<p>lol this basically says all i wanna say</p>
<p>Well, a lot has happened since this was written in 1996, so if this is what you want to say, people won't take it very seriously.</p>
<p>A far more interesting series of questions might revolve around the fact that Sandra Day O'Connor, writing in the 2003 Supreme Court Decision upholding affirmative action in the Michigan case, indicated that the Supreme Court expects that in 25 years, affirmative action will no longer be necessary. Which means that the Supremes do not see AA as a policy that can be pursued indefinitely.</p>
<p>Or the ban on the consideration of race in state education, contracting, and other areas that was passed by a large margin in the recent elections in Michigan, despite the pro-AA forces pouring a huge amount of money into defeating the proposition. And is U of M accepting the will of the people? Nope; they're lawyering up. Yes, the elites and opinion makers hate it when democracy actually gets a chance to work and it turns out that the people disagree with the course that they have set for the betterment of society.</p>
<p>^^^ bullcrap. No offense to you personally, hbarns. The majority of people in the US think aa is way overdone already.</p>
<p>Let me get this straight -- you think it's bullcrap to suggest that there are better and more current ways to critique AA than a decade-old article from the Stanford alumni website?</p>
<p>hbarns, you come off as a very ignorant or emotional person(maybe u are a URM?). a lot of things still apply and are valid to this day. don't be so wrapped around the date before the article, but more around the content of the article itself</p>
<p>
[quote]
"Or the ban on the consideration of race in state education, contracting, and other areas that was passed by a large margin in the recent elections in Michigan, despite the pro-AA forces pouring a huge amount of money into defeating the proposition."
[/quote]
</p>
<p>that example that YOU gave goes hand in hand with what Ernie is saying: the american people in general are seeing the loopholes and problems with Affirmative Action more and more as time goes on.</p>
<p>
[quote]
"And is U of M accepting the will of the people? Nope; they're lawyering up. Yes, the elites and opinion makers hate it when democracy actually gets a chance to work and it turns out that the people disagree with the course that they have set for the betterment of society."
[/quote]
Because you are clearly too ignorant to see what this means, i will tell you. It doesn't matter if the university is "accepting the will of these people." University of Michigan is keeping these measures, but not necessarily because they believe that affirmative action is completely equal or justified. they are doing this to meet ethnic quotas, and therefore to make their campus racially diverse. there is nothing wrong with this, but this isn't what we are talking about here. we are talking about how stupid it is for colleges to just consider someone's skin color, and not even ask for their socioeconomic status. The scenairo of the "under-qualified son of a black doctor displacing the qualified daughter of a Vietnamese boat refugee..." still makes us question a lot of things.</p>
<p>and besides, the fact that the case of Affirmative Action reached the Supreme Court justifies Ernie's argument. Michigan is the 3RD STATE to OUTLAW third state to outlaw giving preferential treatment to groups or individuals based on their race, color, or ethnic background.</p>
<p>hbarns, your depiction of the U of M's case made it seem as if nothing was done about it's admissions policy.
[quote]
"The supreme court struck down the undergraduate admission formula as too unyielding because it awarded points based on race."
[/quote]
basically, the trial made skin color carry less weight in admissions. that's a step towards the direction of eventually getting rid of AA.</p>
<p>hbarns, i would like you to cite something in the article above that doesn't apply today, besides some trivial statistics that obviously changes slightly as time goes by.</p>
<p>I wish there were an easy way to simply not make race part of the application. You can remove the section that asks for race and say its not a factor, but then you enter quite a paradox when you begin to ask them for a personal essay. It's likely that someone who has met challenges because of their race will want to voice that in their essay. Not every person classified as a minority would want to mention their race in an essay, but some will. Some will write it as an angle; some will write it because it was truly a challenge. </p>
<p>Although difficult, it would be most effective to determine how each candidate has dealt with their situation (which Princeton claims to do anyway). Checking the Caucasian/White box will not tell the admission staff if an applicant has grown up in a predominantly black community and attended a school in which the applicant is actually discriminated against, a minority in their area. Just as different applicant checking the African American/Black box reveals nothing particular about his or her background. I think it's up to people to incorporate their personal history and challenges into their essays and that is what should be considered- not solely their race.</p>
<p>i agree Dramageek, and i also believe that the applicants' financial circumstances or conditions will be better reflected through their SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, not the color of their skin. this seems fairly obvious and axiomatic. i think the real biggest factor that's preventing institutions from removing the race section of their apps is the desire to maintain the diversity on their campus.(which may actually have some benefits)</p>
<p>Affirmative Action is ridiculously flawed that it does not function the way it was originally created for.
Considering/Discriminating[because of] race makes you a racist, AA considers race, therefore AA is racist.</p>
<p>I agree!!! the only thing that aa does is highlight racial tensions. if our goal is to be unconscious of race, then aa is only making us more race-conscious. and as long as it goes on, it will probably cause some white people to feel angry/bitter towards african americans or whoever (for not getting into college, etc) even if it's not justified. i think that if colleges want diversity, they should look at our essays, personalities, interests, and beliefs more carefully so that the student body can be truly diverse, not just in skin color. And of course socioeconomic status is important.</p>
<p>yes, and it puzzles me how they don't even ASK for SOCIOECONOMIC STATUS, which is a much better indicator of the "struggles" and restrictions the students must face</p>
<p>^^ YES, pk!!! That is the crazy thing!</p>
<p>Michigan voters did not affirmative action in 2004:</p>
<p>I guess that pretty much takes care of hbarns' "will of the people" argument...</p>
<p>how did 'affirmative action' get its name so? <em>ignorant intl</em></p>
<p>Ernie, </p>
<p>You are absolutely correct that Michigan voters did not vote to end racial preferences in 2004. They did so just 3 weeks ago, as you can verify by perusing this link:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.michigancivilrights.org/%5B/url%5D">http://www.michigancivilrights.org/</a></p>
<p>Moreover, the success of the MCRI has groups in a number of other states preparing to get referenda on racial preferences on the ballot soon.</p>
<p>It's details like this, and the speed with which the debate surrounding AA evolves, that make citing ten year old opinion pieces only moderately effective, which was really my original point.</p>
<p>I didn't cite the ten-year-old piece. I didn't even read it. But the fact is that in 2004, most Michigan residents didn't support aa.</p>
<p>I guess the reason they don't look at the economic standpoint, is because many universities claim that they are "need-blind" and therefore cannot be biased towards the applicant's financial standing</p>
<p>Well, they should change their policy to being race-blind. Because that certainly isn't what it is now...</p>
<p>lol Ernie</p>
<p>unless your name is like CHEN or something! dat would suck! (not my last name)</p>
<p>or like KUMAR hahaha :)</p>
<p>lol my name is Mustapha al-Osama dar-Iraahwi. But you don't know what my ethnnicity is ;)</p>
<p>lol :D...my last name so blatantly Jewish, it's obnoxious...sigh...</p>