Madison, Wisconsin- Next day, Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Heather Mac Donald said at the University of Wisconsin-Madison,” It’s more critical that we advance knowledge than it is that we make women feel included.”
She said,” You should be included because you are the best possible candidate, not because you are the best female applicant.” Being a woman is not a success, she said, drawing a distinction between cultural preferences for enrollment and being feminine. She compared a hypothetical situation to her acceptance into MIT to reach gender balance despite not having strong math skills and cultural preferences.
For a discussion titled” DE I on College Campuses: Underrepresentation vs. Underrepresentation,” Professor Ananth Seshadri, director of the Center for Research on the Wisconsin Economy, spoke with Mac Donald, a , a member of the College Fix advisory board. ” Discrimination” The Tommy G. Thompson Center on Public Leadership and the core hosted the occasion.
Mac Donald addressed the issues with American universities today, the cultural scientific skills gap, and the dangers of competition- and gender-based university admission and university hiring.
She said,” You are not going to have anything close to racial proportionality if you are admitting on a color-blind basis.”
No one is suggesting that black, Hispanic, and Native Americans, who are underrepresented in the world, should never attend college, but rather that they should do so in the same circumstances as everyone else, she said.
Around 50 individuals showed up for the occasion. Professor Seshadri explained to The Fix prior to the event why it is crucial to hold discussions on contentious subjects. Legal conversations are at the heart of a college education, according to Professor Seshadri in an email. Many of these contentious problems are still unresolved, he said.
Individuals who are wary of Mac Donald’s opinions should “hear the other side and issue those with opposing beliefs in a legal way.”
” I do advise students that they don’t get the full range of knowledge they need to graduate with a well-rounded knowledge and make them for the future,” he said.
Mac Donald is a frequent Fox News commentator, contributing editor to the City Journal, and the author of several books, most recently” The Diversity Delusion.” She covers a wide range of subjects, including competition relationships and higher learning.
One attendeee said,” I thought the talk was truly wonderful. Given that Madison hasn’t always been supportive of these sights on DEI, I thought it was very strong of [the core ] and Mac Donald to keep this function on school.
” I do believe it is really significant that the University of Wisconsin Madison reiterates that DEI should not be our common for accepting kids or hiring university,” she said. It ought to be determined by significance,” she said.
The occasion occurs at a time when higher education DEI initiatives are being closely watched.
The University of Wisconsin-Madison has reaffirmed its commitment to diversification in response to recent stresses, including the Executive Order signed on January 20 that relations funding to slowing DEI and the” Dear Colleague Letter” released by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.
On February 28, UW-Madison Chancellor Jennifer L. Mnookin and Provost Charles Isbell Jr. addressed all learners, faculty, and employees with a letter addressing these improvements.
It states that” we are, and will continue to be, guided by our responsibility to our vision of greatness in training, study, and service as well as our commitment to the beliefs that support that quality as we respond to these guidelines and problems”
These include the acknowledgement that variety, including both academic variety and diversity of identity, makes us stronger, according to the administrators.
When Professor Seshadri questioned Mac Donald about the recent backlash against American universities, she responded,” They have cast aside their fundamental duty to go on the legacy of Western society with love and happiness, in favor of a very thin and fragile view of northern civilization.”
There would not be the backlash against universities if there was still faith that universities were upholding their highest ideals and highest mission of teaching students why they are the luckiest people in human history, to be the victims of this tsunami of creativity.
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SUMMARY: On March 13, 2025, conservative author Heather Mac Donald speaks at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For The College Fix, Rebecca Draeger.
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