PrintMarch 16, 2007
UK targets the middle class for discrimination
In an experiment in social engineering redolent of Communist China or the old USSR, British Universities will be discriminating against middle class applicants:
Middle-class pupils face losing out on university places if their parents have degrees and professional jobs, after changes to the admissions system. For the first time, applicants will be asked to reveal whether their parents also went to university, as part of moves to attract more working-class students into higher education. The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) said yesterday that it had also decided that information on the occupation and ethnicity of applicants' parents should also be made available to admissions officers.
Psst--Lie on the application forms or take up pitchforks and march on Parliament.
Thomas Lifson adds:
The University of California system has been using similar methodology to get around the voters' decision to forbid all racial preferences. They coyly ask applicants to describe hardships they have overcome, with particular attention to being the first member of the family to attend college and racial discrimination they have experienced.
So much time and energy is expended on this enterprise that I almost expect a new academic specialty to be created: the department of racial engineering.
