Jon Sterling on Nostr: I think a lot of the consternation over race-based preferential admissions in the US ...

I think a lot of the consternation over race-based preferential admissions in the US has to do with different vantage points on the same thing — some people are looking at university admissions as reward or recognition for hard work, and others are looking at it as a factor that decides the composition of the middle and upper classes in a country torn by race and gender wars. They are both right, and I think the frustrations on both sides are legitimate. I think this is why it has been so hard to communicate about this.

The Times reports that Howard University has ~75% women enrollment, and ~25% male enrollment (https://www.nytimes.com/2025/03/30/us/black-men.html?unlocked_article_code=1.704.wRhG.2xQO4IWbNgKz&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare). This is an interesting case, because we can see a societal crisis unfolding in miniature at an HBCU. Regardless of whether you think men are being left behind because men are “outdated” or because society is becoming hostile to men or some other explanation (hopefully), you have to agree that it is extremely dangerous for society to have such a marked imbalance in who gets educated and who doesn’t. I promise that you do NOT want an underclass of primarily unemployed and uneducated men with nothing but time and resentment on their hands.

The case of gender is interesting because it is for some reason less charged than the race one, but racial imbalances are also concerning for similar reasons. If we want any kind of social harmony, we do need to find a way to solve these problems that does not just swap one preference for another.

The zero-sum game of education and employment is at its breaking point. If we want education to continue to exist, we must find a way to bring it to everyone.