Wednesday, March 07, 2012

Post #331 Personal Responsibility

Isn't it time that we, as a society, hold people responsible for their own actions or inactions? Let's judge people by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

A girl applied to the University of Texas at Austin and was rejected. Naturally, she's suing -- citing the tired ol' bogeyman of racism, saying that she was discriminated against because of her race. The United States Supreme Court will hear the case.

The University of Texas accepts the top %10 of each high school's graduating class. The plaintiff did not make it. Her application then went into a pool with the other 'losers' to be judged on what they did in high school -- the content of their character. You know, extra-circular activities: clubs, student government, sports, jobs, charity work. And she wrote an essay extolling her virtues to be a Longhorn. Again, she did not make it.

And now she's whining. She's going to court -- claiming that, because she is not a member of the 'privileged race,' she has been discriminated against. She wants government protection -- can you say "nanny-state socialism?" -- for her race.

Good Lord. Nobody from the 'privileged race' made her not work hard to improve her grades; nobody from the 'privileged race' made her not join clubs; nobody from the 'privileged race' made her write an unconvincing essay.

It's called personal responsibility, pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps, doing the best you can and accepting your shortcomings.

Hopefully, the Supreme Court will do the correct thing and laugh this case out of court.
It's time we stopped blaming racism for every slight..

2 comments:

Spidey said...

Yup. And one result of GWB's inspired creation of the 10% rule was, according to one of the UT-Austin's pooh-bahs in an interview a few years ago was that the student body of the school had, because of the rule, become much more diverse in almost every way. IOW, less racially singular. I hadn't seen this news article, but the girl ain't got no standing if she's suing and claiming 'racism'. Plus, there are lots and lots of other good universities in Texas that will probably admit her, since the 10% rule only applies to the two flagship Texas universities, UT- Austin and Texas A&M.

TheDaF said...

And, now, the rest of the story: The girl suing is white; the ‘privileged race,’ as she sees it, is black, brown, red, yellow… or green, I guess. She is claiming that, because she was only in the top %12 of her class, she was discriminated against because Texas did accept students from other less-privileged schools than hers who scored less than she did but were in the top %10 of their class. My point is, she had ample opportunity to qualify but failed.