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bobbyw24
07-07-2009, 04:34 AM
http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatBuchanan/2009/07/07/dumbing-down_the_us_navy

Dumbing-Down the U.S. Navy
Pat Buchanan
Tuesday, July 07, 2009

"Naval Academy Professor Challenges Rising Diversity," ran the headline in The Washington Post.

The impression left was that some sorehead was griping because black and Hispanic kids were finally being admitted.

The Post's opening paragraphs reinforced the impression.

"Of the 1,230 plebes who took the oath of office at the Naval Academy in Annapolis this week, 435 were members of minority groups. It's the most racially diverse class in the nation's 164-year history. Academy leaders say it's a top priority to build a student body that reflects the racial makeup of the Navy and the nation."

Who can be against diversity?


What the Post gets around to is that 22-year English professor Bruce Fleming objects to a race-based admissions program that was apparently used to create a class that is 35 percent minority.

According to Fleming, who once sat on the board of admissions, white applicants must have all As and Bs and test scores of at least 600 on the English and math parts of the SAT even to qualify for a "slate" of 10 applicants, from which only one will be chosen.

However, if you check a box indicating you are African-American, Hispanic, Native American or Asian, writes Fleming, "SAT scores to the mid 500s with quite a few Cs in classes ... typically produces a vote of 'qualified' ... with direct admission to Annapolis. They're in and given a pro forma nomination to make it legit."

If true, the U.S. Naval Academy is running a two-tier admissions system of the kind that kept Jennifer Gratz out of the University of Michigan and was declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

"Minority applicants with scores and grades down to the 300s and Cs and Ds also come, though after a year at our taxpayer-supported remedial school, the Naval Academy Preparatory School."

If true, this is a national disgrace. It would represent a U.S. Naval Academy policy of systematic race discrimination, every year, against hundreds of white kids who worked and studied their entire lives for the honor of being appointed to the U.S. Naval Academy and becoming career officers in the Navy or Marine Corps.

If true, what Annapolis has done and is doing is worse -- because it is premeditated and programmed racism -- than the cowardly act of the New Haven city government in denying Frank Ricci and the white firefighters the promotions they had won in a competitive exam. At least New Haven could say it acted out of fear of being sued.

Yet, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and the Superintendent of the Naval Academy Vice Adm. Jerry Fowler seem quite proud of what they are doing.

Fleming quotes the CNO as saying that "diversity is the number one priority" at the academy. Fowler says he wants Annapolis graduates who "looked like" the fleet, where 42 percent of enlisted personnel are nonwhite.

The diversity midshipmen, says Fleming, who teaches them, are over-represented in "pre-college lower track courses, mandatory tutoring programs and less-challenging majors. Many struggle to master basic concepts."

Thus, though unqualified for college work, these students will be operating the most sophisticated and complex weapons systems ever built -- aircraft carriers, Aegis cruisers, nuclear submarines.

"First of all, we're dumbing-down the Naval Academy," charges Fleming. "Second of all, we're dumbing-down the officers corps."

Supporting Fleming's claim, 22 percent of incoming plebes in 2009 had SAT scores in math below 600, compared to 12 percent in 2008.

If the facts are as Fleming states -- the academy is accepting dumber and dumber students to get its racial composition right -- who can deny that the price of diversity is deliberate acceptance of a less able and competent United States Navy?

"Diversity is our number one priority," Roughhead is quoted. Can one imagine Adm. Chester Nimitz or "Bull" Halsey making an insipid statement like that? Can one imagine what Adm. David "Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!" Farragut would have thought of such a policy?

Whatever happened to the Hyman Rickover-Jimmy Carter motto for the Naval Academy and U.S. Navy: "Why Not the Best?"

Consider. If hundreds of black and Hispanic kids who applied to the academy had been rejected though they had higher grades and SAT scores than those admitted, this story would not have been in the Metro section of the Post. It would have been bannered on page one. And Roughead and Fowler would be explaining to a congressional committee why they should not be relieved of their commands.

Fleming, who still teaches at Annapolis, and has likely had some unpleasant moments since he blew the whistle on his superiors, has shown considerable moral courage.

Hopefully, Congress will show the same moxy and investigate this outage. Hopefully, some of those white kids, cheated out of their life's dream of attending the Naval Academy -- while less qualified kids were admitted -- will sue the academy, just like Frank Ricci and those gutsy firefighters sued the city of New Haven.

Objectivist
07-07-2009, 04:54 AM
I can't wait until they STUPIFY our Navy Nuclear Power Schools, won't that be a hoot.

By the way United States Navy nuclear reactors on ships have no real containment building to protect those morons who think this is a good idea.

Sean
07-07-2009, 05:00 AM
http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatBuchanan/2009/07/07/dumbing-down_the_us_navy



"Diversity is our number one priority," Roughhead is quoted.


This sort of stuff has been going on for a long time. You can not maintain standard and get diversity. Anyone ever see what Obama got on his SATs? I think past presidents have released their SATs, but I have seen any for Obama. Wonder if he scored higher than Palin.

Objectivist
07-07-2009, 05:05 AM
This sort of stuff has been going on for a long time. You can not maintain standard and get diversity. Anyone ever see what Obama got on his SATs? I think past presidents have released their SATs, but I have seen any for Obama. Wonder if he scored higher than Palin.

What did he get on his SATs? His Birth Certificate is nowhere to be found apparently.

Then I do know that I have a higher IQ than Obama and most other Presidents but I'm a lowly dishwasher.

bkreigh
07-07-2009, 05:13 AM
Haha. My test scores blew and im sure i scored lower on the SATs than any other President. You dont see me bitching because i didnt get into a school though. Ohh shit i just realized im white so i would have been up shit creek without a paddle anyway. C's were good enough for me!!!

Derek Johnson
07-07-2009, 06:07 AM
Go to the Navy's website and navigate to required reading. Look in the senior officer's section: yep, believe you lyin eyes, it's Rudy Giuliani's book on "leadership". One of the enlisted recommended books is Lincoln's book on leadership.

Not my Navy!

idiom
07-07-2009, 06:14 AM
C's get Degrees.

Lol, going by grades is a good way to end up with an army full of people who know how to sit tests.

YouTube - Men In Black - Exam Scene (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7ebfrcv4tc)

tangent4ronpaul
07-07-2009, 06:50 AM
What did he get on his SATs? His Birth Certificate is nowhere to be found apparently.

Then I do know that I have a higher IQ than Obama and most other Presidents but I'm a lowly dishwasher.

Barack Obama's IQ is ~116
An IQ guy attempts to work it out:


[T]hese are the facts concerning Obama's LSAT score while attending Law School at Harvard University. We do not know his actual LSAT score; however, after much research, we found that the average LSAT score for all Harvard students is 171. The percentile rank for an LSAT score of 171 at Harvard is 98.8%.

MENSA will accept LSAT scores as a means of qualifying for MENSA membership. (MENSA also accepts up to 200 various IQ tests and other tests of cognitive function as well.) The LSAT score required for MENSA membership is equal to a percentile of 95% or higher. Thus, basing Obama's estimated LSAT score of 171 ranks him in the top 98.8% (percent/percentile) range which is clearly above the lowest acceptable LSAT percentage rank of 95%, which clearly affirms that Obama has a qualifying intelligence quotient that would allow him acceptance into MENSA.

Since MENSA accepts various IQ Tests as well as other cognitive tests to qualify for MENSA membership it is safe to estimate that Obama's IQ Score could range anywhere from a low IQ score of 130 based on the Stanford Binet IQ Test, Revision 5, to a high IQ score of 148 based on the Cattell IQ Test.

==========

What the IQ guy failed to account for is the fact that Harvard University practices affirmative action. PBS Frontline reports: "The gap in SAT scores persists even at the highest levels of achievement. A study of the 1989 applicants to five highly-selective universities found that white candidates' average combined SAT score was 186 points higher than the corresponding SAT average for African American applicants."

Furthermore, the New York Times reports that "At the best schools, by contrast, efforts to diversify the student body translate into a 400-point bonus for minority students on the SAT tests."

That 98.8 ranking, according to the average Harvard LSAT, translates to an estimated 138 IQ, which is equivalent to a combined pre-1996 SAT score of 1310. That's pretty good, if not spectacular. However, note that this very same 98.8th percentile is only 1290 when taken directly from the pre-1996 SAT. [There is a dichotomy between the reported 98.8 percentile IQ equivalence on the LSAT and the 98.8 percentile on the pre-1996 SAT. Since Mensa accepts the 95th percentile on the LSAT as evidence that one is in 98th percentile in intelligence, it's clear that the SAT-IQ conversion, based as it is on a broader population sample, is the more accurate and 1290 is the correct figure] Due to affirmative action, however, one must reduce that score by at least 186 points. (400 seems extreme; I suspect the NYT article is talking about the new SAT, which isn't valid for the purposes of this comparison.) Thus, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt drops his score to 1104, which is equivalent to an IQ of 116. That's not bad, but it is significantly less intelligent than Hillary's 140 IQ, as well as being lower than George W. Bush's 125 IQ (1206 SAT).

Before one points to the fact that Obama ranked highly in his class, it's important to keep in mind that Bill Bradley was a Princeton Rhodes Scholar despite his 485 Verbal SAT and mediocre 103 IQ. Academic success, like every other kind of success, is just as much about hard work and determination as it is about intellectual firepower, but Barack Obama's supporters obviously shouldn't be attempting to make their case for him on the basis of what is, based on the available information, probably an IQ of between 115 and 120, only one standard deviation above the norm. Of course, this estimate is based on averages which don't necessarily apply to a single individual; Obama could lay the matter to rest by simply permitting his scores to be released to the public.

If his intelligence is so incredibly important, as some of his more visibly insane supporters insist, then surely the senator should inform us precisely how intelligent he is. Because he demonstrates his ignorance and a less-than-impressive intelligence nearly every time he opens his mouth despite his handlers' attempts to retroactively fix his statements

continues:

http://voxday.blogspot.com/2008/09/barack-obamas-iq-is-116_18.html

-t

Sean
07-07-2009, 08:59 AM
Yep, if I were black with my SAT scores I would have been recruited by Ivy League and top universities with probably guaranteed scholarships as very few blacks would have scored higher than me. As a white person though my application would probably be tossed into the garbage.

Steeleye
07-07-2009, 12:25 PM
Yep, if I were black with my SAT scores I would have been recruited by Ivy League and top universities with probably guaranteed scholarships as very few blacks would have scored higher than me. As a white person though my application would probably be tossed into the garbage.

Admission Officer: "Hmmmm. Needs more melanin."

tpreitzel
07-07-2009, 01:06 PM
This sort of stuff has been going on for a long time. .

Yep. I met an 83 year old man recently who was so fit he looked at least 30 years younger and we talked about his experience in the navy, During the Korean war, a black man was promoted instead of him due to implementation of racial quotas during the Eisenhower administration. He's been an ardent "racist" ever since that time as he was more qualified than the selected minority. I told him that his anger was misplaced, but he replied that he hated the government even more.

jrkotrla
07-07-2009, 04:07 PM
Officers don't operate Navy Nuclear Reactors. Enlisted do. Officers watch, they are not allowed to touch.

as far as containment goes, if you are on a sub and the reactor explodes:
1) someone seriously screwed up. I mean TRIED to screw up, the safeguards on those things are phenomenal
2) you're dead, containment of the radioactivity is a non-issue
3) the ocean is a REALLY big place, the former USSR used to dump all of its reactors in the north sea. They are still there on the bottom of the ocean churning away.

Standing Like A Rock
07-07-2009, 05:34 PM
Yep, if I were black with my SAT scores I would have been recruited by Ivy League and top universities with probably guaranteed scholarships as very few blacks would have scored higher than me. As a white person though my application would probably be tossed into the garbage.

Same here. My SATs are 800 math, 740 reading, and GPA = 4.1/4.0 weighted (all A+ in all honors classes gives you a 4.5/4.0). Top 5% of highschool class (highest tier that my school ranks (no individual numbers)). I play sports, am involved in clubs. However, I am white so I will not be able to make it into an Ivy League school because I lack that "something special." If my ancestors had been born in somewhere other than Europe, I would be special according to them, but I am not.