<p>I didn't say the campus wasn't "diverse," but it may well be in a few years.</p>
<p>Your arguments are familiar and I understand your frustration. I was a Caucasian applying to law school in the 1970s, and it didn't seem fair that I was rejected from my first choice school when a black student I know with worse grades got in.</p>
<p>But our society must start from the premise that we want equal opportunities for all races. It is almost impossible to achieve this, but it is a worthy goal and makes sense in the long term.</p>
<p>Also, just because a process doesn't use race as an overt factor doesn't mean it isn't racist in practice and therefore unconstutionally discriminatory. There are many examples in history where factors other than race were used (literacy, for example) to keep minorities out.</p>
<p>I did not know that you have such in-depth experience with the matter. I appreciate your views as they are different from others that I have read.</p>
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There are many examples in history where factors other than race were used (literacy, for example) to keep minorities out.
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<p>I was taught in history that these tests were selectively administered at the discretion of the booth "operator."</p>
<p>I remember my teacher telling me a story.</p>
<p>A young black Harvard graduate went home and tried to register to vote. He was asked to read a passage in English, which he easily did. The operator then gave him a passage in French, which he also read. The operator presented passages in Spanish, German, Greek, and Latin, but the student read all of them. Finally, the operator pulled a passage written in classical Chinese and demanded that the student read it.</p>
<p>The student replied, "It says you do not want me to vote."</p>
<p>By contrast, a white male could be administered a very simple English sentence as proof of literacy.</p>
<p>Thus, with the literacy rule, different standards were applied to different people. It would not be the case with a policy that doesn't use race.</p>
<p>
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Florida doesn't use affirmative action. At UF, there are more Blacks than Asians, and there are more Hispanics than Asians. Why has this been ignored by those who believe that without racial preferences, "URMs" would have zero chance of admission?
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<p>Without working in the admissions office there, I don't really see how you can make such a statement, but I would imagine that UF has more black and hispanic applicants than asians, so I'm not all that surprised. It's also a big sports school, and I know someone who (not a URM) has told me they got into UF with stats far below the entering class because they were a recruited athlete. </p>
<p>Your argument here seems it would only support that "affirmative action" exists only in the minds of those over obsessed with the admissions process and in fact URMs have the application packages to be admitted to these schools. While I wouldn't make such a bold statement, I wouldn't disagree to some extent, I find the obsession with AA on these boards far out of proportion to anything I hear from others in daily life. Every single admission decision can't be chalked up to AA. </p>
<p>And no one can control being or not being a legacy. No one really controls their life so much up to 18 anyways. If we want to argue that height can be changed, yes it can through rare and unnecessary procedures, but if we're going to argue to that length, then yes, race can be changed too. Look at Michael Jackson. If you're willing to undergo enough, the miracles of modern science can do anything to you physically, so technically with enough motivation someone can change anything about their appearance and thus control it, but this doesn't play out in reality and I think by extension it's a fairly useless argument. There are many things we can't "control" in a practical sense. Kids can't control being orphans, or being born addicted to crack, or going to bad schools. Just because SOMEONE can control that doesn't mean anything to me. Someone could have controlled the kid's race by sleeping with someone else of another race. That doesn't mean the kid has any control whatsoever over these factors.</p>
<p>Actually, what is happening at the University of California campuses is kind of interesting. The system as a whole is diverse, and probably reflects the applicant pool pretty well. Thus, while Asians are over-represented compared to their population in the state, I assume that's because of a strong pro-education ethic which results in a higher percentage of Asian kids meeting the UC academic standards. But the campuses which comprise the UC system seem to be segregating. Berkeley and UCLA are almost exactly evenly balanced between white and Asian kids. But look at what's happened at the three "middle" campuses, UC Irvine, UC Santa Barbara, and UC Davis. These schools are, on an overall basis, academically indistinguishable. Virtually the same USNWR ranking, same quality of students drawn from the same pool of applicants off the same application form. But check this out: UC Irvine is 49% Asian, 34% white; Santa Barbara, less than 150 miles away, is 16% Asian, 62% white. (Cal Poly SLO is another excellent public college near UCSB with a strong engineering department which draws from about the same selectivity level - and it's 11% Asian, 76% white.) At the next academic step down, UC Riverside is 42% Asian 25% white; UC Santa Cruz: 19% - 62%. Anecdotally, I can tell you that I know of lots of the kids who have been presented with the choice and have responded as you would expect: Asian kids pick Irvine over UCSB given the opportunity; white kids vice-versa. Asian kids pick UCR, white kids - well, white kids at that academic level frequently opt for San Diego State or other CSU's over Riverside as far as I can tell, despite the fact that Riverside is an excellent, top-100 level university.</p>
<p>I'm inclined to view this as harmless on a societal level - after all, all the kids end up at what I consider to be an excellent school, and there's plenty of diversity (at least between those two groups) at each of them. But if I were the Adcom for a private college I might look at that and consider that I wouldn't want to let the racial balance at my school to get too far out of balance with society as a whole lest bright kids start to choose not to apply to my school because it was considered too one-dimensional in a way that didn't appeal to them.</p>
<p>Fabrizio, your height comment was ridiculous.... Race can be changed just as easily as height. That is to say not easily at all. Of course all that is totally irrelevent to the discussion because you basically suggested that some uncontrollable factors such as height are ok to make decsions about (I phrased that badly), while others like race are not ok.</p>
<p>Your literacy test story actually proves our point. The literacy test law was colorblind entirely, yet still discriminated. That is how a colorblind institution can actually be racist.</p>
<p>I see have made a mistake. It was wrong for me to try to justify my belief that race should not play a role. I was making my own belief more complicated than it had to be.</p>
<p>So, I must simplify. I'm against the use of race on the principle that a man should not be judged by the color of his skin but by the quality of his character.</p>
<p>Easy as that.</p>
<p>
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Your literacy test story actually proves our point. The literacy test law was colorblind entirely, yet still discriminated. That is how a colorblind institution can actually be racist.
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</p>
<p>No, it was not colorblind. The test was administered at the discretion of the pollkeeper. He could have given a white person ONE passage that contained one simple sentence. He could have given a black person TEN passages in ten languages in an effort to prevent the black from voting.</p>
<p>While Berkley over all may still be diverse, some departments seem to be really skewed. We peeked into a biology class when we were on a tour there and it appeared to be 100% Asian.</p>
<p>fabrizio,
I think "colorblind" in this situation means that the test was given to EVERYBODY , regardless of race. But HOW it was given differed between races, herein lies the manipulation.</p>
<p>I meant that it was colorblind in the sense that the specific law was totally colorblind, it didn't say "give black people ten tests and white people one." It just specified that there would be a literacy test. The law was colorblind, the institution was racist.</p>
<p>Regarding Post #27, yes, that's correct. And that's what some people are talking about when they refer to the appearance of non-diversity. The segmenting into certain majors is a factor. I also think kluge's observations are important. And while, yes, I agree that may be societally "harmless," it is more than the absence of a negative which causes many students to make decisions about an environment.</p>
<p>Fabrizio, the fact that you find yourself shifting from one untenable argument to another should alert you to the likelihood that you have an opinion in search of a justification. Instead of finding a cool-sounding slogan which seems to support your views, it might behoove you to give some thought to the arguments on the other side of the issue in order to test your opinion for actual validity. This is a complex issue, with a lot of factors which cut both ways (sometimes the same factor does both.) A gut reaction is one thing; a reasoned appreciation of the issue requires a little more.</p>
<p>The literacy test rule stipulated that the pollkeeper administer a test to a prospective voter. It did not say that a certain test must be used in all cases. It just said that a test was to be administered. We all know what ended up happening – different tests for different people.</p>
<p>What about the SAT? Is the SAT different for Blacks? Are they forced to do more sections than Whites?</p>
<p>The SAT is not different for Blacks, and they are not forced to do an additional section or write two essays. If they were, I would be the first to advocate the end of the SAT.</p>
<p>But, we all know that every student takes the same number of sections in the SAT over similar material. There is no special test for Black students. There is no special test for White students. It's the same test for everyone. That's the difference between the SAT and the literacy test.</p>
<p>Just_Browsing, I hope I have clarified my position.</p>
<p>
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Fabrizio, the fact that you find yourself shifting from one untenable argument to another should alert you to the likelihood that you have an opinion in search of a justification.
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<p>And I have found that I oppose racial preferences on principle, not a cool-sounding slogan. I think most of us believe that we should not judge people on their skin color.</p>
<p>Thirty-three posts ago you were opposing AA because it was "unfair" to use a factor no one can control in admissions. After admitting that you'd do the same thing (height for tennis players) you retreated to sloganeering. Nobody is "judging" anyone. We're talking about whether ethnic background should be ignored in the decisions made by college admissions committees. </p>
<p>I understood from your response to the short tennis player hypothetical that you do think it's OK to factor in the extent to which an individual has achieved despite adversity in such decisions. But you are adamantly opposed to considering race in the same way you would consider height. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm not prepared to blindly accept that it's due to some high-minded principle, since your justification for your position has changed without your position changing as well. It sounds to me like a gut feeling in search of a politically defensible justification.</p>
<p>The SAT doesn't have to be administered differently to be deemed discriminatory. If one race consistently scores better on the SAT than other races, then using the test as an entrance criteria may have THE EFFECT of discriminating. </p>
<p>We do not know whether it in fact DOES discriminate, but it needs to be looked at.</p>
<p>The US Supreme Court has not provided clear guidance to schools in the area of using race in admissions. There are a couple of cases pending that may help clarify the issue in the near future.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thirty-three posts ago you were opposing AA because it was "unfair" to use a factor no one can control in admissions. After admitting that you'd do the same thing (height for tennis players) you retreated to sloganeering. Nobody is "judging" anyone. We're talking about whether ethnic background should be ignored in the decisions made by college admissions committees. </p>
<p>I understood from your response to the short tennis player hypothetical that you do think it's OK to factor in the extent to which an individual has achieved despite adversity in such decisions. But you are adamantly opposed to considering race in the same way you would consider height. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm not prepared to blindly accept that it's due to some high-minded principle, since your justification for your position has changed without your position changing as well. It sounds to me like a gut feeling in search of a politically defensible justification.
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</p>
<p>And since then, I have recognized my mistake in trying to justify my opinion based on controllability.</p>
<p>Instead of clinging on to what I perceive as my error, I have decided that I oppose racial preferences for the simple principle that we should judge character, not skin color. Whether that is too “high-minded,” given the fact that many view me as a racist for supporting the end of racial preferences (somewhat contradictory), is your decision.</p>
<p>kluge, I ask you a question. If ethnic background is used, then how is one not judged from that factor, even if it is one of many factors? Using ethnic background as a factor requires a judgment based on race.</p>
<p>Let's try one more tack, though I know that it's probably a lost cause. </p>
<p>Imagine a hypothetical college where admissions were truly "fair." The only factor considered for admissions was academic ability as measured by grades and standardized test scores. What would such a place be like?</p>
<p>Whites and Asian Americans would be over-represented and the majority of these would be middle or upper class; the few African-Americans, Latinos/as, Native Americans would be largely middle-class kids who had gone to suburban or prep schools, and whose experience had been similar to that of the whites and Asians. As a result, there would be a very narrow range of experience and opinion in the student body, and these ideas would tend to be reinforced daily.</p>
<p>The admitted students who were good at sports would have to play with incompetent teammates, beacuse there wouldn't be athletic tips. The concerts, plays, and art shows would be less good than they had been before the policy became "fair" because no preference could be given to artists, musicians, or actors except for their academic ability. </p>
<p>. . . and so on. I suspect that there would be relatively few takers for the educational experience provided by such a "fair" admissions policy.</p>
<p>Back to the real world: the African-American kid who went to an inner-city high school is probably as bright as the WASP kid who scored 100 points higher on the SAT; he brings something to the school that's as enriching as the talents of the artist or the violinist, and his racial differences are are both biological and cultural, just like the violinist's performance skills. What's unfair about admitting such a student?</p>
<p>To sum up, when the test is a "no pressure" test that means nothing, minority students will do just as well as white students, but the moment you add a pressure, minorities have to psychologically deal with stereotypes about how they will do on the test. It most affects the high-preforming students of color.</p>
<p>The SAT, another great example of a colorblind institution that is still racist.</p>
<p>Are you a student applying to colleges? Couldn't you find a better use for your time than this? If you're not a student applying to colleges, what is going on with you? I'm a shrink; maybe I could help.</p>