Affirmative Action

<p>Fastlane,</p>

<p>Well said. We are prime examples of your story as my D is a freshman at an Ivy (she is a second generation raised in a single parent household and we are not weatlhy by any stretch of the imagination) It seems that her taking the SAT scores which are above the average for the school that she is attending, the 4.0 gpa, the AP courses the college courses at NYU, Barnard and Columbia did not seem to matter, because some of the board can't get past the color of her skin, and will always feel that she has taken someone's spot despite the fact that she is proving herself there on campus. </p>

<p>While AA may open the door for URMs, it is up to them to keep your seat at the table, because if you are not taking care of business your happy butt will be sent home quick fast and in a hurry.</p>

<p>As I stated before, if people can get past the Ivy obsession and applying to all 8 schools (daughter only applied to one) there are many schools where asians are minorities, will be wecolmed with open arms and given tons of merit aid to boot.</p>

<p>On a side note
Just wanted to update my previous posting</p>

<p>Columbia</p>

<p>Total black freshmen in all undergraduate schools 498
Columbia College 365
SEAS 42
School of General Studies 79
Nursing 12</p>

<p><a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abstract/enrollment_ethnicity_2004.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.columbia.edu/cu/opir/abstract/enrollment_ethnicity_2004.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Stanford Common Data</p>

<p>African Americans enrolled in freshman class 139</p>

<p><a href="http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/home/statistics/#admission&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>MIT Common Data</p>

<p>African Americans enrolled in freshman class 64</p>

<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2003/cds2003.html#c%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/ir/cds/2003/cds2003.html#c&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>ronlivs, when you get to college, they are not oing to look highly at you merely talking out of your hat. You can have your opinions, but if you ae going to make an argument, you are going to need to manage the facts.</p>

<p>Great post, Fast Lane. As I stated earlier, if you impose "financial cut-offs" for this so-called socioeconomic affirmative action, basically your entire black freshman class (at least 70%) does not qualify and is more likely to be denied admittance. These colleges realize that society will still discriminate against us even if we share similar or superior credentials. Only 15% of Africans-Americans hold a bachelor's degree compare to 34% whites and 40% Asians! Blacks are ALSO underrepresented in college (it will be a miracle if colleges can be at least 7% black in a population where we are 12% nationally.) Only a tiny fraction of blacks hold a college degree!</p>

<p>Ronlivs, Asian-Americans are OVERREPRESENTED group in college admissions and campuses. As much as I hear from Asians b*tching about affirmative action, socioeconomic does not help the groups in greatest needs: blacks, hispanics and native americans. There have also been studies where socioeconomic AA only benefits whites and Asians (look at California and Texas and observe their college ethnic breakdown). URM students like me who need financial assistance, yet don't make the financial cut-off, avoid schools like that for colleges that are based upon need-based aid and race-based affirmative action. These schools are STRIVING to include as many URMs as possible since they believe in diversity, including more URM students.</p>

<p>Right now, the last piece of Jim Crow all blacks are still dealing with today is insurance and bank/mortagage loan fraud. There is no reason black families regardless of their income must pay higher rates because they happen to live in a black neighborhood. A black family with no road history might be paying $4000 in car insurance, where a white family that has DUI or speeding points on their road history might be paying less. How is that even fair? I swear these companies are trying to bankrupt blacks. </p>

<p>"Racial minorities and neighborhoods containing large numbers of minority residents are discriminated against in the provision of property insurance. This is a systematic reality, not an anecdotal occurrence. In studies by fair housing councils, insurance commissioners, academics, and others throughout the United States, residents of minority communities have been discouraged while residents of predominantly white neighborhoods have been encouraged to do business with insurance agents. Whether or not this discrimination is intentional, traditional industry practices adversely affect racial minorities and undermine the redevelopment of urban communities.
ACORN recently found homeowners insurance offered by major insurers in fourteen cities to be far more readily available to upper-income and white suburban communities than to lower-income, integrated, or predominantly non-white central-city neighborhoods. These gaps could not be attributed merely to insurance companies experiencing greater loss in predominately non-white, poor areas. In St. Louis, one of the cities included in the ACORN study, the Missouri Insurance Commissioner found that residents of lower-income black areas paid $6.15 per thousand dollars of coverage, compared to just $4.70 in lower-income white communities, even though the loss ratio was higher in the white neighborhoods. "
<a href="http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/79/isurred.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.nhi.org/online/issues/79/isurred.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>"Casasanta claims that Nationwide's Commercial Underwriters told him that they did not want any "Detroit business." The underwriters then instructed him to prepare a list of commercial insurance accounts that had what they called "Detroit exposure." </p>

<p>Over the past several years, Nationwide, a company with 43,000 agents and more than ten million policies, has been under scrutiny in Kentucky and around the nation after charges of redlining were issued by fair housing groups. In 1996, the Lexington Fair Housing Council in Kentucky sued Nationwide, alleging that the company had refused or avoided selling homeowner's policies to Black testers. The Lexington Fair Housing Council says that its tests show that Nationwide offered to sell policies in mainly white neighborhoods, but not in integrated or predominately Black neighborhoods in Fayette County. </p>

<p>In 1995, the National Fair Housing Alliance (NFHA) audited the practices of Nationwide and Allstate Insurance Companies in several cities across the country. NFHA claimed that Blacks who tried to get homeowners insurance were discriminated against more than half of the time. Nationwide denied the claims. NFHA has since asked the Justice Department to investigate the company. </p>

<p>The Toledo Fair Housing Center in Toledo, Ohio filed suit against Nationwide in 1993 claiming that Nationwide quoted unjustifiably high rates in Black neighborhoods, made coverage unavailable to Black households, charged higher rates in African-American neighborhoods, refused to insure properties worth less than $40,000 to $50,000 in Black neighborhoods while not applying the same rule in white neighborhoods, and cancelled or refused to renew policies already in place in African-American neighborhoods. (Keep in mind, Detroit is 82% black).
<a href="http://www.fairhousing.com/index.cfm?method=page.display&pagename=advocate_february97_page1%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.fairhousing.com/index.cfm?method=page.display&pagename=advocate_february97_page1&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>In its study of the insurance industry's performance in urban areas, the National Association of Insurance Commissioners collected data on the cost and type of policies sold in 33 metropolitan areas in 20 states. The study is considered the most comprehensive ever done on the subject. After statistically ruling out other factors, the NAIC study found that only 57.6 percent of the houses in high-minority, low-income areas were insured at all, compared with 81.5 percent in white, high-income areas.
<a href="http://wjcohen.home.mindspring.com/usnclips/redline.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://wjcohen.home.mindspring.com/usnclips/redline.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>And you wonder why it is so hard for blacks to accumulate wealth in this nation...</p>

<p>Vicks, the answer to your question is "yes." Dr. Sowell is black, and he succeeded in his academic career.</p>

<p>Originally, the intention of affirmative action was to promote equality. But, that's not what it's being used for now. Now, it just makes it easier for people who happened to be born a certain race.</p>

<p>Dr. Sowell, however is not representative of all blacks nor does he speak for all of them because I know for a fact that I am quite capable of speaking for myself.
AAA is does not only take African americans intoconsederation (even though it seems that blacks are always the stick that is used to beat this topic to death with). It also includes, hispanics, asians, native americans, women and even in some situations white men.</p>

<p>Once again, AA promotes diversity which is largely non-existant at most colleges. If you don't appreciate or embrace diversity, don't apply to that school.</p>

<p>"onlivs, when you get to college, they are not oing to look highly at you merely talking out of your hat. You can have your opinions, but if you ae going to make an argument, you are going to need to manage the facts."
Sybbie, I dont understand which facts I did not get straight, and you seem to have misunderstood my argument. I did not say that blacks do not suffer from racism. I also did not say AA is only for blacks, that point is actually what I am trying to argue against. I am saying that people OTHER than URMs also suffer from prejudice in jobs, education, etc. That is a fact that you cannot deny. </p>

<p>Like Fastlane said, AA is unfair to asians, because they ARE prejudiced, and are actually unfavored by AA just because they are highly represented in colleges. But we must look at..why. Why ARE asians highly represented? Because they worked HARD and made education their priority, even in the face of extreme poverty and difficulty. They overcame pretty much the same difficulties as many URMs, and broke the obstacles. They have done what you and your parents did. I applaud and admire all of these people. "URM students like me who need financial assistance, yet don't make the financial cut-off..." Non URM students, an example being myself, face the same difficulties, tenisghs. The schools you mentioned, Texas and California, do have higher asian populations; why? because the qualified asian applicants who in many cases, suffered the same amount of prejudice and hardships as many URMs, were not neglected. You can't just base everything on the percentage of a race in colleges. Racism and prejudice are not the only reasons why URMs have low representation. As I have discussed before, low representation is because of the massive amount of underprivileged kids, and by underprivileged in this case, I mean both in terms of socioeconomic status as well as the lack of positive influences in childhood. I have already said that something needs to be done about that. Yes, prejudice and racism does play a role, but do not blame everything on it. Now, please do not twist my words and say that I am concluding that URMs do not work hard, because I am not. Many URMs do work hard and value education, and those are the ones who end up succeeding. </p>

<p>Granted, there is prejudice working against them, but that prejudice is shared by people other than the group AA is benefiting. Do you see my point? I am not saying that AA should be abolished. I am only pointing out the flaws of AA, and the flaws in some of the attitudes of the proponents of AA (as I had explained before in my previous posts). Sybbie, please do not counter my arguement with another example of how a highly qualified URM was viewed as unqualified. That is NOT what I am talking about because I applaud that person and symphathize with him/her. As I had said numerous times before, I will NOT blame AA if I don't get into a school. I am simply noting the flawed attitudes of some people who seem to ignore the hardships and prejudice suffered by people other than their own ethnic group. AA as it now is just another stereotype, because it stereotypes non URM applicants as people who did not suffer the same prejudice and did not undergo the same hardships as their URM counterparts. So for future reference, please do not post another msg with stats of school populations or examples of URM applicants because that is not what I am talking about. If private schools want to increase diversity, FINE. I have no problem with that. I hope now, that some will see what I'm talking about and not automatically place me with the slew of other anti-AA posters. Tenisghs, if you really do believe that URMs are the only groups who suffer prejudice and are the only ones who deserve preference, that is another argument and I can include evidence that can disprove that belief in a future post.</p>

<p>First of all, no one's going to change anyone's mind because we're all steadfast in our beliefs, but I feel compelled to respond when someone makes an ignorant statement or off base comment. First, I don't advocate AA for the purpose of diversity. It's not my job to give a white kid a cultural or ethnic experience. Secondly, I do concede that AA may need to be tweaked to take into account economic status. Also, I disagree with the way U of M gave double points for minorities. BUT, I must address posts. First, it's not that non- urm's don't face discrimination, it's that they don't face it at the rate of URMs and there is empirical evidence to substantiate that claim. Secondly, the issue of who works hard and who doesn't seems to often come up in these arguments. Well let me say this, most good academic institutions will not accept a URM with a C average GPA if their bottom 25% is a B average GPA for the simple fact that it lowers their US news ranking and stature. A URM with a poor GPA will not be accepted to Harvard plain and simple, and be real, only hardworking students apply to the Ivies and other schools of their caliber for the most part anyway. As I said earlier, AA mostly compensates for low standardized testing. To be frank, most colleges would willingly forgo the quest for diversity if it hurt their prestige. Also, outside of the top 25 schools in the country and Ivies Asians are not overrepresented at colleges and still receive the benefits of AA. And I digress to my paradigm of an Asian with a 4.0 and 1600 not getting into ANY decent school due to AA. It doesn't happen. Maybe not their first choice, but they will still attend a fine university. There is no statistic, case study, or research that suggests AA "hurts" any demographic.</p>

<p>Texas and California abolished affirmative action in their states. The Asian population on their campuses soared, while white, black, hispanic AND native american population declined. Black, hispanic and Native American enrollment took an even more drastic hit. Some will say that is 'true diversity' but what is so diverse about a school, like UC-Irvine, where it's 60% Asian? That's not even reflective of the American society in residence or the workplace, especially here on the East Coast. Harvard and other schools refuse to go to that level since they claim diversity as their mission. </p>

<p>Ronsliv, didn't you read my post on insurance redlining? There are outside forces that intentionally and illegally redline blacks regardless of their income which contributes to the social, economic and educational gap between blacks and whites. Jim Crow is still, unfortunately, out there. That is so wrong, but it happens. As long as these racist practices exist, affirmative action will still be necessary for URMs. Read that post, then talk to me.</p>

<p>ronlivs, there has and never will be, a perfect solution for this problem. If your only point is that there are flaws, well duh! Sure, there are poor non-minorities, but in most cases America did not go out of their way to screw those people as America did with blacks/hispanics/native americans/women. That's what AA is for, to help people America treated as second-class citizens. Admissions officers are not blind robots, they will appreciate a person who achieved in difficult circumstances no matter their race or gender.</p>

<p>-tennisghs</p>

<p>UC schools are more diverse than you think.
irvine: 14% urm
berkeley: 16% urm
davis: 15% urm
ucsd: 11% urm
ucsc: 18% urm
ucsb: 21% urm
ucla: 21% urm</p>

<p>princeton: 16% urm
harvard: 17% urm
yale: 15% urm</p>

<p>I got the statistics from review.com. They didn't list ucla's enrollment, so i had to find the numbers on their site.</p>

<p>AceRockolla, source?</p>

<p>somehow I highly doubt that Princeton, the last ivy to accept blacks, has 16% urm. Where are these statistics from and what is the definition of 'urm' that was used?</p>

<p>AceRockolla, so that's what you get when you combine those groups. Individually the percentages are smaller which further proves my point that such a scanty amount of URM are admitted and do not harm any other demogog.</p>

<p>i'm not trying to argue anything. im just saying uc's like irvine just get a lot of undeserved crap because people claim they're ethnically homogenous when they're really not.</p>

<p>Thank you red_dragone. That is why I have continuosly said I will not blame AA for not being accepted to a college and have never said it dramatically hurt any racial groups. Vicks546, what you have said in your post, about tweaking AA and how non-motivated URMs aren't accepted, I think I have also said in my previous posts many times. I am mainly opposed to the attitudes that I have described before. Yes, this topic is very belabored and I don't think people will change their positions. But like you, vicks546, I felt the need to express my opinions when I feel that some posters made ignorant or off based comments. I think I will take a break from this topic for now.</p>

<p>Rockafella,</p>

<p>Where is your source for this data? </p>

<p>princeton: 16% urm
harvard: 17% urm
yale: 15% urm</p>

<p>It certainly isn't the Common Data sets which are put out bt the schools themselves? Apparently when you saw he thread with the numbers that were previously posted you did not believe those numbers, and that is your right which is why the links were posted to back up the data.</p>

<p>Well I got all those numbers from the Princeton Review, but here are the links for some of that data. </p>

<p>Princeton
<a href="http://registrar1.princeton.edu/data/common/cds2004.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://registrar1.princeton.edu/data/common/cds2004.pdf&lt;/a>
741/4801= 15.4%</p>

<p>Yale
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds_2003-04.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/oir/cds_2003-04.pdf&lt;/a>
758/5354= 14.2%</p>

<p>Harvard
<a href="http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/studentbody.asp?listing=1022984&LTID=1&intbucketid=%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princetonreview.com/college/research/profiles/studentbody.asp?listing=1022984&LTID=1&intbucketid=&lt;/a>
URM enrollment: 17%</p>

<p>This proves that the reputation UC's have for being not ethnically diverse compared to other schools really has no grounds.</p>

<p>btw, why would i not apparently believe those numbers posted by you? i'm not arguing anything about affirmative action. i'm just making the point that tennisghs is wrong in saying that UC's have homogenous student bodies.</p>

<p>edit: i didn't even see your earlier post, and i posted those links on my own accord in response to tennisghs, not you.</p>

<p>Are you sure this isn't the percentage of minorites not URM'S. Which are two different thing. In URM the key word is "unrepresented."</p>

<p>correction - it's "under-represented", not "unrepresented"</p>

<p>Dys, you say that AA promotes diversity. Check out the UC system. Huge amount of Asians, Hispanics, and Blacks. And, these Hispanics and Blacks aren't crap students either. They're the best of the best.</p>

<p>Tenis, you make some ridiculous comments. The high UC Asian percentages are not "reflective" of America? Harvard doesn't go to that "level"? Asians are represented highly in the UC system because there are a lot of them in California and they are the best students there. That's why they get high representation WITHOUT AA. They're simply the best. They don't need some "diversity promoting" system to help them get where they want to go in life. They work for it, as do the Hispanics and Blacks who are in the UCs now. They all got where they are now through hard work and perseverence, not through some system that gives them extra favor in admissions.</p>

<p>The UC system is very diverse. Barring Asians, you'll find more Hispanics and Blacks there than at virtually any university that practices AA. In fact, why hasn't the UT system been mentioned more often? Check out their ethnic makeup. You'll find more Hispanics there than at virtually any university that practices AA.</p>

<p>My point is as follows: affirmative action now is used to promote ethnic diversity (viz. in education). But, within the UC and UT system, it is obvious that Asians and Hispanics are represented very nicely. These systems do not employ AA and have enjoyed diversity.</p>