Thomas Sowell Quotes

There are those who contend that it does not benefit African-Americans to get them into the University of Texas where they do not do well, as opposed to having them go to a less-advanced school, a slower-track school where they do well.

Oddly enough, Asians are a much smaller 'minority' than African Americans in this country. But because Asians are so successful, college admission officers don't feel sorry for them, so they are not a preferred 'minority.'

Once they arrive, affirmative action kids are generally left to sink or swim academically. Brown (University) offers plenty of counseling and tutoring to struggling students, but, as any academic Dean will tell you, it's up to the students to seek it out, something that a drowning minority student will seek to avoid at all costs, fearing it will trumpet a second-class status.

I think the minority students that we admit to Harvard are every bit as meritorious as the white students that we admit.

At the very top state institutions, like UCLA, Berkeley and the University of Texas, however, the trend of downward minority enrollment remains persistent and discouraging.

I believe that Harvard can have, and must have, a strong affirmative action program that reflects our commitment to equal opportunity while fully respecting the academic standards of the University.

African American children can't be educationally disadvantaged for 12 years and then experience a miracle cure when it comes time for admission into college.

I came from a Hindi medium school... the principal felt that I would not fit into an English medium college. Though I was top in my class in school, and I got admission in other colleges, but I really wanted to study in St. Xavier's.

A great deal has been written in recent years about the purported lack of motivation in the children of the Negro ghettos. Little in my experience supports this, yet the phrase has been repeated endlessly, and the blame in almost all cases is placed somewhere outside the classroom.

At the turn of the 20th century, the disparity in literacy here in the U.S. largely came down to race. Nearly half of minorities at that time - 45 percent - were illiterate, while 94 percent of white citizens were literate.

I am a product of affirmative action. I am the perfect affirmative action baby. I am Puerto Rican, born and raised in the south Bronx. My test scores were not comparable to my colleagues at Princeton and Yale. Not so far off so that I wasn't able to succeed at those institutions.

We have a large underclass in Britain, and a fairly low standard of education. Our best universities are extremely good, but a very significant proportion of the British population that comes out of compulsory schooling with very low standards of education.

I had no need to apologize that the look-wider, search-more affirmative action that Princeton and Yale practiced had opened doors for me. That was its purpose: to create the conditions whereby students from disadvantaged backgrounds could be brought to the starting line of a race many were unaware was even being run.

The kindest word to describe my performance in school was Sloth.

If there are activists in Cosas and they do poorly academically, then they would be cited as examples as to why others should not be in Cosas.

In order to be Miss Anybody you had to have excellent grades, and I had terrible grades because of my dyslexia.

The results indicate that heterogeneity of race and heterogeneity of family educational background can increase the achievement of children from weak educational backgrounds with no adverse effect on children from strong educational backgrounds.

If this boy passes the examination, he will be admitted; and if the white students choose to withdraw, all of the income of the college will be devoted to his education.

The Scholastic Aptitude Tests do not predict success any better than the socio economic status of the parents.

Without affirmative action I could never have attended Yale University. Without affirmative action Barack Obama would never have gotten into Colombia and Harvard Law school

I graduated college with a 3.5 GPA, when I came into college barely able to get in.

I'm not arguing for a return to the grammar school system, but there must be a way of identifying bright kids from ordinary backgrounds and giving them a world-class education.

I've just got a real thirst for knowledge now, especially seeing how the world is, seeing how the disparity is with African American men, and I want to do something special. And getting a degree from Duke is special, especially coming from where I come from.

And certainly having gone to Oxford, and seen some of the other students there, I wouldn't say the ones at my school were less capable. They could've been there.

I grew up in a close-knit community where I was expected to excel, and it was a different experience when I got to the university. There were very few students of color, and those numbers were extremely low in the school of engineering.