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PARTISAN REVIEW
I, therefore, offer some bold prescriptions, and some modest predic–
tions. In so doing, I address the presidents, trustees, and faculties of our
colleges and universities:
You must "decide" what a university is, and whether
it
will have rigorous stan–
dards for all-for
all students, staff, and facul ty.
You must decide whether yours will be a "world-class university" or an "ABC"
university.
A world-class university supports critical thinking, encourages
students to broaden their horizons, interact as learners and scholars, and test
their ideas. The idea is to have students stretch their minds, not the truth.
Those with either Afrocentric or Eurocentric approaches to knowledge,
who stretch the truth in pursuit of self-esteem, have always been, and will
always be, idiots.
An "ABC" university is one that puts an "A" before Ph.D.-for
Asians; a "B" before Ph.D.-for Blacks; and a "C" before Ph.D.-for
Caucasians.
An
"ABC" university boasts of Asian, Black, and Caucasian
Ph.D.s on the faculty, instead of taking pride in having a faculty of scholars
and colleagues who are demonstrating to the students how to get along,
how to work cooperatively and collegially, across race and gender lines.
It is time to challenge and dismantle the dual system of higher education.
This
means all racial rhetoric causes should be abandoned, as affronts to rigorous
thinking and the open pursuit of knowledge. Accordingly, all racially iden–
tifiable centers, dorms, facilities, and colleges must be discontinued or
prompdy desegregated. No institution should permit racial groups to pick
who lives in a dormitory or wing of a dorm on the basis of race any more
than a student should pick who can and cannot sit next to
him
in a class–
room. A request for a roommate may be reasonably granted, but that's it.
Moreover, separate pre-orientation programs for minority students will need
to be stopped. The resources of the college/university should not support
racially exclusionary groupings or any other distincdy racial functions, such
as a separate prom, or a black, Asian, Hispanic, or white student's union.
On the twenty:first-century campus, there will only be "counselors," "deans,"
and race-neutral titles for all staff-without regard to the race or ethnicity
if
the stu–
dents they serve.
Admissions processes will need to be recast.
If criteria other than grade
point average, or SAT and Achievement Test scores are to be considered
for any student, such expansive criteria shall be considered for all appli–
cants, so as not to divide and stigmatize some students or to institutionalize
double standards based on either race or class.
No student is to be spoken to or spoken of in terms of their race/skin color.
Students who are capable are not so "because" they are Caucasian or Asian;
those who are under-achievers are not so "because" they belong to a par–
ticular racial classification. As Ward Connerly says, we've got to stop talking
