Andrew Hacker > Quotes

“Friendship often grows out of shared experiences”
― Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal

“remedial work needed? It often is. In my introductory political science classes, I encounter far too many students who cannot write coherently. I would like to think this is being remedied in composition courses, since without that competence they can’t do college-level work. But it’s quite another thing to say that all undergraduates need advanced algebra to proceed toward their degrees.”
― Andrew Hacker, The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions

“My answer is that I’ve found it an absorbing example of how a society can cling to policies and practices that serve no rational purpose. They persist because they become embedded, usually bolstered by those who benefit. Nor are the issues entirely academic. Making mathematics a barrier ends up suppressing opportunities, stifling creativity, and denying society a wealth of varied talents.”
― Andrew Hacker, The Math Myth: And Other STEM Delusions

“Those choices are not just for yourself. There will be the perplexing—and equally painful—task of having to explain to your children why they will not be treated as other Americans: that they will never be altogether accepted, that they will always be regarded warily, if not with suspicion or hostility.”
― Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal

“When this parable has been put to white students, most seemed to feel that it would not be out of place to ask for $1 million for each future year they would be living as a black American. And this calculation conveys, as well as anything, the value that white people place on their own skin. Indeed, to be white is to possess a gift whose value can be appreciated only after it has been taken away. And why ask for so large a sum? Surely this needs no detailing. The money would be used, as best it could, to buy protection from the discriminations and dangers white people know they would face once they were perceived to be black.”
― Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal

“Colleges should be helping to build the next generation’s future, not mortgaging it.”
― Andrew Hacker, Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About It

“That Americans of African origin once wore chains of chattels remains alive in the memory of both races and continues to separate them. Black Americans are Americans, yet they still subsist as aliens in the only land they know. Other groups may remain outside the mainstream… but they do so voluntarily. In contrast, blacks must endure a segregation that is far from freely chosen. So America may be seen as two separate nations… in most significant respects, the separation is pervasive and penetrating. As social and human division, it surpasses all others–even gender–in intensity and subordination.”
― Andrew Hacker, Two Nations: Black and White, Separate, Hostile, Unequal

“punishment will have to wait. True, that all lives must be preserved (except in war) is still the official posture of the Roman Catholic Church. Yet it and other denominations that seek to end abortions do not show equal interest challenging to the death penalty. Few Republican officials have problems with capital sentencing, since it comes with the tough”
― Andrew Hacker, Downfall: The Demise of a President and His Party