No Administrative Response to Bassam Frangieh Piece Yet

For those wondering about administrative response to the earlier posted article about Bassam Frangieh's support of terrorist groups and suicide bombing, allow me to say that I have sent a request for statement from three individuals at Claremont McKenna earlier today. They are: Gregory Hess (Dean of Faculty), Hilary Appel (Assistant Dean of Faculty), and Pamela Gann (President of Claremont McKenna).  (In the past, when I have asked Gann for a statement, I am usually directed to a P.R. officer.)

Reports are already trickling in from alumni and parents that are upset or stunned that Frangieh would be a professor at Claremont McKenna. I'll put more up once I get it.

It's Time To Stop Treating People Well or Poorly On The Basis of Race

A report released on Friday notes that the category of "Asian American" for the purposes of government racism is something of a catch all, having no actual bearing in reality. There is the report as NPR notes, "grave disparities in educational achievement between Asian-Americans, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in California."

The report notes that Hmong  (the ethnic group made famous by Gran Torino) shouldn't be treated as if they were Chinese by the state. Same goes for Pacific Islanders (Samoans, Guamians, Tongans, etc.) who also lag behind other Asian sub groups. Thinking of these groups as Asia is very bad because, well, I'll let one of the experts explain it:

"One fifth of Pacific Islanders in our grades 9-12 are expected to drop out by grade 12," [University of California researcher Lois] Takahashi said. "That’s very similar and almost equivalent to the dropout rate for Latinos in the state."

That's very bad, we are told. We need a government program targeting Pacific Islanders, of course. (Preferably we can discriminate against the high achieving Asians to punish those hard working bastards help those underachieving Pacific Islanders.)

The report issued by the group, of which Pomona College Dean Sefa Aina is a member, says that the state ought to treat them differently, even though it is constitutionally barred from doing that because of Proposition 209 which made it illegal to use race as a criteria of anything. That Mr. Aina was appointed to a White House Advisory Commission makes his thoughts on race all the more troubling, suggesting as it does, that the Obama Administration supports the notion that we ought to have studies that deal with race in the first place.


That said, I have no doubt that some Asian subgroups lag other subgroups. Nor do I have any doubt that some black groups are actually ahead of the rest of blacks. (Note the fact that Nigerians are among the highest ethnic groups with the highest rate of high school graduation.)

Of course, I also have no doubt that some white sub-groups are more achieving than others. Or that some red-heads are smarter than others, that some women are smarter than others, that some left-handed people are smarter than others, etc., etc.

All of which makes me wonder: When are we just going to start treating people as, you know, individuals, rather than political constituencies that can be exploited for votes?