Christopher Bell is a television, film and new media productiongraduate.Send comments to: daletter@mail.sdsu.edu

Excuse me, is that the impaction bandwagon? Wait up … I want tojump on it.

Lest the usual crop of pseudo-republican conservativenonsense-writers overtake logical discussion on the issue, I thoughtI should at least attempt to offer … umm … a point on thesubject. New concept, I’m aware, but hey, I try to be a trend-setter,you know?

I’ll give you three guesses as to what side of the issue I’m on.

Nope. You’re wrong.

I don’t think San Diego State University is at fault for thecurrent situation surrounding the new impaction requirements. As muchas I love to point fingers at administrators like CSU ChancellorCharles Reed, it’s not his fault either.

You want to start laying blame at someone’s feet, you can start byknocking on the door of the loathsome, ridiculously inept publiceducation system in this surprisingly backward state. Minoritystudents can’t get into colleges without help because the publicschools teach them zilch.

Plain and simple. White students from California go to the sameschools, but benefit from standardized tests that are biased in theirfavor.

You can argue with me all you want, but very few of you teachclasses on this campus. I do. I’ve seen it firsthand. I have close to40 of the most intelligent young adults I’ve ever worked with in myclasses this semester, and I can tell you from personal experiencethat not more than six to eight of them can write using properpunctuation and spelling.

That’s not their fault, mind you, but it’s their reality.

And the reality is that when you sit down at your computer towrite The Daily Aztec to spew venom about how much you disagree witheverything I’ve ever said, the editor will have to spend 30 minutescorrecting your laughably pitiful grammar before he can print yourletter.

So should you be here at SDSU? Did anyone deny you admissionbecause you can’t write a complete sentence or use a comma to saveyour life? Of course not. Why? Because you had the benefit ofstandardized tests to carry you over into admission.

I’ve already spent long days going into why standardized tests arehorse manure, so I’m not getting into it again, but without your testscores, a large number of you would be sweating it out at a juniorcollege getting up your index score right along with those “minority”students you claim don’t deserve to be here.

I teach a section of 17 students registered with the EqualOpportunity Program. The way this program was described to me wasthat these were students who barely made it into college, and arehere provisionally.

All of them but one are so-called minority students, and theexception is a woman, which carries its own stigma. Guess what,cousin? They’re just as smart, if not smarter, than my “normal”class. Know how they got put into EOP?

Bad index score, made up of grade-point average and ScholasticAptitude Test/American College Test scores. I challenge 90 percent ofthis university to write as well as my EOP students. These aren’tstudents who barely made it into college; these are students who gotraked over the coals by a system that turns people into numbers. Icould just walk over to admissions and start smacking people over thehead with a baseball bat for the way that they’ve made these studentsfeel as though they “barely” have what it takes to be in college.

So, they don’t perform well on tests about toboggans and polo. Bigfrickin’ whoop. Half the drunks littering College Avenue on a Fridaynight cruising frat parties did well on their SATs, and look at thebunch of knuckle-draggers now.

Should we, then, crucify SDSU for the current policy regardingimpaction?

Please. Impaction is a joke. This school is impacted because it’sletting in all the wrong students for all the wrong reasons. Youreally want the admission standards to be more fair to minoritystudents?

Stop protesting impaction, and start protesting admission based onindex scores. Focus your energies in the right direction. Turn 180degrees from the administration building, walk across the courtyard,and kick in the door of admissions and records. Then you’ll be on theright track.

On second thought, slow this bandwagon down. I’m jumping off,because I don’t particularly enjoy the company after all.

This column is the opinion of the columnist and not The DailyAztec.