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If More People Wrote Letters Like This...

... there would be less need for letters like this.

The indefatigable Linda Seebach, formerly of the former Rocky Mountain News, recently sent the following letter to the head of the communications department at DePaul University:

I listen to WFMT (streaming on the Web), and recently DePaul has been running ads focusing on a professor in the Chemistry Department named Quinnetta Shelby. She doesn?t stop at just doing her research, the ad gushes; no, she?s on a quest.

She ?actively recruits undergraduate students of color, as well as female students, both groups that are underrepresented in graduate schools and careers in chemistry, for her research team.?

I am well aware that race and gender discrimination are widely practiced in higher education. I discontinued support to my college?s alumni fund when they proudly announced they had signed an amicus brief supporting the University of Michigan?s admissions policies. But bragging about it on the radio is still a bit much, don?t you think?

DePaul has no warrant to adopt discriminatory policies of its own in order to engineer social outcomes it prefers, even if it believes that ?underrepresentation? is a problem. ?Overrepresentation? is not a problem, and you can?t increase one without decreasing the other.

If my son were still of an age where he was choosing a college, I would not permit him to apply to DePaul.

No one will be surprised to hear that she did not receive a reply.

Linda also makes a very good point about the relevance of ?paper and pencil? tests to leadership positions in organizations:

While it's true that high scores on (a reasonable) paper-and-pencil test do not guarantee excellent performance ? people may know the job content cold, but be lousy managers, say ? low scores may indeed guarantee bad performance....

Indeed.

Full post as published by Discriminations on July 15, 2009 (boomark / email).