Diversity, Drinking, And Dubious Logic

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*** ORBUSMAX GUEST OP/ED *** Diversity, Drinking, And Dubious Logic - By Nicholas G. Jenkins ( http://www.TheFence.com ) November 6, 2003 Just when you thought there were no good arguments left to keep white males off college campuses, researchers at Harvard have come up with another one. In a study entitled "Watering Down Drinks: The Moderating Effect of College Demographics on Alcohol Use or High-Risk Groups," Professors Henry Wechsler, Ph.D. and Meichun Kuo of Harvard's School of Public Health concluded that white males on college campuses cause each other to binge drink. Study the study, however, and a more apt title comes to mind -- "Watered Down Logic." The study supposedly asked "whether colleges with larger enrollments of students from demographic groups with lower rates of binge drinking (women and minorities) exert a moderating effect on students from groups with higher binge drinking rates (white males)." It analyzed data from 52,312 college students at predominantly white colleges from the 1993, 1997, 1999, and 2003 College Alcohol Study surveys. According to Harvard's press release -- which announced the study and will be the only thing about it anyone actually reads - the study concluded that binge drinking rates among white, male and underage students are lower at college campuses that have larger proportions of minority, female, and older students. It also found that greater diversity on campuses may serve as a "risk-protective factor," even for those who were binge drinkers in high school. That is, incoming white freshmen who did not binge drink in high school were less likely to start binge drinking as college students if their universities had higher proportions of African American, Latino, Asian or older students. Conversely, incoming white freshmen who were binge drinking in high school were less likely to continue binging when attending schools with higher percentages of minority or older students. This "risk protective" finding is, in the words of the press release, its "most significant" conclusion. Now these are quite sensational conclusions. One problem - they don't follow. It's one thing to show a correlation between more female- or African American students and lower binge drinking rates. The study indeed did that. But it's quite another to conclude that the former causes the latter. Freddy Freshman might decide to bury his head in the books on a Friday night. But it doesn't follow that, but for the presence of twenty-two African Americans in his dorm instead of twenty, he'd have been out hammering a half rack of Heineys. I've seen shaky logic in academic studies before, but this takes the keg. There are -- dare I say -- other, more common sense, explanations. Wechsler himself admits deep in the text of the actual study that "(c)olleges that have larger numbers of minority and older students and women may attract white, underage and male students with different attitudes about drinking." In other words, lunkheads who binge drink might be more attracted to the Arizona States of the world than the Yales or Harvards. Or it might be that male students prone to binge drinking just don't get accepted to schools with larger numbers of minority- and older students. If there's an inverse correlation between high school binge drinking and grade point averages, and a positive correlation between premier schools and diversity -- and I'm sure Harvard would be proud to say there is -- then that's as good a bet as any. But neither of these possibilities mattered to the Harvard PC - er, PR - machine that issued the press release. Nor did the causal issue matter much to Dr. Wechsler, who, in paragraph three of the press release, announced like a proud papa that "(t)his study has shown that having a diverse student body on college campuses is an important factor in lowering binge-drinking rates." (Italics mine.) No mention of alternate causal explanations, which made Wechsler's next leap easy: "(i)n making decisions about admissions, colleges should recognize the many benefits of greater diversity on campus, including a possible decrease in problem drinking." How folly. Using Wechsler's logic, one way to combat incidents of interracial violence on campus is to not consider race as a factor in admissions. After all, considering race necessarily increases a student body's minority population and with it, the occurrences of violence between races. Want to increase graduation rates? Admit fewer African Americans - their graduation rates pale compared to whites. Want to combat the problem of eating disorders on college campuses? Admit fewer women - after all, they are statistically more inclined to eating disorders than men. I don't see anyone in the Harvard faculty lounge signing on to any of those cures. But sign on to a recommendation that sheds white males in a negative light - no problem. It gets worse. The brilliant Hah-vud minds who wrote the press release concluded that "(t)he findings suggest practical solutions for predominantly white colleges, including: creating a campus environment that would attract a diverse student body; increasing the number of minorities on campus; encouraging more women and older students to live on campus, and in fraternity and sorority houses; and decreasing the heavy concentration on campus of likely high-risk drinkers who are overwhelmingly young, male, and white." Diversi-crats should "Amen" that sophistry, because the machine's startlingly broad conclusion could be used to justify just about anything in their platform. Need a reason to build a new campus diversity center? How about: "A new diversity center will attract a diverse student body, which will decrease the incidents of binge drinking on campus." Looking for a reason to admit Bobby Blackguy over Willie Whiteguy? How about: "Admitting Billy will decrease the heavy concentration of white males on campus, which will decrease the incidents of binge drinking." (Note to any white diversi-crats still reading: skip the "Amen." An atheist may charge you with a hate crime.) The media is lapping this stuff up off the tap. The Health Channel on Discovery.com proclaimed that "Campus Diversity Leads to Drop in Binge Drinking." Some outfit called Join Together Online ran a headline over Harvard's press release proclaiming that "Diverse College Campuses Yield Lower Binge Drinking Rates." And the always-objective Reuters announced that "Diversity Helps Colleges Trim Binge Drinking." Even CNN picked up the story. I don't blame them: they know that sensational, anti-white male headlines are catnip for the chattering class. Trivial matters like truth are secondary at best. College admissions officers don't need more reasons to stamp "REJECTED" on white boys' college applications. Most of them already think all white males are oppressive, even the ones still in high school. They see it as their role to exact a little payback, and now, thanks to this social engineering masquerading as scholarship, they can site public health concerns to do it. Here's hoping admissions officers stick to the "oppressor" sham when they discrminate against white males. At least for a few of their great-great-great-great-great grandfathers, it might have been true.

----------------------------------------------------------- Nicholas G. Jenkins ( http://www.NicholasGJenkins.com ) is a former lawyer (Georgetown 1994) and founder of "TheFence.com" (http://www.TheFence.com), a Seattle/Northwest-based news and discussion website.