One of the favorite things for some people to do, is to call someone racist when that insists that there are standards to be met and some groups of people appear to be unable to meet those standards. Dr. Tom Woods delves into this forbidden territory of discussion.
Dr. Woods:
In Washington state, and evidently in a number of other states, the days of the bar exam being required are numbered.
… the bar exam should be open to anyone, not just people who sat through (and borrowed the money to pay for) three years of law school — although since that’s the way the American Bar Association likes it, that’s what we have.
But as long as you have the knowledge, who cares how you acquired it? As George Leef notes, nobody at the Boston Symphony Orchestra asks before your audition whether you learned to play your instrument on your own or via formal lessons. As long as you’re good, what else matters?
I wholeheartedly concur with Dr. Woods. I have been and still am involved with the providing of skilled professionals to endeavors that I supervise. I do not give a f*** where they got their skills from. What I care about is whether or not the individual can do the job.
Dr. Woods:
As you might expect, though, Washington and other places are making the change for the usual reason: not enough minority students are passing the bar exam. Whenever such an outcome occurs, activists like this respond by simply eliminating the requirement (and calling it “racist”).
I don’t know why people aren’t embarrassed to make demands like this. I sure would be.
But it’s gone on in every nook and cranny of American society, now under the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) banner.
(Every one of those three words is employed to mean its opposite, needless to say.)
The absolute lunacy of this approach is exposed when one asks people why there are no women in the NFL or the NBA. Does the NFL reflect the population characteristics of the areas they exist in? Of course not. The skills needed for the NFL are specialized. Not everyone can participate. Is this sexist? Of course not.
Dr. Woods:
Most people are decent and want to treat other people decently. They don’t want to be called names. They don’t want to be called “racist,” or a hater, or a “white supremacist,” or whatever. DEI exploits this good nature to get people to consent to policies that are driven neither by evidence nor good will but by ignorance and malice.
Dr. Woods hits a home run here. DEI policies do not have evidence to support their use. In fact, as we are seeing more and more every day, putting people into positions that they are not qualified for is a recipe for disaster. When will a plane fall out of the sky because of some birdbrained DEI policy?
It is far past time to return to merit-based advancement. Would you want to watch the Super Bowl with seven officials who were selected based on whether or not they satisfied a DEI requirement? Would you want teams to advance to the Super Bowl based on passing DEI standards? Shouldn’t it be that the best advance to such pinnacles of success?