Affirmative Action Is Still Necessary- agreed?

Parents Forum
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<p>Bloomberg editorial regarding the UT affirmative action lawsuit the Supreme Court will likely rule on next year. </p>

<p>"With an African-American president and an African-American attorney general, does America still need affirmative action? Can it honestly be said that blacks require a finger on the scale of the meritocracy? "</p>

<p>Affirmative</a> Action Is Still Necessary - Bloomberg</p>

<p>Is AA still necessary?</p>

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<p>This is a problem that intrigues me. I attended a lecture where an African-American athletic director was a guest speaker and he expressed his views that affirmative action in the arena of college admissions was dated and unnecessary. </p>

<p>Personally, I believe that, at a point, it ceases to become affirmative action and starts to become discrimination against members of all other races. In today’s world, people of all races have access to quality high school education. That’s what Bush tried to do with No Child Left Behind, right? Each student gets access to a public school. Given, public schools are not all equal, but each student has access to the most basic classes and, with drive, can excel. Classes, to an extent, are standardized and certain benchmarks are reached across the board. </p>

<p>Thus, we should restore a merit-based admissions process and eliminate any role race plays. I am Asian. I have read articles about how it is more difficult for Asians to be admitted to top universities because their grades are compared to the grades of other high-achieving Asian students. Therefore, their grades need to be higher in order to be competitive for schools that have a selected quota (explicitly or implicitly defined). I ask, aren’t we past this? Aren’t we past labeling people as part of a specific race? We are all human beings. Race is only a construct. So why not judge us by our individual merit and not by the color of our skin?</p>

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<p>Such is the life of an Asian. Affirmative action is essentially reverse discrimination against us folks :(</p>

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<p>I used to think it wasn’t necessary and that it’s absurd and reverse discrimination, and that’s coming from a male latino, but I’ve come to realize that it’s very necessary.</p>

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<p>According to this - [JSTOR:</a> An Error Occurred Setting Your User Cookie](<a href=“Why Family Income Differences Don't Explain the Racial Gap in SAT Scores on JSTOR”>Why Family Income Differences Don't Explain the Racial Gap in SAT Scores on JSTOR) - black students coming from families whose incomes are between 80,000 and 100,000 did worse on the SAT than white students coming from families whose incomes were less than 10,000.</p>

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<p>MODERATOR NOTE: </p>

<p>Per CCs Terms of Service AA threads are not permitted. </p>

<p>Further discussions should be restricted to the Race FAQ thread on the College Admissions forum.</p>

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<p>Here is the link for the current FAQ thread on the issue: </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1366406-race-college-admission-faq-discussion-10-a.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

<p>Submissions of links to relevant news and commentary articles are very welcome there.</p>