"White ants, brown ants......"
At the risk of being parochial, I noted two articles of interest this morning in the Orange County Register as I unwrapped the fish. First of all, the bean counters at UC Irvine have come out with their racial stats for the new school year. Secondly, the Irvine city fathers and mothers are spending tax-payer time trying to come up with a motto for the city.
http://www.ocregister.com/news/applications-154837-ocprint-percent-students.html
http://www.ocregister.com/news/city-336656-motto-irvine.html
In the first article, once again we see what all the student protesters have continuously overlooked; that UCI and the other UC campuses are overlooking in-state applicants (whose families pay the taxes to supply 20% of the UC budget) in favor of out-of-state and international students. That's because out-of-state students and international students pay three times the tuition as in-state students. Even a UC Santa Cruz Community Studies major can do the math on that one. According to my scientific estimates, that means more in-state students will have to look elsewhere to find a college and thus, pay out-of-state tuition in Wisconsin, Arizona, or some 57 other states.
"I don't think that's funny."
The rest of the article dutifully gives us the break-down on what percentage each ethnic group represents among the applicants.
"Of the UCI's California freshman applicants, 44.5 percent are Asian American, 29.2 percent are Chicano/Latino, 18.4 percent are white, and 4.8 percent are African American."
Somewhere, deep in the bowels of UCI, there is an asst. vice-chancellor of bean counters, making 345,000 dollars a year, employing a staff of, uh, bean counters to come up with that information. Now I realize that given our past sins of discrimination, there was once a need to keep those figures, but now? Will we still be keeping these figures fifty years from now? Probably so, because bureaucrats tend to fight fiercely to perpetuate themselves. Who knows? Maybe your kid can grow up to be a racial bean counter.
Then there is our musical chairs city council, busying themselves trying to figure out a motto for the city. Every city must have a motto, you know. Irvine wouldn't be a city if it didn't have a motto (or a Great Park, but that is a topic for a different discussion). Who knows what the final choice will be, but I would bet the Great Park the final Decider will be Larry Agram (or is it Agran? I can never remember) because whether he is currently mayor or city councilman, he's the man to see in Irvine.
If it's not too late to submit ideas, I can always quote my foreign English students when I ask them to describe Irvine.....
"Boring."
"City of Boredom"
Write it down!
7 comments:
One wonders what Allen Bakke thinks of these statistics.
Squid
Not really. We have always had a high percentage of Asian-American students. I think that's because the humanities are relatively small, and there is a lot of pre-med, bio, and engineering.
I attended UCI in the late 1980's, and was surprised to see half of the student population was Asian.
I also remember reading in the newspapers and hearing on the news, around this same time, that Asians scored higher, as a group, than any other racial group, on their SAT's and their grades often were 4.0.
this accomplishment was not lauded but viewed as unfair because the Asians high admission scores and grades pushed out other racial groups and ethnicities. I remember reading that UC regents were considering limiting admission of Asians to their UC campuses.
I don't know if this ever came into effect, but if so, then this is a blatant form of racism.
@matan
In Europe Asian is the word used to describe a Muslim.
There has been some hand wringing in academia about what to do about the high Asian-American enrollment. I say do nothing. It should be based on individual merit. If UCI is 100% Asian-American, I would be fine with that.
Matan,
I am always correct.
Gary--somewhat along this line, the only mistake I ever made was when I once thought I was wrong and found out later I was right after all.
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