Legal Commentary

What He Said

Regular readers will know that Peter Schmidt of the Chronicle of Higher Education is one of the few journalists who cover affirmative action whose work I respect, and that is true even though I often disagree with what he writes. He?s often wrong, in my view, but never devious, duplicitous, or dumb. (Indeed, I have commented on Schmidt?s work so often that the above points will not be news even to most irregular readers.)

Some of you will have noticed, however, that I have not commented at any length on Schmidt?s book, Color And Money: How Rich White Kids Are Winning The War Over College Affirmative Action. For a taste of what he says, and what I would have said if I?d said anything, you may want to take a look at this post from almost a year ago, Telling It Like It (Mostly) Is.

For various reasons, including no small doses of sloth and procrastination, I have put off doing so, even though I believe the book nicely reflects both Schmidt?s considerable strengths and one or two of his wrongheaded notions and thus richly deserves comment.

Now University of Michigan philosophy professor Carl Cohen, long-time liberal who remains a liberal despite his now almost legendary opposition to racial preferences, has made my task considerably more difficult. Now I not only have to do what has eluded me so far ? figuring out how to strike the right balance between praise and criticism of one of the few reporters in this area whose work deserves respect ? but I now have the additional burden of doing so while not repeating what Cohen said in his excellent review.

So, for now, I?ll simply say: What he said....

Full post as published by Discriminations on May 30, 2008 (boomark / email).