Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Legal Commentary Blogs -> Discriminations

Legal Commentary

: Discriminations

Where Is Deference To The French When You Need It?

It hasn?t been so long since our American elites thought we should be more sensitive to the opinions of our cultural betters in Europe, especially the French. Now the French are beginning to address a problem with which we have a lot of experience, and it?s interesting to see what they think of what we?ve done.

As the New York Times reported a week or so ago (HatTip to reader Jian Li), ?France is embarking on a grand experiment ? how to diversify the overwhelmingly white ?grandes écoles,? the elite universities that have produced French leaders in every walk of life....?

Because entrance to the best grandes écoles effectively guarantees top jobs for life, the government is prodding the schools to set a goal of increasing the percentage of scholarship students to 30 percent ? more than three times the current ratio at the most selective schools. But the effort is being met with concerns from the grandes écoles, who fear it could dilute standards, and is stirring anger among the French at large, who fear it runs counter to a French ideal of a meritocracy blind to race, religion and ethnicity.

The French ideal that many view at risk, ?a meritocracy blind to race, religion and ethnicity,? is strikingly similar to the old ideal still honored by what may be termed ?the Americans at large? but scorned by our elites, the belief that every American has a right to be treated ?without regard to race, creed, or color? by the state.

In France, ?the schools fear that the government will undermine excellence in the name of social engineering,? as well they should.

[They] say the process has to begin further down the educational ladder. The state, they say, should seek out poor students with potential and help them to enter preparatory schools.

The French seem to be worried about the ?mismatch? they see as a problem in the United States.

?The fundamental principle for us is that students have the capability to do the work here, which is very difficult,? with a lot of math, physics and science, very little of it based on cultural knowledge, General [Xavier] Michel [head of ?École Polytechnique, one of the world?s finest engineering schools?] said. ?We don?t want to bring students into school who risk failing,? he said. ?You can get lost very quickly.?

And what do they think of our methods of implementing ?diversity??

There is a serious question about how to measure diversity in a country where every citizen is presumed equal and there are no official statistics based on race, religion or ethnicity. A goal cannot be called a ?quota,? which has an odor of the United States and affirmative action....

So, now, the French elite look at us and hold their collective nose because ??quota? ... has an odor of the United States and affirmative action.?

We gave the world a ringing Declaration that ?all men are created equal,? and now we give it the odor of quotas.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 05, 2010 (boomark / email).