Rep. King Wants to Shine Light on College Admissions

If you search for: Racial and Ethnic Preference Disclosure Act on the New York Times website you won’t get any hits.

That is odd, because the New York Times has made a point of publicizing the secret anti-terror programs of the United States government on the argument that the release of such information is in the public interest.

But the New York Times doesn’t seem to have much interest in shining the light of knowledge into another notoriously secretive area of American life: the policies of university admissions officers.

Rep. Steven King (R-IA) wants to change all that. As reported by Peter Kirsanow he is introducing a bill into Congress,

“Racial and Ethnic Preference Disclosure Act.” The bill would require institutions of higher learning that receive federal dollars to disclose to the Office of Civil Rights in the Department of Education and the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice various items of information related to the use of race, color and national origin in the admissions process.

Well, it’s only fair, isn’t it? I mean, people need to know things about a college’s admissions process before they start shelling out admissions fees. They need to know things like:

(1) how much weight its admissions process gives to an applicant’s race, ethnicity, etc; (2) the probability that a student given preferred consideration on account of race or ethnicity will have to enroll in a remediation program; (3) graduation rates for preferred students vs. that of non-preferred students; and (4) the probability that preferred students will default on student loans.

Wouldn’t you want to know stuff like that before you applied to a university?

But the question is, why has the New York Times, which believes in the public’s right to know the methods and tactics of the national intelligence agencies, not weighed in to support this modest proposal of Rep. King?