RIGHT OF CENTER: THE CASE FOR COLLEGE STANDARDS

The brouhaha over comments made recently by the president of Rutgers University typifies the fascism on the left-wing fringe. Amazingly, those who have protested President Francis Lawrence's remarks, and demanded his resignation, also have demanded the university implement the very policies Lawrence was attempting to justify when he made his inflammatory racial remarks.

The publication of Lawrence's comments last fall that minorities don't have the genetic background to do well on college entrance exams prompted an on-court sit-in that forced suspension of a recent basketball game between Rutgers and Massachusetts. Lawrence, a liberal darling eager to bed down with the politically fashionable crowd at every turn, made his remarks in an effort to justify his contention that admission standards ought to be lowered for minorities to enable previously unqualified applicants to enroll.

He has apologized vociferously for his slip of the tongue, but to no avail. The United Student Coalition of Rutgers still wants him to resign.

They also want a tuition rollback, the dropping of the Scholastic Assessment Test as an admission requirement, more money for recruitment and retention programs for minority students, and the inclusion of minority and women's studies programs as part of the university's core curriculum.

Let's take a look at their demands. Why should the SAT be dropped as an admission requirement? The contention is that because black students typically score lower than whites on the test, many minorities are being kept out of Rutgers. Drop the standard and you will get more black students.

But short of committing the faux pas of verbalizing the sentiment, doesn't such a policy make the very racist assertion that black students can't compete on the same scale as whites? The quota crowd will argue that the SAT and similar aptitude tests are biased against minorities. If that is the case, shouldn't the tests be changed rather than the standard eliminated?

If the admission standard is eliminated, what criterion takes its place? Unfortunately, race does, as discrimination on the basis of race becomes the policy for admission.

Take a look at the Rutgers group's other demands: more money for recruitment and retention programs for minority students, and the inclusion of minority studies programs as part of the university's core curriculum. It's no coincidence such programs accompany a lowering of admission standards.

Students, white or black, who score poorly on standardized aptitude tests, if admitted to college, typically have a difficult time surviving academically. Once large groups of those students are allowed to enroll in college, retention and graduation rates predictably will drop. That's where the retention programs come in.

But is it really necessary to devote extensive resources to tutor and give individual attention to students who ought to pursue opportunities that better align with their God-given abilities?

Some of the most successful, and yes intelligent, people I know never attended college. They never had the disposition for higher learning. But I know men who can dismantle an automobile engine, repair it and rebuild it with an ease that would befuddle the dons of academia. Others I know have perfected the science of feeding and breeding livestock to achieve the highest possible conversion of dollars spent on producing pounds of milk or beef to the dollars earned by their sale. Such people rightly resent being told they somehow missed the boat by not attending college.

And what of those who truly have an aptitude for higher education? Imagine a black college student who scored far above the now banished standard on his SAT. He's forced to endure the stigma that his so-called leaders foisted upon him -- that he wouldn't be there if not for the lowering of admission standards.

That's where the minority studies programs come in. To counter the fomenting hostility, the university must implement thinly veiled propaganda, speciously called multi-cultural education, to vanquish conflict.

Such is life not only at Rutgers University but at colleges and universities throughout the nation. Don't expect such foolishness to abate soon. For to criticize the quota crowd and question their motives is to invite the carping whine of "racist, racist" from the fascists who abhor dissent. Too often it's easier to remain on the sidelines, bewildered, as the inmates take over the asylum.

~Jay Eastlick is the news editor of the Southeast Missourian.