The University of California continues to flout the spirit, if not the letter, of the law passed by the voters of California requiring no state agency discriminate on the basis of race. UC, you see, desperately wants to engineer what it deems an appropriate racial mix for its student body (athletic teams excepted, of course). So, for its admissions process, UC requires students to describe "hardships" which they have overcome, thereby allowing ascription of merit to those facing, racism, homophobia, poverty, and whatever else strikes the fancy of the elitists anxious to feel good about themselves and their lack of prejudice.

The latest step taken by UC is to drop out of the National Merit Scholarship program. National Merit Scholars are determined by performance on a colorblind exam (full disclosure: I received a number of National Merit Scholarship offers from various schools back in the Dark Ages), and the racial mix (too many Asians and Caucasians) doesn't suit the bien pensants at UC.

So the program is history. They won't yank scholarships away from current awardees. But in future, scholarships will be awarded on the basis of the rather vague criteria UC uses. The ol' butchers thumb on the race scale routine, in other words. Make sure you are of the right racial background. It makes me ill....

Thomas Lifson   7 14 05