Affirmative Action just leads to more racism.

Applying to College
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<p>Isle Boy is also largely wrong.</p>

<p>1) Removing affirmative action would not hurt minority groups. If you look at the UC's, minority attendance is way up, if you count asians as the minority they are. Indeed many reports show that you do not increase the attendance of minority groups through affirmative action for colleges and many professional schools; you just reallocate them from a lower-ranked school to a higher ranked one.</p>

<p>2) Historical wrongs have been largely addressed and affirmative action, along with a slew of other civil rights programs have elevated nearly 75% of all African Americans in the middle class. African American women actually make the same income as their white, female counterparts. If you want to talk about how woman are an underclass, how about making the quasi-draft that all students who receieve federal financial aid must sign on to be available to women as well (currently it is only for males)? Women have many benefits because of their sex as well as many disadvantages.</p>

<p>And don't talk me about Historical wrongs. Slaves have been a big part of human history for 99.9% of humanity's existence. Maybe we should give the Jews affirmative action slots because of historical wrongs done to them as well. Maybe we should give Vietnamese people free slots as well because America got involved in their civil war. There are so many historical wrongs it makes it impossible to fix them all, even thourhg affirmative action.</p>

<p>The truth is, affirmative action has already done its part and affirmative action has been getting increasingly diminishing returns.</p>

<p>3) Non-URM member's do not have their slots taken away by other non-urm members. There are a significant minority that are denied access to top law schools because of quota system. If it were true that non-urm's stole other non-urm's places due to affirmative action and other quota systems the doctor who sued a UC medical school and won would've taken a white person's slot instead of the underqualified URM applicant that stole his position. The same has been true for the UC's where minority attendance from underqualified minorities has plummetted, showing that these slots were being taken up by minority quotas were denying qualified students entry.</p>

<p>Indeed, if you want to address "historica' grievances maybe you should deny John Kerry's daughter attendance to Harvard medical school and give it to a hispanic or african american applicant. The scion of rich white men are still getting in due to "affirmative-action" so schools feel the need to compensate a random, "under-represented" minority group. If you want to right wrongs, deny rich white people entry. Don't deny it to normal people who have done nothing wrong except not have a skin color the admissions committee is looking for.</p>

<p>I find most people that support AA as people who are from the minority groups they benefit (who have an inherent bias), and rich, white folk who have never had to deal with real world issues in their suburban utopia's and feel guilty for being rich, so they give the slot of non-underrepresented middle-class people and poor people away to underqualified poor/brown people. Easy enough to do from their ivory towers and when they are still reaping the benefits of historical advantage.</p>

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<p>TheGFG makes an excellent point...</p>

<p>Story: I had a friend, or acquaintance, who was perhaps the smartest person I have ever met, or at least in the top 5 smartest people I've met of my own age. He happened to be black. He made it into one of the nation's best colleges (which he deserved on his own merit). Many people he doesn't deserve to be there, but I am confident that he is probably still one of the smartest kids in his class. Now, his race might have been the "hook" that helped him get in over the thousands of other highly qualified candidates, just as your son, GFG, whose stats made him qualified for an Ivy, might have gotten into a top school over thousands of others who were also qualified (not to say he didn't deserve to get in. It is obvious by meeting anyone from a top school, that they all DESERVE to get in, but so do many many others who were rejected). Race just often acts as that "hook" that boosts people from "qualified" to "admitted."</p>

<p>Now, as GFG explained, many bitter non-URMs misconstrue this phenomenon. They think that minorities get in ONLY because of AA and that grades don't matter for them. THis is not true. AA just often helps URMs who are qualified and deserving get in over the other deserving applicants (which is usually about 60-70% of the applicant pool). I do not, however, agree with this practice because although the URMs are qualified, I don't think race should be that "hook" that puts a person above another because #1) it leads to embittered whites #2) it promotes the idea of "color-aware" admissions #3) many people who take advantage of AA are NOT underprivelaged URMs, but very privelaged individuals who manage to find legal loopholes to give them URM status (i.e. The priveleged, for all practical purposes white, student from South Beach who qualifies because there was a "Garcia" somewhere in his family tree.)</p>

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<p>Polite:</p>

<p>Actually, what are your sources? Links?</p>

<p>Why not read:
Shape of the River
The Big Test
The Promised Land
There Are No Children Here
All Girls
Simple Victories
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?</p>

<p>Largely wrong???</p>

<p>That would make Interrem president of Harvard (Derek Bok) wrong, D. Bowen (former president of Princeton Wrong), Nicholas LeMann, and Alex Kotlowitz (Columbia Journalism school dean) wrong. Wow.</p>

<p>Only those who would be served by getting rid of AA do not see the benefit. That is, a non-white, affluent, male. As for Asians, Japanese/Chinese/Korean kids do not get a bump, but southeast asians and filipinos do. And, if scores are used, why do kids from Hawaii, who are asian, predominently, poor test takers?</p>

<p>Funny, but I think you got it wrong.</p>

<p>IB.</p>

<p>PS--And, I would give the Kerry kids slot to a URM. But, it's the old-boy network...you expected different?!</p>

<p>PSS--so you use skin tone....URM affiliation to say that one takes away from non-URMs who are poor?! Wow. And you're not using discrimination? Amazing.</p>

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<p>Lets not throw "credentials" around. University presidents are often forced to enforce affirmative action and rationalize it anyway they wish.</p>

<p>I don't care about the books you read; if you can't make a sound argument, then just say so instead of resorting to referencing a lot as a form of argument.</p>

<p>You can searh peer-reviewed journals for studies that have come to the conclusion I've made. You can find a lot of hogwash defending affirmative action too but cutting through the bull would require a sound understanding of statistical methods which most people don't have. I daresay the statistically sound studies are made against affirmative action, especially in recent years.</p>

<p>1) Affirmative action redistributes minorities form lower-ranked (not necessarily lower-quality schools) to higher-ranked ones.
2) It hurts people mainly in the middle, not the previous benefactors of reverse-discrimination.
3) It has caused increasing diminishing returns especially in the last decade. </p>

<p>For the most part it has already picked the low-hanging fruit and given most African Americans a leg up into the middle class. Sarah Day O'Connor wrote she expected Affirmative Action to disappear in a generation. I think most reports will show that in that time span (from now until 25 years into the future), standard statistics for social health of minority groups will be unchanging, even with affirmative action. </p>

<p>Why do you not hate the rich boy's club as much as AA then? They were the main benefactors of discriminating against blacks before. It's a simple double standard and makes no logical sense for you to hold such a position. Both are equivalent and should outrage you equally.</p>

<p>Your PSS makes no sense. AA denies admissions to qualified applicants in order to promote less-qualified applicants. It is zero-sum warfare to maintain a politically-correct culture which makes rich, white, liberal feel better about themselves in their ivory towers.</p>

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<p>"Why do you not hate the rich boy's club as much as AA then? They were the main benefactors of discriminating against blacks before. It's a simple double standard and makes no logical sense for you to hold such a position. Both are equivalent and should outrage you equally." Do you think financial aid checks write themselves? Also, admission to college is about more than numbers and such, they're looking to create a diverse class, they don't just have one idea of a "qualified student." As a student who has attended a Boston-area school that does METCO (inner city kids attend suburban schools), I can say that I firmly believe I've benefitted from having those kids in our school, as opposed to having just kids from our lily-white town.</p>

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<p>Amidst all this, you ought to consider a college's motive in giving minorities preferential treatment. Is it justice, or is it more the fact that they think of their college as a dollhouse, which needs to come complete with Barbie, Ken, and Stacy?</p>

<p>Just a thought.</p>

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<p>You're right, Granfallooner, let's just admit only the best students with no regard for diveristy, racial or otherwise. Who needs diversity when you can just have the kids who like school the most?</p>

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<p>This attempt to maintain diversity is, of course, vanity.</p>

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<p>It depends on numbers. Yeah, they write the checks ... so? They have the money and ability to get in the normal way but many get in due to "rich-person" or "legacy" affirmative action. They still have a leg up in that way. And as the supreme court said, individual cases where cultural differences are taken into account are fine, but quota systems are not which is what Affirmative action is. As someone who went to a good public high school in a school district that was redrawn (think gerrymandered) to include african-americans, it was a very segregated school with the inner-city students all on one-side of the campus. And why do they deserve to go to harvard and ivies just because of their skin color? They can easily attend other high-quality schools and do well, just like there are white people who attend other high quality schools as well, all with the exact same stats and all preserving fairness.</p>

<p>In fact, there is a case that minority enrollment through affirmative action leads to grade inflation because you don't want to fail out unqualified applicants at a greater rate. Studies of UC-Berkeley before affirmative action was banned showed that URM's that got in on affirmative action failed at 5 times the rate of normal URM's. </p>

<p>The benefit and costs of AA are no longer worth it; you're basically trading one applicant for another more unqualified one, and disenfranchising those who have worked hard. The benefits were definitely there in the 70's and have shown good results before, but the results now from a purely cost-benefit standpoint are just not there. You know have a system of moral hazard where certain groups know they can work less hard to get in. </p>

<p>And AA doesn;t create a diverse class. Instead of a middle class white person you have a middle-class black person taking their place many-times. It only creates a diverse class in terms of graduation pictures; in terms of enriching experiences and integration, I doubt AA has much of an effect.</p>

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<p>And now, using my telepathy, I shall predict the incoming response:</p>

<p>"Dude, who said all URMs all unqualified?!?!?!"</p>

<p>This discussion is running laps.</p>

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<p>Actually my response was going to ask about "disenfranchising those who have worked hard." That's amazing. URMs don't work hard. Also works nicely with "And why do they deserve to go to harvard and ivies just because of their skin color?" because black people apparently get into Ivies solely because of skin color, no hard work required.</p>

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<p>Oooh, I'm so good... ;)</p>

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<p>A contemplative person might want to distinguish between affirmative action or a college's arbitrary preference being the cause of a (below average in qualification) URM's admission.</p>

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<p>No, Granfallooner, you just can't read and you're very bitter because you hate a black girl at your school. With very few exceptions (notably those with very rich/famous parents), I think you'll find most students accepted to Ivy League schools are very qualified in some manner. To suggest that there is a considerably large population of completely unqualified Ivy League acceptees who were admitted based solely on color is ridiculous.</p>

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<p>I don't hate the black girl and I can read. I hate the decision made on her behalf, though I have a fairly good idea of why it was made, pertaining mainly to politicians in the family. I think you set a new standard of bitterness with that post. Go squeeze your stressball.</p>

<p>PS. I think this is the rudest of been to someone in these AA related discussions. And it's not that rude. Perhaps you could voice your disagreement in a more civilized manner.</p>

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<p>I'm not bitter. I got accepted some places, rejected a few, and sure didn't blame my rejections on AA. It hurts me to watch some one blame his or her own shortcomings on others.</p>

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<p>When did I assume there was a "considerably large population of unqualified Ivy Leage acceptances" "admitted based solely on color?"</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I'm not bitter. I got accepted some places, rejected a few, and sure didn't blame my rejections on AA. It hurts me to watch some one blame his or her own shortcomings on others.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I didn't apply to Columbia. I didn't even blame this girl's acceptance on AA. You ARE bitter. People are disagreeing with you and you're flipping out and taking jabs at them.</p>

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<p>When did I assume there was a "considerably large population of unqualified Ivy Leage acceptances" "admitted based solely on color?"
-This was actually directed at Polite Antagonis, which I forgot to clarify</p>

<p>I'm wondering what I'm bitter about. Also, I'm trying to get you to please shut up because you won't stop trashing this one girl.</p>

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<p>That thread about her admission is long buried.</p>

<p>You're bitter in and about this discussion; bitter. Sour-tasting. Acidic. Burning my tongue with your indecorous posts.</p>