July 1, 2023

THIS IS CNN: What Caused a CNN Host to Quickly End Her Segment on Affirmative Action.

CNN host Abby Phillip ended a segment with a fair admissions advocate on Thursday when he used facts to demonstrate the downside of affirmative action.

Kenny Xu — a board member for Students for Fair Admissions, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case — told Phillip that academic excellence, not race, “should be prioritized” in college admissions.

“I think that admissions should be only based on merit,” he said. “Why are we asking a university to calculate somebody’s level of diversity? I think that sets a very bad precedent for anybody trying to get into college. We should be treated on the basis of our merits. We should be treated on the basis of how hard we work, or study, our SAT scores, our grades.”

But Phillip pushed back. She asked why admissions boards should not consider “other factors” that students “bring to the table” like socio-economic background.

Xu argued you cannot do that fairly because, inevitably, admissions standards are changed for applicants from a disadvantaged socio-economic background versus applicants from a privileged background.

“We don’t want that. We want black students to succeed. We want every student to succeed, low-income students to succeed,” he pointed out. “But you have to put them in scenarios, in places where they are likely to succeed. And lowering your standard to admit somebody of a socio-economic status or race would not help you do that. In fact, you would harm their graduation rate and excellence.”

When Phillip tried to say the standards weren’t lowered, Xu whipped out data on SAT scores and admission rates, and the CNN host quickly fled to the bunker. Xu is right. Thomas Sowell explained this glaring problem with affirmative action in front of a US Senate committee, adding that these protocols often set up these applicants for failure.

Read the whole thing.

Posted at 12:45 pm by Ed Driscoll