<p>gomestar: i recall from my previous discussions on AA when someone brought up diversity as a reason to support it. as i did at the time, i still do not understand the need for diversity. that past sentence alone will probably make most hearts skip a beat simply because we have been pounded with this concept throughout our lifetimes without even stopping for a second to think about it. automatically we equate diversity with “good” for some reason (this is very orwellian if you ask me). please don’t misunderstand me - diversity in the nation is a wonderful aspect that makes the united states so great, but when it comes to a competitive arena where people are applying for selective spots, i don’t find diversity such a great necessity that certain people should be given an advantage. i think the general philosophy is that people will see how “normal”/friendly people from an array of different races are, share backgrounds and life stories, and then come to dispell those old prejudices. personally, i don’t find this happening at cornell or across the nation. at cornell, from what i observe, asians stick with asians, whites stick with whites, and etc. - it is very clicky here. i have also noticed that bigots stay bigots. maybe it’s working or maybe it isn’t. i simply don’t see any evidence. or maybe, people get happy when they see many different colors?</p>
<p>however, all of that “need for diversity” talk is avoiding the issue of AA’s deeper ethics. to make things clear, i have no problem with AA when it comes to taking socioeconomic concerns or circumstantial issues into account. but i find it unethical to base an admission, even if marginally, on skin color. there are many asians who grew up with economic difficulties and there are other races with histories of slavery, and conversely, there are many URMs who are from privilaged families.</p>
<p>actually, i recall reading an article published by princeton that made statistical calculations on who would most benefit from the elimination of AA. i think AA proponents seem to continuously forget that in a closed system with competition, one person’s gain is another’s loss - there’s no buts or ifs. it’s always. here is a quote from the article:</p>
<p>“Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 percentage points. Espenshade noted that WHEN ONE GROUP LOSES GROUND, ANOTHER HAS TO GAIN – in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent. Typically, many more Asian students apply to elite schools than other underrepresented minorities. The study also found that although athletes and legacy applicants are predominantly white, their numbers are so small that their admissions do little to displace minority applicants.”
[Princeton</a> University - Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment](<a href=“Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment”>Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment)</p>
<p>and please don’t argue that asians have a personality disorder. either way, AA is ineffective - a minority takes another minority’s spot.</p>