Response to Alleyne on Quota Myths

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Written by Allan J. Favish

In "Quota Myths Keep Discrimination Alive" (Commentary, March 18), Reginald Alleyne posits a "prestigious university" that "offers admission to 3,000 applicants, of whom 300 are black and other minorities with at least good grades and test scores, if not in the excellent range of most other admitted applicants."

If you know nothing else about two university students, except that one was probably admitted under a program where intellectual standards were reduced and the student received a preference for being the child of an alumnus, and the other was admitted under more rigorous intellectual standards without receiving any nonmerit-based preference, what are you going to think about these two students?

Is the answer any different when the preference is based on race rather than an alumni relationship?

A nonmerit-based preference program based on an individual's physical appearance or surname is no less a "badge of inferiority" than the one condemned in Brown v. Board of Education. Thanks to Alleyne's racial preference program, any of the "300" students he described who attend the university, including those who deserved admission without the racial preference, will wear that badge.

Los Angeles Times, March 29, 1996, p. B12