The stories about how Michelle Obama spent her academic career perpetually peeved remind me of the first piece of journalism I was ever paid for, an op-ed entitled “What Affirmative Action Really Does to Campuses,” that was published in the Christian Science Monitor in 1991. Here’s an excerpt:

For example, at the University of California at Berkeley, affirmative action has created what one professor there, anthropologist Vincent Sarich, calls “two student bodies,” distinguishable by skin color. Only 40% of the freshman openings are awarded to the best-qualified white and Asian students, while most of the rest are reserved for Hispanic and African-American applicants who must merely meet the legal minimums. Since there is only room for the elite of the white and Asian applicants, those selected have qualifications worthy of the Ivy League. While the Hispanic and African- American students typically possess skills more than adequate for most colleges, they are frequently overwhelmed trying to compete with Berkeley’s handpicked whites and Asians: the dropout rate of the “protected” minorities is much higher, despite their tending to get shunted into less demanding majors.

Even more serious, possibly, is how affirmative action poisons campus racial attitudes. Because skin color determines who gets in, students can (and do) use skin color, with an unfortunately high degree of accuracy, to estimate how tough a class’ grading curve will be. Stories abound of students poking their heads into classes they are considering taking, exclaiming things like, “Too many Chinese,” and scurrying off to find a classroom with less competitive demographics.

These are gross stereotypes; sadly, owing to affirmative action, students find them useful. In contrast, color-blind admissions would mean the different ethnic groups would be, on the whole, comparably qualified. Stereotypes would be of less use; students would have to view each other as individuals. (Color-blind admissions does not mean that colleges couldn’t recruit minorities more intensely, just that admissions decisions would not take race into account.)

While affirmative action inculcates smugness and condescension among whites and Asians, it instills self-doubt, paranoia, and frustration among its supposed beneficiaries. Sociologist Troy Duster spent a year interviewing Berkeley students to discover the roots of the growing racial hostility on campus. Professor Duster (who is African-American) was recently interviewed in the San Francisco Chronicle:

And the subject of affirmative action admissions “is where all the juices come out,” Duster says. Blacks and Latinos generally support affirmative action, but are ambivalent because, “they say, they are characterized as affirmative action admits, no matter what their grade point average is.” Duster says these students are convinced that in the minds of whites and Asians “they don’t really belong here. Affirmative action becomes a stigma for them.” In such a charged atmosphere, says Duster, students of color “feel belittled,” and “just about anything can be interpreted as racism.” . . . “What I experienced when I talked to these kids is their increasing rage at their own inability to justify the charge of racism.”

The majority of LAPD officers are now Hispanic, but that’s not good enough for the affirmative action types:

More Latino officers than whites in LAPD now - LA Daily News
Report, however, cites lack of minority promotions
By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 02/20/2008 12:13:19 AM PST

As of January, there are now 3,787 Latino officers in the LAPD and 3,770 white officers, according to the quarterly report named after the 16-year-old federal consent decree that forced the department to increase the hiring and promotion of minority officers. There are 1,183 black officers.

The report found the LAPD has met 47 percent of the promotional goals - with the majority of the noncompliance within the ranks of Latino officers.

It also found that the department should have at least nine more black officers and five more Asians in higher-ranking positions.

It also concluded that at least nine more women should hold a higher rank.

“It means that we make goals, but they still aren’t fulfilled,” said Arturo Placencia,[Send him mail] president of the Latin American Law Enforcement Association commonly referred to as La Ley, or the law in Spanish, which represents 650 uniformed officers.

He added it’s the first time Latinos have outnumbered whites in the department, something he called a “historic event.” But he also said the Los Angeles Police Department’s command staff still does not reflect the city’s diversity.[more]

Of course, there’s no reason why the department should reflect the city’s diversity. A lot of the diversity is due to recent immigration, much of it illegal, which skews the demographics.

Mickey Kaus still a Democrat after all these years, writes:

Psst–We Don’t Think He’s Pro-Life Either: Michael Kinsley lets out a secret Democrats have been guarding closely of late–when it comes to loyalty to conservative positions, we don’t think McCain’s as bad as conservatives claim. We think he’s worse!McCain: One of Us! - By Mickey Kaus - Slate Magazine

What he’s talking about is a Time Magazine column in which Kinsley says , among other things,

Only a couple of years ago, there were noises that McCain might admit he was much too nice to be a Republican and might run for President as an independent–or even as a Democrat. Democrats swooned and said they would vote for McCain because he was “honest.” McCain is perceived as authentic, which is a deeper form of honesty than mere truth-telling. He says he’s antiabortion? Oh, he doesn’t mean that. Among current or recent figures in American public life, only Colin Powell shares McCain’s mystical ability to make liberals believe he secretly agrees with them, no matter what he actually says. And Powell has to work at having it both ways. For McCain, it’s a gift. Mitt Romney demonstrated that there are limits to how many brazen flip-flops the voters will tolerate. But when people believe you are telling the truth if you agree with them and lying if you disagree, you don’t need to flip-flop.

Why Liberals Love McCain,By Michael Kinsley, Feb. 14, 2008

Of course, the reverse is the case with conservatives–we believe he’s telling the truth when he does something liberal, like McCain-Feingold, McCain-Kennedy, et cetera, and lying when he says, for example, that he’ll defend the border.

Olivia Alla is a Department of Homeland Security officer (e-mail her) who, after years of observation, makes these suggestions on how to deal with legal and illegal immigrants:

Legal workers

The Congress gears the existing law regulating how a potential employer is to seek a foreign worker to work in the USA on temporary working visa as follows.

1. The visa is neither changeable nor adjustable which means it doesn’t create any additional right whatsoever enabling the worker to become a permanent resident of the USA.
2. The employee must, following the existent procedure, prove to the Department of Labor (DOL) the impossibility of hiring American workers and ask for a permit to bring in foreign workers. There are no blanket petitions and visas anymore.
3. The employer must give to a foreign worker a competitive pay and benefits that are customary in the given field in the USA.
4. The DOL presents the approved petitions to the Department of State (DOS).
5. The DOS distributes the petitions to appropriate embassies of the approved countries.
6. The embassy advertises the program in the host country and collects applications. Decision is based on skill, age, health, other necessary attributes. It informs the applicant of his legal responsibility while in the USA as a guest worker, as well as about work place, duty, starting and departing dates, pay, benefits, and living conditions, and so on.
7. The host country must agree to reimburse the USA for any damage and expense incurred by its citizen during his term in the USA, in case the citizen unable or refuses to pay.
8. No accompanying family member is allowed.
9. The visa stipulates that, while under the contract, no more than 20 percent of the earning is be accessible to the worker in the USA. The rest goes to the worker’s account with the corresponding USA embassy. during
10. When back in his country the returned worker presents at the embassy a documentary proof of his timely departure from the USA and return to his domicile, and a letter from his employer. Only after the worker gets the rest of the earned amount in his possession.
11. An overstayer (who doesn’t leave on time) is declared a criminal, the earned money and all his possessions in the USA are subject to forfeiture, he becomes a subject of the automatic removal from the USA without a trial and inadmissible into the USA for the following 20 years.
12. In case a visa-violator worker is unable to reimburse a material detriment, any other expense consequent to his stay and removal from the USA, his home country pays the bill.
In case of denial the amount will be hold against the host country’s property and funds in the USA.
13. The employer has right, while the worker still in visa status, to apply for an extension of stay. It might be granted with strict limitations and without right to apply for a change or adjustment of status.
14. To apply for a change of working status or an employer, the worker must leave the country unconditionally.
15. After a worker’s visa term is over, the employer has to present a recommendation letter to the consequent embassy.
16. The worker presenting a positive recommendation letter may apply for another visa.
17. The worker negatively evaluated is inadmissible anymore under this program.

Illegal immigrants

18. The employer hiring an illegal is a subject to a significant fine and other severe legal consequences.
19. An informant of such violation is a subject for a government protection and entitled to a sizable share of the fine amount.
20. The law declares each illegal a criminal.
21. An illegal must register with the DHS in 30 days after publication of the law and indicate the time and manner of his voluntarily departure.
22. According a practical situation a registered illegal could be given a reasonable time to take care of his property in the USA.
23. Only a voluntarily departed registered illegal has right to apply for a working visa in the USA. To apply for a working visa the person must leave the USA voluntarily and apply from the country of his domicile.
24. As a token of encouragement, a voluntarily departed registered illegal applying for a working visa from his home country upon submission of a documentary proof of his voluntary departure from the USA and a positive letter from the employer gets a priority, up to three times, ahead of other citizens of his country.
25. An illegal, who refuses to register and to leave the USA voluntarily during the allowed period, is declared a criminal with the consequences described above.
26. In case of incurring any financial responsibility as the result of illegal entering and staying in the USA, the unregistered illegal is liable with all his property in the USA and abroad.
27. If an unregistered illegal is not solvent, the bill goes to the government of his home country or charged against the property of such country in the USA.
28. Congress declares: a non-American entered the USA illegally is criminal and is not a subject of the American Constitution.

This is a new video game, in which the object is to play the role of an alien, break and enter into the United States, and stay, avoiding deportation.

There were times in the last two years that Heidi Boisvert wasn’t sure if the game she was teaching herself to make should be fun. It’s a game about immigration that puts players in the virtual bodies of one of four fictional people not born in the United States. The player’s goal in “ICED“? To not get deported.

The player runs through a fictional city, dashing through icons that represent acts of civic good like planting trees, donating blood or volunteering at a soup kitchen, and answering questions about immigration in America. But if they give wrong answers, a “Grand Theft Auto“-style “wanted” system is activated, sending government agents who are determined to detain and deport. Boisvert said that she and her colleague wanted to be sure that there was “not necessarily a pleasure component, but … engagement with the game as a game at the same time we’re educating people about these ideas.”

Should people enjoy the game? Not really

[MTV Multiplayer » Should A New Game About Immigration Be Fun? Not Necessarily, Say Developers]

Because illegal immigration is wrong, like Grand Theft Auto? No, because you’re supposed to feel bad for the real-life border crossers, visa overstayers, and other illegal immigrants. So far, the game doesn’t come with either Al Qaeda or MS-13 modules.

It’s a project of a group I’ve never heard of called Breakthrough, whose international mission is to build “human rights culture.” This would make more sense if immigration was a human right, which it isn’t.