There is a greater menace than chasing ‘diversity’ at any cost

While I largely agree with Coleman Hughes that racial quotas are counterproductive (‘The diversity trap’), he misuses Martin Luther King Jr to buttress his argument. King said that he hoped his descendants would ‘be judged…by the content of their character’, not by their standardised test scores. The grim pursuit of purely quantifiable ratings for intelligence and achievement in American schools — by Asians and white Protestants alike — is an even greater scourge these days than the illiberal goal of ‘diversity’ at any cost. Harvard admissions may well be covertly, and unfairly, anti-Asian, but by taking into consideration ‘courage’ and ‘kindness’, they might also be doing the right thing.

This letter appeared in this week’s Spectator