NOT SEPARATE, NOT EQUAL
                    (C)1997 Alan M. Schwartz

Science does not have skin color; atoms do not care.  The social 
engineering shibboleth of diversity has no more mystical impact 
than virginity.  If you hire based on worth other than 
operational excellence (e.g., apocryphal ancestral slights) you 
will inherit the wind.

California Proposition 209 bans all discrimination, by generous 
majority popular vote, because even nurturant idiots have come to 
recognize there is no such thing as "good" discrimination.  God 
does not cut any slack for surgeon or pilot because it is Black 
or Spanish-surnamed, female, queer, or crippled in a cute and 
cuddly way.  The text is straightforward, just 37 words, and even 
the ACLU was struck dumb:

SEC. 31. (a) The state shall not discriminate against, or grant 
preferential treatment to, any individual or group on the basis 
of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin in the 
operation of public employment, public education, or public 
contracting. 

The nature of physical reality owes no obeisance to political 
exigency.  Mediocrity is a vice of the doomed.  The Bakke case 
(1978 US Supreme Court) dealt with a white man who was refused 
admission into medical school in favor of a Black minority 
socially reconstructive mercy hump with significantly lesser 
scores.  Bakke entered an alternative medical school and is an 
anesthesiologist in Minnesota.

The minority student who displaced Bakke in the University of 
California Medical School became Dr. Bernard Chavis.  He made his 
mark as the obstetrics specialist who performed a liposuction on 
Yolanda Mukhalian, who thereafter died from the inept therapy of 
Dr. Chavis.  Chavis was brought under medical review, homicide 
apparently being beyond the toleration of compensatory racial 
discrimination.  Judge Samuel Reys acted on the recommendation of 
the Medical Board of California, stating that Dr. Chavis had 
"inability to perform some of the most basic duties required of a 
physician".  The Administrative Law Judge found Chavis guilty of 
gross negligence and incompetence in the treatment of three 
patients, including Ms. Mukhalian whom he killed.

In the 1978 Bakke decision the Supreme Court approved the system 
that put Bernard Chavis in medical school:  lower academic 
standards for Black, Brown/Latino/Hispanic/Chicano, and American 
Indian students to promote racial diversity.  The consequence is 
compensated Officially underprivileged minorities have been failing 
national medical boards - the uniform bench mark of medical school 
achievement - far more often than their intellectually qualified 
peers for 20 years, 51% vs 12% failure rate.  Minority students 
admitted without regard to race rarely fail their boards.  The 
disparity is caused by lower admission standards.  Intelligence 
does exist, it can be measured, it does make a difference.

The cost of medical affirmative action isn't theoretical.  It is 
paid in human suffering, sometimes in human lives.  Medicine, 
dentistry, management, engineering, and science - all compromised 
by admission of racially-qualified imbeciles and corresponding 
forcible exclusion of intellectually qualified "others" - are 
weaving shoddy cloth as you read this.

Senator Edward Kennedy vigorously defended racial preferences to 
the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee on 30 April 1996.  
Senator Kennedy presciently asserted, "Dr. Bernard Chavis is a 
perfect example.  He is the supposedly less-qualified African 
American student who allegedly 'displaced' Allen Bakke at the 
University of California/Davis, and triggered the landmark case.  
Today, Dr. Chavis is a successful ob-gyn in central Los Angeles 
serving a disadvantaged community and making a difference in the 
lives of scores of poor families."  One presumes a Kennedy woman 
would not hesitate to avail herself of Dr. Chavis' skills in the 
manner that homeless and minorities are prevalent in Hyannisport.

Less than two weeks later on 11 May 1996 Dr. Chavis performed a 
liposuction on Mukhalian and she died.  Kennedy sure can pick 
them.  Dr. Chavis had his California license to practice revoked 
by the court and California Medical Board for professional 
incompetence.  It appears to this author that Chavis is indeed a 
"less-qualified African American student who" "'displaced' Allen 
Bakke at the University of California/Davis."

Project Head Start has averaged more than a $billion each year 
for the past 25 years rescuing minority and Inner City 
preschoolers from their impoverished cultural and intellectual 
surroundings (not to be confused with their rich celebration of 
ethnic diversity).  They are fed, intensively tutored, and 
personally empowered.  According to the Department of Education, 
a Head Start child is utterly indistinguishable from standard 
Inner City issue by third grade.  That $25 billion could have 
alternatively purchased 625,000 $10K/year four-year scholarships 
for qualified engineers, scientists, and mathematicians.  It 
could have snared every severely gifted child in America, all 
0.1% of them, and wrought them into entities of awe and majesty.

We got Berny Chavis, and Senator Edward Kennedy is proud of it.