Illustrating the Veiled Costs of DEI

Why universities that vigorously enforce racial preferences in selecting medical students avoid racial quotas when recruiting, say, their basketball players

DEI gives the appearance of improving the world only in situations where its alleged benefits are more easily seen than its long-term costs.

Whom does DEI harm?  It’s not just the high-performing Asian Americans and others whom medical schools have excluded based on their race.  It’s also the patients, of all races, years and years hence, who won’t benefit from the skill and diligence of the individuals now excluded by today’s racist DEI policies. 

All of these injured people are unseen – hence voiceless – in current debates. 

It is a key concept from Claude-Frédéric Bastiat, the 19^th-century economist and member of the French Liberal School, in his book, That Which is Seen, and That Which Is Not Seen (1850):

“[I]t almost always happens that when the immediate consequence [of an act, habit, or law] is favourable, the ultimate consequences are fatal, and the converse. Hence it follows that the bad economist pursues a small present good, which will be followed by a great evil to come, while the true economist pursues a great good to come, — at the risk of a small present evil.”

This principle explains why universities that vigorously enforce DEI in selecting their undergraduates, medical students, and law students assiduously avoid racial quotas when recruiting, say, their basketball players.  

One might ask why the basketball team does not perfectly represent the general population in terms of racial/ethnic groups.  Is conspicuous under-representation of Caucasians and Asian-Americans – and conspicuous over-representation of African Americans – a problem of racial bias that cries out to be fixed with racial quotas?  As self-anointed anti-racist Ibram X. Kendi (né I. Henry Rogers) has declared:

“To be antiracist … is to view the inequities between all racialized ethnic groups … as a problem of policy.”

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”

Clearly, these universities – just like the NBA – utterly ignore race and ethnicity in their drive to get the best players.  Why the single-minded laser-focus on merit in prospective basketball players – yet not in tomorrow’s physicians? 

Because low-merit basketball players become obvious in the very next game, embarrassingly so, in front of the cash-paying public.  But low-merit medical students may take years and years to discover – with predictably tragic results.  

Make no mistake that this is a zero-sum game when it comes to medical school classes.  Each medical school has a fixed number of slots for each incoming class.  Consider a medical school with 150 slots.  If an applicant who’s ranked #400 without racial considerations checks the “right” racial box to become #25, then he or she goes from rejected to admitted.  That’s what is seen. 

What’s unseen is what happens to the applicant who was formerly ranked #150.  She or he goes from admitted (#150) to not admitted (#151).  That applicant will not become a doctor at that medical school, perhaps not at any medical school. 

The problem is often multiplied by 10, or 20, or 50 – depending on how many applicants with weak records but the “right” ancestry are vaulted by the admissions committee across the fixed number of 150.  For every one of them (seen), someone with a different ancestry falls from admitted to rejected – and vanishes from sight (not seen).  Invisible and voiceless. 

It demonstrates the narcissism, and racism, of the applicants who “check the box”.  Checking the box is a way of saying,

“Yes!  I want to participate in a racist system that punishes Asian-Americans!  Yes, I want to get ahead by elbowing a fellow student out of the way, especially one who might have a better application!” 

It’s like the old Twilight Zone episode: when the protagonist pushes a button, he’ll get a million dollars, but someone he’s never met dies.  It does not change the fact that the person harmed is a real flesh-and-blood individual.  Checking the box always hurts another applicant – and may hurt future patients. 

My solution?  Put the basketball coaches in charge of medical school admissions.  The cash-paying public of all races and ethnicities expect to be entertained by basketball players of high-merit – and will be better served by future physicians who are also of high-merit.