Why Are Black College Students Protesting?

I've seen a couple articles recently that argue that the reason that so many black students at elite universities are unhappy is because they are not suited for the rigors and competition of their respective colleges. A couple weeks ago, in an article at Chicago Boyz entitled "What are black college students rioting about?", Michael Kennedy wrote:

Power line has a post today that seems to me to be right on the topic of what these students want, which is freedom from accountability. They are afraid they are overmatched against white colleagues. They can’t hack it and want a pass. It is called“Mismatch.”

The author points out that, when examining the IQ of different races:

The curve for blacks has a peak at IQ about 80. White peak at 100 to 104. Asians peak at around 106. What this means is that the average IQ is lower for blacks but this does not mean that all blacks are less intelligent than whites. At an IQ of 110 there is a large difference but the number of blacks who will do well in certain academic fields like Medicine is still significant. It would seem important to identify those blacks who will do well in fields requiring higher than average intelligence but the present system of affirmative action ignores this truth.

The problem is that, because of affirmative action, many blacks are being admitted into colleges or programs that are above their capabilities. Kennedy finishes by stating: "I feel sorry for these students because, due to white leftist orthodoxy, they have been placed in a situation where they cannot succeed. They know it and demand special privileges. All this does is to degrade the accomplishments of black students who are far enough to the right in the curve to succeed in math or engineering or medicine."

In a similar article at the American Spectator, "A Little-Understood Engine of Campus Unrest: Racial Admissions Preferences," Stuart Taylor writes:

Many or most of the African-American student protesters really are victims — but not of old-fashioned racism.

Most are, rather, victims of the very large admissions preferences that set up racial-minority students for academic struggle at the selective universities that have cynically misled them into thinking they are well qualified to compete with classmates who are, in fact, far stronger academically.

The reality is that most good black and Hispanic students, who would be academically competitive at many selective schools, are not competitive at the more selective schools that they attend.

That’s why it takes very large racial preferences to get them admitted. An inevitable result is that many black and (to a lesser extent) Hispanic students cannot keep up with better-prepared classmates and rank low in their classes no matter how hard they work.

Studies show that this academic “mismatch effect” forces them to drop science and other challenging courses; to move into soft, easily graded, courses disproportionately populated by other preferentially admitted students; and to abandon career hopes such as engineering and pre-med. Many lose intellectual self-confidence and become unhappy even if they avoid flunking out.

Read the whole thing. But it is yet another example where blacks have been sabotaged by progressive-liberals that claimed to help them. How many of these students may have obtained degrees in useful and remunerative careers in business or the sciences, but either drifted into some useless "studies" degree or, worse yet, dropped out completely? As I've noted to my children, liberals don't actually care about people or the consequences of the policies they push; they only care about feeling good about themselves.