The redistribution of minorities within the UC system has had the benefit of increasing minority graduation rates. According to a law-review article by Eryn Hadley of the Pacific Legal Foundation, the black graduation rate at Berkley for the freshman class entering in 1998 after the passage of Prop. 209 increased 6.5 percent. UCLA law professor Richard Sander notes that black students at UC San Diego had a four-year graduation rate of 26 percent in 1995-1996 and a 52 percent rate in 1999-2001. These figures are so important because gaining admittance to a college doesn't do someone much good unless he gets a degree.
So MCRI doesn't pose a threat to the interests of minorities. In a naked electoral ploy, opponents are saying that it will harm women. Nation-wide, women make up 57 percent of college students. Rather than be threatened by measures like MCRI, they are much more likely to become the victims of preferences down the line, when administrators decide to try to get their gender balances back in whack. Nor does MCRI put at risk screening for breast and cervical cancer, a truly despicable charge made by opponents. Such programs have continued unmolested in California.
Supporters of preferences want to believe that there is a magical solution to the educational deficits of minorities -- just let them into top schools, whether they are prepared or not. This simply papers over the problem, even if it allows the people who run and support the University of Michigan to feel good about their commitment to diversity. A serious effort to address minority achievement would begin with attempts to reduce the out-of-wedlock child-bearing that puts kids of single moms at an immediate disadvantage, and to reform the K-12 education that is such a disaster in urban areas.
This is arduous, long-term work. But if all the groups that are working so vigorously to kill MCRI would put their minds to it instead, maybe eventually they wouldn't feel so compelled to support racial discrimination.