Affirmative Action

Applying to College
1

Affirmative Action is a hot topic. Looking on these boards, I see that a lot of people have opinions, some of which are fair and others… well, they are quite extreme.

Some classic arguments against include:

<li>It’s racist against Asians and Whites!</li>
<li>Minorities are taking our spots</li>
<li>Black people don’t need it… look at ______</li>
<li>Why should a minority student with a (low GPA) and a (low SAT) make it in over my (high GPA) and (high SAT)</li>
<li>Why should a rich black kid get preference over me?</li>

Some classic arguments for include:

<li>Affirmative Action is necessary to right the wrongs of society</li>
<li>Affirmative Action guarantees that qualified minority students are given preference. Emphasis on qualified.</li>
<li>Affirmative Action gives minorities the chance to succeed.</li>

I would have to agree with Affirmative Action. Colleges employ Affirmative Action in an attempt to diversify their campus. A diverse campus arguably leads to a better education for students, and reflects much better on the university.

I feel sorry for those who will eventually be rejected from the top five schools. I really do feel for you. I know how it feels to work towards a finite goal, but then ultimately be denied the fruit of your labor. 1600’s and 4.0’s are impressive, but then again are hard to come by. I would appreciate it if your first instinct wouldn’t be to blame an African, Mexican, or Native American for taking what “belonged” to you.

Affirmative Action promotes diversity. If you are against Affirmative Action, you are in a way against diversity. If you cannot accept diversity on said campus (be it Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Cal-Tech, Columbia, Duke, Amherst, Swarthmore, etc.), I honestly don’t believe you belong at such an institution.

Minorities are not stealing spots. Minorities are not being let into college unfairly. Do realize that the classic example of Jose DeLaCruz, Tayo Nascha, or James Watson being accepted over Jessica Chang (who has 400+ more points on her SATI, at least 250+ more on all three SATII’s, and 1.5 times the GPA) is almost always false.

Many opinions about AA are quite prejudice and only reinforce the need for it.

2

<p>Why is it even necessary to start this topic AGAIN? I don't care which side you for so just let it go.</p>

3

<p>AJNTSA</p>

<p>...</p>

4

<p>If whites and asians really hate AA that much, they should organize a gigantic march on Washington instead of sitting around hating the hardworking 3.5 GPA minority student working two jobs, living in an apartment, and getting over his recently deceased dad who never supported him or her in any way, shape, or form.</p>

5

<p>haha
yes, that exactly describes all my black and hispanic friends. hey aa might not be fair, but what are you gonna do- they're just playing the hand that was dealt to them.</p>

6

<p>I just have one fact in support of AA for African Americans:</p>

<p>White slave owners stopped slaves from learning to read or having any educational training while their rich offspring were free to develop their minds. While the slaves' education came to a halt, the whites' knowledge was able to grow from generation to generation of FREEDOM.</p>

<p>That is all.</p>

7

<p>that is really good point and i have never thought of it in that way</p>

8

<p>That comment is a good point. But most African Americans who apply to colleges now are not even descendents of slaves. Thats another reason why people get a little angry especially when that comment is brought up.</p>

9

<p>Well you might also want to consider the fact that it's only been three generations since African-Americans have been allowed to enroll at a competent high schools, meaning generation one first had to find out about education. Generation two entered education itself. And now generation three is finally getting into college in larger numbers with the help of the government. Unfair? I think not. </p>

<p>In the end, everyone has benefited from affirmative action in one way or another. As for example, when the Ivy League decided in the the 50's and 60's that it needed more white males from the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum. Those "economic minorities" got a boost then, so why shouldn't today's "racial minorities" get one too?</p>

10

<p>The debate over AA is superfluous. It is necessary. Whites should look in the history books while asians should take a look at the American social outlook. Whites and asians do not suffer racism as commonly as URM's.</p>

<p>Examples:</p>

<p>1) Look at that Asian in that truck, he must be a construction worker. </p>

<p>2)</p>

<p>Worker 1: Hey let's follow that white guy around the store, he looks like he is from a rich area and looks just like us. </p>

<p>Worker 2: Good idea.</p>

11

<p>*That comment is a good point. But most African Americans who apply to colleges now are not even descendents of slaves. * That is the narrow-minded approach of a blind individual. The effects are compounded and whereas one nonURM who is of the 5th generation in the U.S. is able to not only collect the monetary wealth passed on generation to generation which is compounded and builds up, he is also able to build upon the compounded wealth (not necessarily monetary- could be education because education generally equates to success, but usually is money because they have money to pass on to their children who are at a distinct advantage over a poor minority who has been barred from the system and has nothing to pass on to their child). You cannot say as a nonURM that you are on an equal playing field with a say poor black who must help sustain his family with jobs while having to deal with school with another individual who works for petty superficial items on their spare time and has all the time in the world to not only study for school and the SATs, but also has the knowledge of what it takes to get into college. Comparing them to the supposed "model minority" asians is just a bunch of BS, most of the asians compared are those who accumulated wealth in asia before they actually came to america and were not poor when they arrived (nor were they barred from society while being forced to come and work here for free- but if you look at the asians that caucasians love to overlook for their ideal purposes- those who came as refugees in the latter period, you can see patterns that are hardly "ideal"). Comparing your "success" here with say your own parents who came with nothing and made it is a completely different situation than someone who must struggle day to day from a society that discriminates against them, whether its explicitly or implicitly. You are not looked at the same way as a black person wheter you accept it or not and no, this is not something that can go away if you choose to make it go away. Do you think blacks live in the ghettos because they choose to? Look at the history- in CA look at prop 13 and what the FHA did in the 1970s, both of which are blantant racial acts. No these ghettos dont spring up overnight. No the deterioration of a section of society does not happen because a group believes that is the ideal life. On a side note, yeah the Jews and Italians assimilated but look at the time frame, their physical features, and the time they immigrated in bulk and stopped immigrating in bulk. Affirmative action is a way of leveling the playing field. I haven't begun to scratch the surface, nor have I gone into any depth whatsoever about the topics I brought up. I personally believe the principles of AA must be based economically as well as racially. Obviously those who are adamantly opposed to AA will not change their minds and never will, nor will they open their eyes or accept that racism is still present in society. I felt that I needed to get my opinions off my chest and I'm done with this thread because no one will change their minds and will refuse to accept the fact that society still has this discriminatory problem.</p>

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<p>Affirmative action is a way of leveling the playing field.</p>

<p>wrong - leveling the playing field would be fixing our lower education system...
higher education is not the place to "level the field" - universities should not be made to (for lack of a better term) "dumb down" their standards for students based on their skin color. </p>

<p>Affirmative action is racism - you can't argue against that - it is. Racism is, strictly speaking, treating one person differently than another because of their race. Affirmative action does this. Is it fair? No. Necessary (as jelch implies)? Of course not.</p>

<p>Now I have no problem with giving special consideration to qualified students who have socioeconomic disadvantages (regardless of race), but I do have a massive problem with giving all people of a particular race special consideration (regardless of other considerations). It's just bs. Not all minorities are poor, working 3 minimum wage jobs, etc. etc.
I also grant that many minorities do fall on the lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum - and because of the idiotic way our schools receive funding, the schools in poor areas are much worse off than those in affluent areas. The solution, IMO, is to solve this problem. Level the playing field at the grade school and high school levels. That's where the real discrepancy is - not college.</p>

13

<p>And how do you propose we fix grade school? </p>

<p>By having white politicians lie to the public during the campaign and then forget all about the what they promised once they get into office? </p>

<p>I think not.</p>

<p>That's why you need UMR's in higher education, so they can change "lower" education, because we all know that if they don't do it, hardly anynobody will.</p>

14

<p>Icarus is exactly right.
It is racism in the classic sense. That cannot be refuted.
We do need to solve education at the lower level rather than trying to make up for lost time at the higher education level.<br>
If we are going to do it, at least make is Socio-economic and not racist. I am all for helping out the poor and disadvantaged, but many many URM's are much better off than I am, but still reap these benefits.</p>

15

<p>The playing field isn't level, but it isn't the governments job to fix what's still broken. Sure, there are differences between richer and poorer schools, but there are still 1600 scorers coming out of the poorest nieghborhoods.</p>

<p>The biggest imbalance today is cultural. Black culture doesn't promote scholarship. If I had 2 minutes I'd dig up the report of a survey of inner-city schools which stated young Blacks thought academic high achievement was foremost among the ways black people attempt to "act white," something that is, of course, to be avoided at all costs in that culture. All "the reverends" and others that make themselves famous by inciting racial hatred in the world can't dispute this type of empirical evidence. Blacks, as a whole, don't want to and aren't driven to learn as much as their non-URM counterparts (compared to say Jewish or Asian people).</p>

<p>Bill Cosby has it right. At some point minorities have to point the finger in the mirror instead of at everthing else. Slavery ended nearly 150 years ago. Nobody applying to college today suffered Jim Crow laws (and if they are they would almost certainly be accepted anywhere). People are discriminated against in minor ways today, but culture is the main obstacle to black achievement.</p>

<p>Also, AA perpetuates a viscious cycle. People see the URM coming out of prestigous schools as "second class" when compared to their non-URM peers. Who, then, could blame an employer for preferring a non-URM who by definition had to be that much better in high school to go to the same college, that much better in college to go to the same grad school, and that much better in grad school to get the same work experience? Therefore, the whole notion of racism is once again reinforced.</p>

<p>Then there's the whole premise of diversity helping education...</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
By having white politicians lie to the public during the campaign and then forget all about the what they promised once they get into office?

[/quote]
</p>

<p>It isn't their job to make education equal. It's to give them the chance to have equal education. You can lead a horse to water...</p>

17

<p>Why should white kids who are infinently better prepared have their hopes and dreams shattered because of a societal wrong that is not their fault, and much of it in the past!</p>

<p>Many of the arguments for AA say, "They've overcome more..." "Whites supressed them and should now support them..."</p>

<p>What they fail to note is that it isnt the fault of the kid who studied like hell and gets in the shorts.</p>

<p>The solution is not to give our college admissions to people who dont have the credentials of white students. The solution is to change our education system. We should funnel all the fervor over Affirmative Action into revitalizing our school system long before college. We should prepare our minority students, and give them an equal chance- not through giving them acceptances over better quallified students, but rather by making them the better qualified students themselves.</p>

<p>And dont talk to me about funding. We can funnel fantastic amounts of money into wars- why cant we fund our school systems?</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
The solution is not to give our college admissions to people who dont have the credentials of white students. The solution is to change our education system. We should funnel all the fervor over Affirmative Action into revitalizing our school system long before college. We should prepare our minority students, and give them an equal chance- not through giving them acceptances over better quallified students, but rather by making them the better qualified students themselves.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Considering schools are supposed to be States' concerns, we funnel TONS of fed money into them. It goes back to the you can lead a horse to water thing.</p>

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<p>"It goes back to the you can lead a horse to water thing."</p>

<p>Just because you cant make it drink doesnt mean you can let it die of thirst. Minorities need educational opportunities, whether or not your believe its their own damn fault.</p>

<p>Oh, and of course its the politician's job to make education equal. We believe that the children of the poor should be fully educated. Should we say, "Well, screw that kid. His mother is a crack-head and his dad is in jail, so he has no support- I guess we wont supply any either." Education is vital to all people, whether they like it or not. My problem is not that we give minorities a leg up educationally, its how we do it.</p>

20

<p>
[quote]
Well, screw that kid. His mother is a crack-head and his dad is in jail, so he has no support

[/quote]
</p>

<p>of course not...
now explain why the Black kid in that situation deserves a boost, but a white doesn't please.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Minorities need educational opportunities, whether or not your believe its their own damn fault [...] Education is vital to all people, whether they like it or not.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Why is it more vital to URMs?</p>

<p>Contrary to popular beleif on this board, most black people aren't crack-head jailbirds, and most whites aren't east coast boarding school'ers. It's very erroneous to reason off of this premise.</p>