Comparing to the breakdown of UCSD undergrads by ethnicity in http://studentresearch.ucsd.edu/sriweb/Profile2008.pdf it looks like underrepresented minorities are in fact a little more underrepresented in the med school than among undergraduates, which would I guess be the ordinarily depressing expectation. Thanks for disabusing me.

You are starting to catch on. These departments, today, teach the same level of rubbish as the other “studies” departments.

I don’t mind if people want to waste their time on this nonsense on their own dime. I just don’t want to subsidize it with my tax dollars.

Also, I would appreciate if the patronizing sexist attitude was removed from the comments addressed to me.

Out of a total of 126 graduates, UCSD Med School in 2008 graduated 1 African American, 1 Native American, and 7 Mexican Americans.

Sorry about the two and half hands image.

I applaud your use of the term “typical” to describe Dr. Mariscal response to the injustices that are being played out in California’s higher education system. It is “typical” for people of color to speak out and voice criticism to the unfair and often times bigoted practices of government and groups in power. So, yes, minorities and all others who are experiencing the “dark side” of California’s mismanagement should “typically” speak out as Dr. Mariscal has so eloquently done.

Second, your statement that ethnic studies is “nonsense” is completely unfounded. Why stop there? Why don’t we reevaluate the “value” of British literature, American studies, the entire English department. Don’t they promote and educate a form of “ethnic studies?” Your narrow and dare I say bigoted criticism of ethnic studies is short sighted and ill advised.

Thirdly, most of these “ethnic studies” departments already function with a limited budget and often list professors as “associates.” In other words, the elimination of these departments would not only reduce the quality of education at universities but would do little in reducing spending (perhaps a university should reevalute the cost of athletic departments as an alternative).

Ms. Spear to reduce the quality work and knowledge produced by professors in the humanities as “nonsensical” would negate the value of education and a democracy’s responsibility to provide a quality service to all of its citizens and residents. It isn’t just engineers and mathmaticians that make the world go round. Last I checked it wasn’t an engineer or biologist who was elected to the American presidency. In fact, we haven’t had an engineer or the like in 80 years (Herbert Hoover–Great Depression? Wait, you would need history to know that and of course you find that field to be “nonsense.”)

This field is nonsense.

We need to get Mexican Americans into Engineering, Biology, Mathematics.

The best thing we could do for minorities is to shut down the “studies” departments. These are filled with academic parasites who divert bright young men and women into nonsensical fields where they spend their time whining instead of contributing.

Don’t let a good crisis go to waste. Shut them down. It would save a lot of money too.

Is there a fine line between advocating one’s interests and being self-serving? Perspectives will differ, and we can hardly expect many people to argue against their own interests. I believe everyone involved deserves the presumption their position and arguments are earnest and forthright.

Such quibbles notwithstanding, the piece does interrogate elitism vs. egalitarianism at U.C., an important issue that appears totally neglected by University officials in favor of platitudinous, euphemistic-sounding talk about “excellence.”

Who can argue with excellence? By couching the discussion in these terms, they dodge deeper questions underlying the debate, such as what exactly constitutes an “excellent” public university in the first place.