<p>If anyone decides to abolish affirmitive action, I would prefer they did it after I was accepted/rejected from various colleges. :)</p>
<p>I'm Asian-American. That means I do not benefit from AA, both in college admissions and in job placement afterwards. However, I do not believe abolishing AA will solve problems. Nor do I believe that basing AA purely on economic factors will be sufficient.</p>
<p>Even a fairly well-to-do minority will get discriminated against. I'm Asian, and that often leads to the stereotype that I'm quiet, submissive, and studious. I have had teachers who were visibly distressed when I spoke out in class (who had no problems with majority kids expressing their views on things). I have had teachers try to steer me towards Math & Science type subjects and careers based on my ethnicity, even though I am entirely a humanities person with a passion for writing and literature. I have had teachers treat me like an exchange student even though I was born and raised in the United States. I have even had people tell me that they cannot understand my English in person, while in fact they understood me quite clearly over the phone (when they did not know my name or ethnicity). I've also been excluded from sports (based on the perception that Asians are not good at it), and I've also had people ridicule or downplay my accomplishments because I'm "naturally smart" (clearly I must have an unfair advantage because of my skin color and black hair).</p>
<p>I think AA should take both race/ethnicity and economic factors into account, so that white students who come from economically disadvantaged homes can also benefit from it. I'd also like to see Asians included in AA. Even though we may not be underrepresented in colleges and universities, I believe we are still severely underrepresented in politics and corporate boardrooms (even with respect to our tiny percentage of the population, something like 4~5%).</p>
<p>Asians aren't always excluded from AA, some schools work by major or they use schools within schools. Blacks and hispanics, typically, are underrepresented in any major or school, which is why people tend to think only they benefit. Females also see tremendous benefits due to AA (Though that may be changing), and males do as well when it comes to lots of LACs.</p>
<p>IsleBoy that isn't true. One can distinguish class differences based on style of dress.</p>
<p>And isn't AA just adding to the reason there remains societal differences in treatment of URMs? Members of the majority tend to stereotype URMs as thinking themselves "entitled." AA just adds fuel to that fire.</p>
<p>LewisLoftus, not to be stereotypical here, but let me play devil's advocate. Asians are probably overrepresented in engineering fields. Does that mean we should try to normalize that figure also, down to 4-5%? </p>
<p>You can't have your cake and eat it too.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic AA is the way to go.</p>
<p>What about the wealthy URMs in high schools like Stuy who hire SAT tutors and the like? Yes, they may be discriminated against but aren't asians as well?</p>
<p>How many asians here can say they have been discriminated against in school? I have heard of teachers who GRADE HARSLHY on asians just because they perceive them to be smarter and to balance out the rest of the class. </p>
<p>Socio-Economic AA is the way to go. Think of the poor asians who have been discriminated against and have never been able to afford English tutors, SAT tutors, or good schools.</p>
<p>What criteria would you use for socioeconomic AA?</p>
<p>A poor white in many situations is in a better situation that poor blacks, in regards to public schools. Address that.</p>
<p>Asians are not ALWAYS overrepresented, so they're not always left out of AA. The same goes for white females AND white males.</p>
<p>Socio-economic class takes race into account, or didn't you know?</p>
<p>Below the poverty-level obviously. There are certain numbers they use(I don't know the quantity) but if a family has a certain number of kids they are expected to have an income of X. </p>
<p>They can use X or slightly higher than X but we should all agree that money should be basis of AA, not race.</p>
<p>I believe they should both be factors, as they are obviously both factor's in a child's life and access to education.</p>
<p>Aeggie, please give me an example of where a white male was helped by AA.</p>
<p>edit: and I thought that socioeconomic AA would include both race and monetary factors, but AcceptedAlready doesn't seem to think that way.</p>
<p>I do. I have stated that by using socioeconomic AA we rectify racial obstacles as well as have a logical system. </p>
<p>Asians are JUST as racially discrminated against as African Americans and any system that does not address poor asians who hardly speak English and resort to learning English + a biased SAT test + bad schooling is simply not fair.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic AA would help everyone as we would see less racism among our college students (remember the AA threads where people troll or attack URMs who get in because of AA?). These threads only FUEL racism instead of diminish it (just like in the real world).</p>
<p>Poverty studies show that a poor black kid has more than twice the chance of a poor white kid of being poor as an adult. At the same time, a noonpoor black kid has more than twice the chance to be a poor adult as a nonpoor white kid.</p>
<p>I'm not saying anything pro or against either race-based or socioeconomic affirmitive action, I just think that this information should be considered.</p>
<p>I agree with with alot of people are saying that AA should be based on economics instead. </p>
<p>BUT, I think AA serves more than just simply providing oppurtunities to the "underprivelaged." I think alot of it has to do with the school trying to promote diversity and build a diverse student population.
I'm not trying to make a racist comment here, but the fact is, if AA were based on economics instead of race, there would be even less URM at the top schools...a statistic that most people think is already low. And those of you that go to private schools, how diverse (partiuclarly with URM) is your student population. It may be diverse, but I garuntee there are not as many URM in most schools in proportion to the URM in the US. Therefore, I think AA has alot to do with promoting and maintaining diversity.
Now I'm not saying AA is fair nor that I support the way it is implemented now (cause I don't), but what I'm trying to say is that these URM are still for the part underrepresented in both top high schools and colleges, even with AA, if we we were to base AA of economics, these schools would have a greater percentage of whites and asians than they do now...just an idea..</p>
<p>"Poverty studies show that a poor black kid has more than twice the chance of a poor white kid of being poor as an adult. At the same time, a noonpoor black kid has more than twice the chance to be a poor adult as a nonpoor white kid."</p>
<p>How would socioeconomic AA stop helping poor black kids? It would be the EXACT SAME for such kids. Other kids would just be helped as well (such as poor asians).</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Poverty studies show that a poor black kid has more than twice the chance of a poor white kid of being poor as an adult. At the same time, a noonpoor black kid has more than twice the chance to be a poor adult as a nonpoor white kid.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Link to source?</p>
<p>Oh and AcceptedAlready, I graduated from Stuy last year and I can tell you that Stuy is a PUBLIC school where the majority of students are immigrants or children of immigrants and cannot afford private SAT tutoring. It is also majority Asian with high populations of Jewish and Russian students (sometimes both in one). Stuy's black and hispanic population is miniscule - URMs are underrepresented at top high schools as well, even top public high schools, and that is part of the problem.</p>
<p>Slak, I will try to find the source for you - I got it from a study Mary Corcoran from the University of Michigan compiled. I will try to find an online version of that study.</p>
<p>EDIT: Found it, look at Figure 4 on the first webpage, it looks like I was underestimating when I said twice as likely.</p>
<p>EDIT2: AcceptedAlready - again I was not trying to argue for or against AA, I was just bringing in another factor to consider.</p>
<p>AA is not all about letting a URM in, just to let them in, or because they have not had the opportunity, but it allows then to better themselves, and become well educated=a good job=more money=more opportunity for their children. Essentially, it breaks a bad cycle that exists.</p>
<p>Based on the OP's arguement, how about minorities just not do well in anything in life? Like if someone sees what looks to be a wealthy black man, they might think "He's probably a dumb athlete or something." Affirmative Action isn't an excuse for racism.</p>
<p>Grad:</p>
<p>You'd have to look closer at styles of dress, speech and the like when determining socio-economic class. Usually, in a chance meeting...most people are not savy enough/ or aware enough to do that at least on a conscious level.</p>
<p>From experience, a group of affluent URMs walking down a street are still looked at and sometimes remarks are made. When the majority are affluent non-URMs, treatment is different.</p>
<p>Let me see...minorities are treated bad historically, and socially, then the 1960's happens and now it's AA's fault for how the majority see them??? So before they were seen as inferior and now it's URM's fault that colleges use SAT's (that benefit non-URMs traditionally) and are blamed for under performance (look at the many posts), and they should be happy that the only time we want URMs to be equal is during the college admissions game??? </p>
<p>Look at funding, look at inner-cities, look at the burbs. It is an issue now because non-URMs want to be treated fairly in the college search process. Wow. Don't see many non-URMs protesting until it affects them directly.</p>
<p>Remember the large sky scrapers outside of Chicago? They redrew city lines for that. Crazy. And that is not supposed to have any effect?! </p>
<p>BTW, I am part asian as well...but I do not expect AA to help. Southeast Asians do get a bump, however.</p>
<p>Wow.
IB</p>
<p>PS--Notice how the focus is on URMs...and not athletes, legacies, developmental candidates?! Geography also affects admissions (e.g. in-state/out-of-state, low state representation, etc...) How about getting rid of those practices?</p>