Equity is all the rage in public schools. Academic excellence is a sin if it does not occur in proportion to whatever racial categories administrators embrace. Across the country, magnet schools eliminate colorblind entrance exams or Advanced Placement courses if too many Asians or too few African Americans pass.

When Reagan Interior Secretary James Watt bragged in 1983 about his coal commission by stating, “We have every kind of mix you can have. I have a black, I have a woman, two Jews, and a cripple,” Democrats mocked him. Had he uttered those words today, American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten would have drafted him as her deputy. Watt’s tokenism has not only become a mantra for a superficial approach to diversity, but it has also become a litmus test for AP calculus.

If schools are to prioritize equity over equality, result over opportunity, and use skin color and sexual orientation as their primary metric of diversity, why not take their crusade further? Why should varsity sports become the sole survivor of their war on merit? If diversity is the prize, shouldn’t football teams prioritize playing Asians and Jews, both underrepresented, in order to achieve athletic equity? Likewise, if one varsity baseball player has a batting average of .300 and another just .100, wouldn’t equity demand that the second player have three times as many at-bats to achieve an equal number of hits?

And if Title IX, despite its original intent, can mandate cuts to some sports teams to ensure the proper proportion of male and female opportunities regardless of individual interest, shouldn’t the Americans with Disability Act be enough reason to cut others? After all, ice hockey inherently discriminates against paraplegics.

It is of course possible to go down a racial and religious rabbit hole. African Americans dominate the NBA today, but just a century ago, Jews dominated professional basketball. Is it antisemitic that the NBA today boasts only one Jewish player ? Or is it possible that for reasons of culture or individual choice, members of other groups simply tried harder and outperformed Jewish players?

Many Harvard graduates raise children to fulfill the demands of robust intellectual inquiry, if not Harvard admissions. Should that be wrong? My American Enterprise Institute colleague and education policy specialist Rick Hess points out that those who seek to counter “privilege” in academia might apply the same standards to athletics. Is it pure coincidence, Hess asks, that New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick’s father was a well-respected scout and coach? Or that Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes’s father was a professional athlete? Hess’s essay offers many additional examples.

Cutting varsity sports is, of course, merely a modest proposal. And for those who were unable to access AP literature in order to ensure academic equity, that is of course a reference to Jonathan Swift’s 1729 satirical essay. (Admittedly, as readers in Takoma Park might believe, it should also be permissible to cancel Swift today because he proposed eating only Irish babies and not a more diverse array, but we can save that discussion for another day.)

Once upon a time, allowing children to develop talent, supporting their passions, and rewarding hard work was the foundation of the American dream. Schools sought to identify and cultivate individual talent rather than punish it. To pursue athletics until a professional draft was the athletic equivalent of receiving a Rhodes scholarship or winning the Regeneron (formerly Westinghouse) Science Talent Search.

There is a special irony, of course, that those who howled at Charles Murray and Richard J. Herrnstein’s The Bell Curve seem to give credence to its analysis by arguing that racial disparities exist and equity demands inequality. If progressives truly believe Murray is wrong, they should support meritocratic and race-blind standards in accelerated classes.

It is time to stop demonizing and impeding excellence across the board. To dumb down academic standards is no different than demanding that athletics be a corollary consideration to race when picking a team roster.

Michael Rubin ( @mrubin1971 ) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential blog. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.