Kane Watch: You can't have it both ways, either.

So Eugene is back at it. That always incites me to write a little something for the blog, even if I have been a bit lazy recently. I'm sure that by now everyone's heard of the brilliant idea to reform the requirements for admission to UW schools.

Apparently it's been quite a shocker that the UW school system has based its enrollment on, "set academic requirements such as grade point averages and test scores to make the majority of admissions decisions." Who would have thought? An institution of higher learning that asks of its students to have a track record of dedication to schoolwork. Astonishing.

However, since that system is apparently not good enough, some bleeding heart liberal somewhere decided that more factors need to be considered. These factors include, "changing its admissions policies to consider race, income and other non-academic qualities of applicants with the explicit goal of boosting student diversity."

I guess I wouldn't be so surprised by all of this were it not for Eugene Kane's reaction. He begins today's column by stating, "Some folks should make up their minds what they expect out of the education system in this city."

I think Gene should make up his mind on what he wants. To be sure, he argues:

"It's always peculiar to note that some of the voices attacking increased diversity in college enrollment are the same type of privileged white professionals who got into college due to family connections as opposed to strict merit."

Yet he concludes, "If you're truly interested in preserving the future of our community with better educational opportunity for the students who need it most, you can't argue against diversity programs without leaving a huge gap in your logic."

I think the gap in logic here is that if it's wrong for "privileged white professionals" to get into college because of their last names and not because of their grades, then it's also wrong for underprivileged kids to get into college because of the color of their skin or level of income and not for their grades.

You can't have it both ways, Gene. It's either wrong to consider factors other than grades or it's not. It's that simple.

Furthermore, it makes no sense to me to penalize a white, middle class kid who worked her ass off to become valedictorian (assuming the liberals haven't gotten to that school yet and done away with valedictorian) and deny her admission to a program because her parents actually cared about her.

How can it be that we live in a world that would force schools to ignore the grades of its prospects. That's like asking basketball teams to ignore the talent of its recruits.

Either we will end up with the best and the brightest who will someday lead this country or we'll end up with a bunch of meaningless college diplomas and a society that's grossly uneducated. I worked for my education. I guess that makes me a hard ass to expect others to work for theirs.

So be it.