A new twist to the tired tale of affirmative action
By JESSICA PECK CORRY
If you’re young, male, and applying to college, listen up - affirmative action can benefit you. Yes, after four decades of just the opposite, today it’s true.

Males are now some of the most coveted applicants at many of America’s top universities. The reason, according to administrators: males simply aren’t applying for college at the same rate as females. The vast majority of colleges get more females applying for admission, with female enrollment nationally climbing toward 54 percent. As a result, young women - often the beneficiaries of gender preferences during the last four decades, are now finding themselves at the receiving end of thin envelopes containing rejection letters.

The New York Times recently carried a column titled “To all the girlsI’ve rejected,” written by Jennifer Delahunty Britz, dean of admissions and financial aid at Kenyon College. In the column, Britz laments how she is “forced” to reject female applicants over male applicants because of “demographic realities.”

Britz writes: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

It’s not exactly breaking news that most girls don’t want to go to a college unless boys are there. How painful this must be for feminists to acknowledge, after doing everything they possibly could to get girls to attend college free from any intervention or distraction by men.

While Britz and her friends in the academic establishment respond to the enrollment imbalance by using affirmative action to admit boys, they fail to acknowledge why the imbalance occurred in the first place. It’s simple: discrimination. We’ve spent the last four decades discriminating against boys in every way. We hold girls-only campus tours, we distribute girls-only scholarships, and we tell girls they are capable of achieving anything they put their minds to. All the while, we ignore their boy peers.

Britz wonders aloud about the message sent 25 years after the defeat of the Equal Rights Amendment, when universities are discriminating against women in admissions. She stops short of an honest answer, however, failing to admit that universities simply have no reason to discriminate. It is lazy that a representative of modern-day university believes must resort to admissions discrimination to achieve gender balance. Here’s another remedy that might actually work - start treating males and females the same.

Britz tries desperately to defend her actions. “Rest assured that admissions officers are not cavalier in making their decisions,” she writes, noting that her admissions committee gives each applicant a shot during a process of several 12 hour days. But what is more cavalier that dumping someone off the admissions list simply because of a genetic reality that they have no ability to change?

As a mother myself, I can’t ever imagine telling my daughter to tolerate discrimination in the name of gender balance. Britz, also a mother, sees the situation quite differently, remaining silent after seeing her daughter wait-listed at a top institution despite stellar credentials. It’s okay, she infers, because this socially tolerated discrimination will ultimately mean that her daughter will have more men to meet when actually does go to college. What if it doesn’t? What extreme measures will our universities then resort to?

Let’s acknowledge what feminists have tried to get society to believe all along - which is that our minds matter a heck of a lot more than our sex or gender. Just as a man shouldn’t be more valued on campus because he is a man, we shouldn’t assume a woman should be less valued because she isn’t one.

Forty years ago, affirmative action was about helping racial and gender groups overcome societal discrimination and bigotry. Today, it is all about having the perfect skin-color and gender rainbow for admissions brochures. If we truly believe a person’s genetic characteristics shouldn’t affect their ability to succeed, universities should stop sending rejection letters to young women that preach just the opposite.

Jessica Peck Corry serves as the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project. The Independence Institute is a non-profit, non-partisan Colorado think tank.

This column originally appeared in The Denver Daily News on April 16, 2006
By Jessica Peck Corry
of the Independence Institute

If you’re young, male, and applying to college, listen up — Affirmative Action can benefit you. Yes, after four decades of just the opposite, today it’s true.

Males are now some of the most coveted applicants at many of America’s top universities. The reason: they simply aren’t applying for college at the same rate as girls, with female enrollment nationally climbing toward 54 percent. Young women — traditionally the beneficiaries of gender preferences — are now finding themselves at the receiving end of rejection letters.

The New York Times recently carried a column titled “To All the Girls I’ve Rejected,” by Jennifer Delahunty Britz, Kenyon College’s admissions dean. In the piece, Britz laments how she is “forced” to reject female applicants over male applicants because of “demographic realities.”

She writes: “Beyond the availability of dance partners for the winter formal, gender balance matters in ways both large and small on a residential college campus. Once you become decidedly female in enrollment, fewer males and, as it turns out, fewer females find your campus attractive.”

Breaking news — girls want to meet boys at college. While the academic establishment responds to the gender imbalance by using Affirmative Action to admit males, it fails to acknowledge how we got to this reality in the first place. It’s simple: discrimination. We’ve spent the last 40 years discriminating against boys. We hold girls-only campus tours, we distribute girls-only scholarships, we give girls mentors, and we tell them they are capable of achieving anything they put their minds to. All the while, we ignore their male peers.

Britz tries desperately to defend her actions.

“Rest assured that admissions officers are not cavalier in making their decisions,” she writes, noting that her admissions committee gives each applicant a shot during a process of several 12 hour days. But what is more cavalier than dumping someone off the admissions list because of his or her gender?

Let’s acknowledge what feminists have tried to get society to believe all along — which is that our minds matter a heck of a lot more than our sex. If a person’s genetic characteristics shouldn’t affect his or her ability to succeed, universities should stop sending rejection letters to young women that preach just the opposite.

— Jessica Peck Corry serves as the director of the Independence Institute’s Campus Accountability Project. She can be reached at Jessica@i2i.org.

Homes supplant crops on farmland
About 690 acres ag land lost daily. Some suggest that the responsibility for keeping such land undeveloped lies with farmers and ranchers.
By Margaret Jackson
Denver Post Staff Writer
April 5, 2006

Colorado’s ranches and croplands are disappearing at an alarming rate largely because of the boom in residential construction, according to a report released Tuesday by an environmental advocacy group.

The state lost 1.26 million acres of agricultural land between 1997 and 2002, averaging 690 acres a day, according to the report by Environment Colorado. That makes the state third in the nation behind Texas and New Mexico for agricultural land lost, the report said.

The study projects that the state will lose 3.1 million more acres of agricultural land by 2022 as rural development increases by at least 42 percent.

The report said the land loss presents a major future challenge for Colorado that requires all stakeholders to discuss solutions that may include keeping farm and ranchland in production, and “increasing conservation funding and exploring options for managing growth.”

While the temptation is to turn to government for solutions, the solution really should come from the private sector, said Jessica Peck Corry, director of the property-rights project at the Independence Institute, a Golden-based think tank.

“Property owners should be able to do what’s in the best interest of their families,” she said. “If people want to see it preserved, then they should talk to ranch and farm owners and come up with a fair price.”

“It’s ranchers and farmers, not government and developers, who are really going to be crucial in shaping the future landscape of this state,” said David Carlson, president of the consulting firm Resource Analysis Inc. and a former state agriculture official.

Environment Colorado maintains that beyond agricultural production, the land helps Colorado’s tourism and overall quality of life. People wouldn’t want to visit scenic areas such as the Gunnison Valley and the area around Steamboat Springs if they were all developed, they say.

“Everyone

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has something to lose,” said Pam Kiely, author of the report.
In an economy of low prices and high production costs, it’s more lucrative for farmers to sell their land to developers than to farm it.

“Farmers look at it and say, ‘I can have a greater income by producing houses than by producing crops,”‘ said Leland Swenson, executive director of the Rocky Mountain Farmers Union.

And those without children interested in farming the family land find they can make more money selling it and collecting interest on reinvestment of the profits.

At least one rancher thinks he’s come up with a solution that could serve as a model for preserving ranchland.

Russ Maytag joined with developer Jeff Temple to carve out 27 home sites on the 3,000-acre property near Westcliffe that he’s worked with his wife and daughter since 1978.

He lost just 100 acres of agricultural production to the development.

“Working ranches and development can co-exist,” Maytag said. “There’s no reason the ranch can’t remain active agriculturally.

“My philosophy is you’re going to lose some to development, but if we plan for it and plan to maintain agriculture, I think we can do it.”

Staff writer Bruce Finley contributed to this report.

Staff writer Margaret Jackson can be reached at 303-820-1473 or mjackson@denverpost.com.