More Tests, Nicer Campus
Jochnowitz, George
More Tests, Nicer Campus by George Jochnowitz It happened at Columbia University, my alma mater; it did not happen at the City University of New York, where I teach. The Columbia Daily Spectator,...
...he is not a CUNY student...
...I can already hear the prosecution rise with an objection: What about Professor Leonard Jeffries, a City College faculty member who has made offensive statements about Jews...
...The City University of New York, in contrast, has a policy of open admissions-the opposite of affirmative action...
...When a college education seems to be illegitimate-the lesson taught implicitly on the affirmative-action campus-then the very boundary between the licit and the illicit has been broken...
...I do not know all Jews...
...Who knows...
...And this: "I do not say that all Jews are evil...
...The minority students are forever being compared with those selected according to more rigorous criteria...
...Students must pass these tests before being allowed into required freshman courses...
...We already know from surveys conducted by Standard and Poor's that more top executives have been getting their undergraduate degrees at CUNY than at any other university in the country...
...George Jochnowitz's article, "Rule by Thieves," appeared in the Sept...
...Maybe all colleges should have such tests...
...Like Sharod Baker at Columbia, he was chosen and nourished by affirmative action, given tenure because of affirmative action, made a department chairman for the same reason...
...Open admissions has led to the introduction of assessment tests in reading, writing, and mathematics...
...For over 20 years, Ivy League schools have been depriving black students of their right to a normal college education...
...He is not relevant to our discussion...
...There are no victims...
...The Columbia Daily Spectator, an independent undergraduate newspaper, ran an opinion piece by its bimonthly columnist Sharod Baker filled with snarls like this: "Lift up the yarmulke and what you will find is the blood of billions of Africans weighing on their heads...
...Thus, universities have been, in effect, teaching their minority students to be isolated and angry...
...Perhaps there are even Ivy League undergraduates who would fail the CUNY writing or math exams...
...18 WEEKLY STANDARD...
...many conservative educational scholars consider it an abomination...
...Since the implementation of this policy, this gap has broadened, as has the alienation...
...it is much more likely, however, to find integrated tables, where English is necessarily the lingua franca...
...He was not admitted through the colorblind process of open admissions...
...While it breaks down old class barriers, it builds new ones in their place-and at CUNY, those barriers are meritocratic ones...
...To be sure, one may pass a table where Cantonese or Haitian Creole or Arabic is being spoken...
...There are no double standards...
...Open admissions has been highly controversial...
...A double standard condemns those it favors...
...But consider: At my own branch of CUNY, the College of Staten Island, there are no segregated sections in either of the two cafeterias for members of different minorities...
...There is no resentment...
...Columbia College relaxes its standards to admit more minority students...
...The City University of New York has preserved the American dream...
...Education does not lead to equality...
...A school may be selective in its admissions policies, or it may allow the educational process to do the choosing-a more accurate and relevant form of selection, albeit a more expensive one...
...The College of Staten Island has achieved the truest and best form of integration: Students move back and forth freely from their own groups to others, without making an emotionally charged decision in either instance...
...Affirmative action has been viewed as a tool to narrow gaps between the races in the workplace and on campuses...
...When colleges teach resentment and self-segregation instead of knowledge and clear thinking, they are teaching failure...
...Minority students withdraw into their own dormitories and associations, the better to nurse their resentments...
...Education loses not only its value but also its dignity...
...May Columbia learn from CUNY's experience...
...Education and honesty go hand in hand...
...Could anyone have invented a system better designed to create resentment-on both sides...
...Minority students educated at CUNY will succeed as CUNY undergraduates have always succeeded- because there is no favoritism there...
...Open admissions has led to a high dropout rate...
...This is not a problem...
Vol. 1 • November 1995 • No. 9
