Today America is under attack from within. Among the battles being fought is equity versus meritocracy. This battle is ravaging American institutions. Wherever we look, from the arts to higher education, corporate America, and the sciences, the battle is exacting a high cost.
We want to thank Marc Abear for this Op-Ed. Please submit yours to Editor@GraniteGrok.com.
Hopefully, the battle burns itself out before it destroys America.
The juxtaposition of the issues of race and merit is ignored. We are treading a path back to racism. This is morally wrong, ethically challenged, and economically damaging to our future. It will take some serious backbone on the part of the nation’s political leadership to change the outcome. But we must try.
There is great value in telling the truth. We all know something is wrong. Most of us struggle to articulate exactly what. Let’s try to organize the truth so there is a framework for galvanizing our political leadership in the effort.
Our institutional leadership is turning against meritocracy. Their argument is we have a problem; Blacks are falling behind. They have chosen the answer, reverse racism. The truth is “Two wrongs don’t make a right.”
The destruction of meritocracy today does not remedy the past ills of slavery. Neither does it make anything but privilege for the ignorant. Divide the world by identity all you want, but that breaking down of society into smaller and smaller parts makes America weaker and poorer.
The united whole is more than the sum of its parts. That is what the American dream has shown us. When we aspire together, we will work together and we can achieve whatever we can dream.
America can be controlled by diversity or meritocracy. We cannot have both. Meritocratic standards have a disparate impact on Blacks. Blacks as a group do poorly on standardized tests. That’s not because the tests do not measure correctly. Rather, the tests are objective and colorblind. It’s a statement; Blacks’ academic skills are generally lower. This is not a value judgment, it is a statement of fact.
That is a separate issue from diversity. The issue of academic underperformance by Blacks can and should be dealt with. Destroying meritocracy is not the way to do that. Destroying meritocracy makes everyone poorer without helping those most in need of the assistance.
The point is; if Blacks were not the lowest performing group, we would not be tearing down meritocracy. Some people succeed at each of the various areas of life more than others. That is because of effort and/or innate talent. Racism and racial disparity are increasingly driving the troublesome areas of decision making in our society.
The 1964 Civil Rights Act penalized intentional discrimination. It ended the use of race based standards in hiring and employment. In the 1970s the game changed and the next step became the disparate impact doctrine.
The disparate impact doctrine began as a court case. The important tenant of it is the showing of a difference became the establishment of racial intent. This is and always has been a non sequitur. Yet, it has settled in and become a corrosive cultural construct.
Perhaps the clearest example is civil service exams. At the time Blacks were doing poorly on these exams. That fact kept them from getting civil service positions, police, firefighters, etc. But the tests were not racist. They measured the skill level of the test taker in job specific areas. The tests were both relevant and merit based.
Disparate impact threw out the tests because those passing them did not represent racial groups proportionally. From there disparate impact spread into regulation and statute. That is how reverse racism metastasized.
After 30 years of institutionalized reverse racism the Supreme Court erred again. With Grutter v. Bollinger they further extended the reverse racism doctrine. The case said affirmative action in college admissions is justifiable.
It included a caveat “but not in perpetuity” which today is dropped from the application of the ruling. It has become the way we approach decision making. It has become codification of racism…which was never the intent. Perverse, don’t you think?
Today to take down any individual, organization or institution all that has to happen is to label it “White”. That is racist. There’s no other way to say it. It is racist. We are returning to a racist society. Blacks are leading the charge.
It used to be the burden of proof was on the government to prove discrimination. Today, it is enough to simply show a difference in results. And individuals, the academy, corporate America and government are abandoning objective truth in decision making.
We are adopting a reverse racist position. The burden of proof has been shifted. The accused must now prove a negative… It is a nearly impossible case to make. It should be unconstitutional. It is unfair and un-American. Just think about it. There is a way out of this.
