Whatever the reason for the gender imbalance, college administrators across the country have been going to great lengths to lasso the boys—adding sports programs, building bigger gyms, and expanding departments in engineering, math, and the hard sciences, which are historically attractive to men. And the presidents make sure their admissions directors are doing their best to ‘rectify’ the problem of gender imbalance by lowering the academic threshold for the (mostly white) boys who apply. Anyone who doubts the futility of human progress should ponder this. After several generations of vicious racism, followed by protest marches, civil rights lawsuits, accusations of bigotry, appeals to color-blindness, feminism, and eloquent invocations of the meritocratic ideal, the latest admissions trend in American higher education is affirmative action for white men. Just like the old days.
One more irresistible quote from Crazy U. As Mr. Burns says in The Simpsons Movie, “For once, the rich white man is in control.”