Former Princeton President Recalls "Exceptional" Student Sotomayor

The New Yorker:

William G. Bowen joined the faculty of Princeton in 1958. He became provost in 1967 and served as president of Princeton from 1972, the year Sonia Sotomayor matriculated as a freshman, until 1988. At Princeton, Bowen was involved in the decision to admit women to the university and recruit more minority applicants and faculty, and his 1998 book, "The Shape of the River," co-written with the former Harvard University president Derek Bok, was the first extensive study of affirmative action in university admissions.

Bowen will be releasing another book this fall with new research into equity and access in American higher education. We sat down in his office at the Mellon Foundation on Wednesday morning. An edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Read the whole story: The New Yorker

Comments

[dubster]

Mr. Bowen provided some key, statements: There are not that many Sonia Sotomayors in the world. The whole purpose of affirmative-action programs isn’t to find the one-in-a-thousand Sonia Sotomayor, but to diversify campus communities and to identify people of promise who would do well, but who didn’t necessarily have all the qualities and characteristics that she had. In addition, the simple-minded assumption that you either deserve to be there or you don’t. There isn’t just one index of merit, and the point of admissions is not to bestow gold stars on people who’ve done well before, to predict the future. It’s to choose students to invest in who are going to make the university better and are going to make society better. Those are bets on the future. Furthermore, Yes, today blacks and whites do stand more or less on a level playing field, but they’re not in the same place. Whites see the world from the mountain place, blacks see the world from the hollow of history. And finally another apt observation, one of the other telling findings in “The Shape of the River” was that the alumni of the selective institutions that we studied, including those white alumni who didn’t get into their first-choice school, were still strong supporters of affirmative action. You might have thought that, well, to their way of thinking, they might have lost out to some minority candidate. But overwhelmingly they thought these were the right policies.

[CosmicChaos]

Diversity is needed in all professions. People from different backgrounds can view the same topic or item differently. This is a vital skill in any job that requires creativity, innovation, and/or empathy.

Engineering especially is well served by teams that have people with a wide range of backgrounds. However, Engineering programs in the US are not all that diverse. The few non-white, non-asian, or non-male students are asked if they only got in due to Affirmative Action. Frankly an idiotic question. You can only get into an Engineering program if you worked hard in school. The problem is this dumb question undermines the confidence of those people who are asked it of.

Every time some idiot asks if Sonia Sotomayor is an Affirmative Action choice, they are trying to rip her and anyone with similar identity backgrounds self confidences to shreds so that they don't put themselves forward in the future. The question itself is Racist, because it causes psychological damage each time it is asked.

[dubster]

absolutely superb analysis. the conservative mind is simply incapable of seeing things from an highly intellectual point of view. your remarks are right on point and the most poignant are the last half of your second paragraph and the third paragraph - i concur 100%.

[peter777]

The woman is so qualified to be a justice of the Supreme Court. The Republicans need to stop their money-grubbing smearing of her character and reputation. They need to move on and focus on something that might make a contribution to the country. But, who in the party has enough guts to take on Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, talk radio, and Fox News? Nobody!

[cycodad]

This is a very lovely lady. She is very intelligent. She is not a racist and the statement these bigots are trying make into a racist statement is not,was not RACIST. These old racist,bigot white men can not believe a woman of color can be so intelligent. SOTOMAYOR is very well qualified for this position as well as many more women of color are. RACIST and BIGOTS the change is here; no longer are the OLD BOYS[white boys] the dominant factor. AMERICA is awakening out of HER deep dark SLEEP. HER is being fulfilled. YOU GO SOTOMAYOR,you are a WINNER.

[whocan]

5 total incidents of her Latina, female racialist charges

[Marcospinelli]

Actually, the article speaks to Sotomayor's ability to fit in, adjust to establishment values, assimilate, and not any evidence of what Sotomayor herself would bring to the highest court in our land.

Bowen's emphasis was on the need for affirmative action, and how when given the opportunity, Sotomayor became like the standard for how success in America is measured, according to white establishment values. There nothing about her bringing any of her culture's values to the institutions of the US, about her presence at Princeton opening up the thinking and cultural values of the establishment that accepted, reluctantly, a Latina from a tough neighborhood in the Bronx.

I'd prefer seeing fewer propaganda pieces like these being used to sell Sotomayor to us and more about her work, her decisions on the job as a prosecutor and a judge.

[amistad]

LOL!!!!
Keep spinning!!!!