America's Book Club: Linda Chavez on Affirmative Action & English as the National Language

[00:00:00] I actually taught uh I taught at [00:00:02] University of Colorado and UCLA. I [00:00:04] taught in the first affirmative action [00:00:05] programs there. It was a very [00:00:07] eye-opening experience and formed my [00:00:09] views of becoming a critic of [00:00:11] affirmative action. [00:00:12] >> Let's go back to the uh issue of [00:00:14] affirmative action which you know a lot [00:00:16] about. Um today the Supreme Court has [00:00:18] more or less said that affirmative [00:00:19] action at least certainly in education [00:00:21] is not uh permissible. Um, do you think [00:00:23] that's uh changed uh universities for [00:00:26] the good or the bad or what's your [00:00:28] assessment of that? [00:00:30] >> I very much believe it's changed [00:00:31] universities for the good and it's not [00:00:34] just that it has taken out impermissible [00:00:37] discrimination. I think it's been really [00:00:39] good for Latino and black students. Uh [00:00:42] my organization has done studies over [00:00:44] the years taking a look at the admission [00:00:46] of students uh into uh university who [00:00:50] did not meet the normal qualifications. [00:00:52] And what we found over 80 different [00:00:55] universities was that admitting a [00:00:58] student whose grades and test scores [00:01:00] were not similar to those of his white [00:01:03] and Asian peers meant the student was [00:01:06] more likely to fail. And so now you've [00:01:08] got students, they may not be going to [00:01:11] the top tier school in as great as [00:01:13] number, but they're going to schools [00:01:15] where their preparation allows them to [00:01:18] succeed. [00:01:19] >> Now, there have been some people in the [00:01:21] United States who want to have a [00:01:22] constitutional amendment making English [00:01:25] our official language. Do you think [00:01:26] that's a good idea or not necessary? [00:01:29] >> I don't think it would do much harm to [00:01:31] make it an official language. Many [00:01:33] countries have official languages, but [00:01:35] the practical matter is that English has [00:01:38] been our de facto official language [00:01:41] almost from the beginning. And that no [00:01:44] matter where people came from, what [00:01:46] country they spoke when they got here, [00:01:47] they eventually learned English. So in