The College Fix

The College Fix presents a roundup of the top scandals, screw-ups, and stupid decisions involving college campuses. This week, the SAT tests everybody’s patience, and Ohio hates smokers. But first…

3). City University of New York adds White/Jewish to list of conceivable minority classifications. One can imagine the meeting of the CUNY diversity committee where this brilliant idea was proposed. “Instead of actually recruiting underprivileged minorities, we will just redefine some of the people we already have into a new minority category! Everybody wins!” And all the administrators clap themselves on the back and celebrate their commitment to diversity.

This should be called the Elizabeth Warren method of minority enrollment, now that the word minority just refers to “whoever.”

2). The College Board proposes a special SAT test date in stress-free August. What’s the catch? Only students who paid $4,500 for a class are eligible. But the really unfair thing is that the College Board planned to mix the results of the test with the results from the normal June test so that college admissions officers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. The LA Times said it best:

Colleges will not have the option of discounting the summer SAT results for those few dozen students because the College Board will label them as June tests — which in itself gives the students an unfair advantage, as they had more time to prepare for the test, even though it will look as though all students had an equal opportunity. Colleges shouldn’t stand for it.

Thankfully, the College Board canceled this plan due to widespread criticism. Even so, it was a dumb idea to begin with.

1). Ohio Board of Regents wants smoking banned at all university campuses. Let’s follow the logic:

Ohio Board of Regents Chairman James Tuschman said he will introduce a resolution at this month’s meeting asking boards of trustees at two- and four-year institutions to ban tobacco on campuses.

“It’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Tuschman, other regents and Chancellor Jim Petro were influenced by a plea from Dr. Toby Cosgrove, chief executive of the Cleveland Clinic, who spoke at the regents’ May 22 meeting at Lorain County Community College.

“Universities take a great deal of thought, time and expense to educate the brain,” Cosgrove said. “You have to think about educating the bodies.”

College: Where you can smoke marijuana, but not cigarettes. Where cultural sensitivity is required of students, unless those cultures involve smoking, in which case they need to be educated about proper behavior. Where free expression is valued, so long as people do their expressing in specially designated outdoor areas away from campus grounds.

Ironic, but perhaps expected. Universities increasingly see themselves as small nation-states where health bureaucrats have license to enact the most repressive components of nanny-state liberalism. In a world where health care is no longer a choice, no one can be permitted to smoke.

Regrettable, and dumb.

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