After no more than a few minutes of conversation, he started to discourage me from applying for admission.

The reason? There was a Jewish quota on the campus, he said, and it was already filled.

The fact that I had served my country for three years, including several months under intense fire on Okinawa was totally irrelevant.

To the best of my recollection, I was more astonished than angry. Anyway, he succeeded in discouraging me, and I enrolled at a different school. A better one, I think, as it later turned out.

Now, given all the civil rights legislation that has been put into place over the last forty years or so, the common perception today appears to be that that kind of outrage just couldn’t happen again.

Well, not true.

You see, if you want a student body made up of such and such a percentage of blacks, such and such a percentage of Orientals, such and such a percentage of Hispanics, and so on, you don’t have to institute a system of racial quotas.

Or if you want a work force of so many this and so many that, again you don’t have to institute a system of racial quotas.

No Sireee. That would be unAmerican, now, wouldn't it?  And we certainly can’t have that, now, can we?

So instead, all you have to do today, in both cases, is institute a system that you call "Fairness Percentages" or "Equalizing Ratios" or "Cultural Parity." Or even "Balanced Handicaps."

You see, these aren't racial quotas, now, are they? After all, neither the word "racial" nor the word "quotas" appears in any one of them.

So tell me, ain’t education wonderful?

Think about it.