopath...
...Sowell also criticizes our study for grouping C&B colleges and universities 1 See Thomas J. Kane...
...We have steadfastly opposed quotas, set-asides, and separate admissions tracks...
...Willy Sutton robbed banks because, in his words, "that's where the money is...
...In short, there is overwhelming support for race-sensitive admissions among those students of all races who actually attended the schools where such policies were used...
...My husband married me in large part because I was, and still am, his navigator, toll counter, cell phone dialer, coffee cup flap flipper, and fast-food preparer in the car...
...But you've finally outdone yourselves...
...In their letter, as in the book itself, Messieurs Bowen & Bok evade the central issue: Do those minority students admitted with lower objective qualifications (scores, grades) have lower performances and higher dropout rates than students admitted with the usual qualifications, whether these other students are minorities or not...
...The magazine is always excellent, but we are totally disgusted...
...Eastland recounts the sparring between the AG and senators that followed...
...I've sent copies to friends all around the world...
...Thus the "dump Reno" movement gathers steam with covert White House support—dump her and gain a lot of time while a replacement is found, submitted for Senate approval, and comes up to speed, probably the day that Clinton's successor is sworn in...
...for this reason, it is particularly distressing to see the title you have given to your article: "...on Racial Quotas" (our emphasis...
...Subsequent to the publication of River, Michael McPherson at Macalester College reran all of the analyses for liberal arts colleges alone, and he found that the outcome measures and the relationships among variables were remarkably similar for this subset of colleges and for the entire College & Beyond set of schools...
...Aubin, though scrupulously nonpartisan, dryly notes that the "conservatives" are usually depicted as "bad guys...
...As Thomas Kane, Cliff Adelman, and others have demonstrated, only about 20 to 3o percent of all four-year educational institutions in the United States are selective in the sense of having far more qualified applicants than places for them in the entering class...
...Fortunately I can speak for myself and will be doing a lot more of that on Kyoto, climate change, and the spread of global capitalism...
...When such data as Bowen & Bok use are released not only to those who favor the policy that these data are meant to test but are also made as freely available to Charles Murray, the Thernstroms, or other critics of racial quotas as to defenders like Bowen & Bok, then we can have more confidence...
...His shotgun shoots blanks...
...He told me he loved me merely because toll fare was ready a mile before the tollbooth...
...We refer to the data presented in Chapter 8 that demonstrate that students of all races who attended these colleges and universities believe that the racial and ethnic diversity on their campuses contributed greatly to their ability to "work effectively and get along well with people from different races/cultures...
...The "global warming" scare is another tactic of environmental extremists and latter-day Malthusians to throttle individual initiative and democratic capitalism...
...After months of delay by the administration, the unclassified version of the so-called Cox Report [has been released...
...Could he have been cut out by his Attorney General, FBI Director, Director of Central Intelligence, and National Security Adviser because of an ongoing investigation...
...What my review said has subsequently been further buttressed by data published by Tamar Jacoby in the March 23rd issue of the New Republic, showing that the leading producer of black alumni who go on to medical schools has been Xavier University in Louisiana and that six of the top ten academic institutions in the number of black alumni who go on to become scientists are also black colleges...
...And, thank you for publishing it...
...Well, I am she...
...Check it out at CEI's web site (www.cei.org...
...Thomas Vinciguerra's "Have Shotgun, Will Travel" was the greatest...
...And in a footnote he writes: Here is a remote but tantalizing possibility: That the Justice Department is keeping the investigation in-house because the fundraising case mainly involves foreign threats and the President of the United States, though a subject of the investigation, has a constitutional duty higher than his own criminal investigations—that of ensuring the nation's security...
...After all, if a college has room in its entering class for essentially all qualified applicants (the norm in American higher education), the question of whether or not to take race into account in admissions is moot...
...our purpose was never to "represent" all of American higher education ("Misshapen Statistics on Racial Quotas," TAS, April 1999...
...Dershowitz if this is what he had in mind...
...military action or for hard-heartedness toward expulsion, rape, brutality, and murder...
...I can't speak for Jude Wanniski (and he doesn't speak for me), but everything I've ever heard from him on so-called "global warming" and the Kyoto Protocol issues has been completely dismissive of the "science" and economic lunacy behind this prototypical Al Gore eco-extremism...
...RICHARD M. FRISK Walnut Creek, California Enough's Enough We, my sister Katherine Doyle and I, want you to discontinue sending the Spectator...
...It's called free-market environmentalism...
...But is it possible that in this one case Clinton may not be lying about when he learned about Chinese espionage...
...We are also canceling National Review for the same reasons...
...As to the source of the data behind my statement that "the black graduation rate has been 3o percent" at Berkeley, it was page 125 of the Fall 1998 issue of the Public Interest...
...MIKE CAKORA Columbia, South Carolina Ticket to Ride In Mr...
...Thomas Vinciguerra's Last Call column "Have Shotgun, Will Travel" (TAS, May 1999), he claims that there are absolutely no exceptions of women who ride shotgun in the car...
...I am very enthusiastic about my new association with CEI because it will give me a great opportunity to speak out against the Kyoto-type mindset, which seems bent on putting international bureaucrats in charge of our economic and energy policies...
...Thus each morning the Pentagon publishes some 6,000 copies of the Early Bird, and also puts it on the Internet...
...Several other clarifications are in order...
...But now I will ask you to kindly discontinue my subscription and send me a refund...
...Shortly before he became the publisher of The American Spectator, Terry Eastland wrote "Behind the Reno Stonewall" for the October 1997 issue of TAS...
...Finally, in commenting on the broad lessons to be learned from River, Sowell fails to mention one of the major findings that goes directly to the question of the benefits of race- sensitive admissions policies for all students...
...The subscription is in her name...
...As Justice Powell surmised in his Bakke opinion, enrolling a diverse student population confers educational benefits on white and black students alike...
...I regret the unfortunate timing of your "On the Prowl" blurb, which made it more embarrassing to the Spectator than it needed to be...
...As the Competitive Enterprise Institute announced on April 29, I have just joined that excellent organization as its first Distinguished Fellow...
...Please let him know...
...We are in our eighties, and are sick at heart about politics, Clinton et al., and the gutless Republicans...
...For example, we experimented with linear specifications of the school's average SAT score, thereby avoiding the need to "clump" institutions altogether...
...Also, it is reassuring to note that studies based on national longitudinal databases such as High School and Beyond find patterns that are consistent with the more detailed results made possible by our larger database.' The reason for focusing our analysis on the academically selective sector of higher education is straightforward: it is within these colleges and universities (and within the leading professional schools of law, medicine, and business) that the debate over race-sensitive admissions has by far the most relevance...
...And some news organizations are connecting more of the dots tying Chinese espionage efforts to some of the contributors to the president's re-election war chest and the Democratic National Committee...
...10 July 1999 • The American Spectator within selectivity bands, defined according to their average SAT scores...
...MCGRATH Milton, Massachusetts P.S...
...I yield to no one in my contempt for Bill Clinton, but hatred of him is no excuse for undercutting U.S...
...The Black-White Test Score Gap (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1998...
...Assurances by Bowen & Bok of what their unpublished statistical analyses show might be more convincing if so many institutions of higher education had not kept such data under lock and key for years, while issuing similar assurances which later turned out to be grossly misleading or untrue when actual institutional data leaked out...
...However much Messieurs Bowen & Bok proclaim that race is just one of many factors taken into account in the admissions process, we must nevertheless ask: How is it that these other factors, whatever they are, always work out in such a way that they counter-balance wide differences in such objectively observable criteria as test scores and grades...
...They all seem to excuse the atrocities of the Serbs (the Albanians were mean to them 45 or ten years ago and the tiny KLA may turn into vicious Moslem terrorists, etc...
...I especially like Ben Stein's Diary...
...The "fit" hypothesis just doesn't hold up...
...The Early Bird reprints news stories and analyses about defense issues, and in its way is one of the most influential publications in the country...
...o4Correspondence (Continued from page II) pattern of results holds: students at every SAT level, including those with SATs in the noo range, were more likely to graduate, to earn more money, to be more satisfied with college, and so on, if they went to a SEL- 1 school than if they went to a SEL-2 school...
...Meanwhile Aubin also finds that despite the pervasiveness of television, Pentagon policymakers turn elsewhere for serious news...
...Compelling events seem to be at hand...
...That is the real point that Bowen & Bok are dancing around when they try to explain why they left out such inconvenient facts...
...If Bowen, Bok, and others must insult our intelligence, must they do it so blatantly...
...This would be a situation no president, much less the attorney general, likely would speak to until events compelled him to do so...
...Vinciguerra's allegation...
...I will be working closely with CEI President Fred Smith here and abroad to reinvigorate the forces of freedom against this kind of extremism...
...Many victims of McCarthyism —loosely defined—were in fact Communists or Communist sympathizers...
...and mention in passing, as if unimportant, the manifest suffering of the people of Kosovo...
...The actual figure was 27 percent, but I trust that my modestly optimistic over-estimate will be forgiven...
...But page 36 of the print edition (www.spectator.org archives unfortunately offers only an excerpt of the article) contains this nugget: "During the April 3o [1997] hearing, in a line of questioning from Senator Spector, Reno acknowledged that the FBI withheld national security information from President Clinton because he and Vice President Gore are 'potential subjects in a pending investigation...
...DEAN SUNDQUIST Plymouth, Minnesota The piece, "Have Shotgun, Will Travel," is the best I have ever read in my lifetime, and I am 85 years old...
...Like a remote control device, men must be in control...
...Again, you have a great publication...
...Similarly, if one is interested in examining how race-sensitive admissions have worked, it makes sense to study the set of schools that have enough qualified applicants that they must choose among them, taking race into account along with many other factors...
Vol. 32 • July 1999 • No. 7
