<p>^ lf - I have kids. They’re book educated. But they struggle with “stuff that just shouldn’t be.” I spend a lot of time teaching them both critical thinking (to assess what’s really going on), and techniques for successfully negotiating the many man-made obstacles in their lives. I try to keep it light … keep it fun. But behind the scenes I try to “bound” problematic areas … and that often leaves me arguing extremes. When my Bible Belt in-laws suggest that America should return to “the good old days” I may respond “Oh, back before automobiles, antibotics and Women’s Suffrage?”</p>
<p>I suppose one reason I’m especially harsh on the issue of AA is that it’s a non-issue … it no longer exists in its created form. To hear AA being blamed for nice (but awfully average) white girls not getting into UT, well that deserves a verbal smack-down IMO. YMMV, and I respect whatever opinions you hold.</p>
<p>OHMom - Please don’t get him started again. In his mind you can’t have competitive sports teams unless you have lots of URMs enrolled (and by inference, you can’t have competitive academics unless you shoo all those URMs away).</p>
<p>^^^ I can answer Slate’s question…it’s NO, and they should stop hyperventilating…</p>
<p>“But a cash-strapped public university with a large entering class must rely on a relatively simple formula for much of its screening.” </p>
<p>Most public universities already have a holistic admission approach that’s “race neutral”…that leads to greater diversity than the much more selective “wealthy” privates. It’s not complicated. The schools have a pretty good grasp on how to use holistic admissions (which have been around for a very long time). </p>
<p>Just silly…as though URMs will now flee public (low cost) public universities for wealth (expensive) private colleges, since public’s can’t afford out reach programs (and why can’t they?), while privates can?</p>
<p>CSU Fresno is a non-elite university that does not consider race in admissions. Admissions is done by calculating an eligibility index of HS GPA and test scores; applicants are rank ordered and admitted until the desired number for each major (or the total for the campus) is admitted (local area applicants falling below the threshold may be admitted as well; out-of-state applicants must meet an out-of-state threshold if it is higher than for the major or the campus in general).</p>
<p>CSU Fresno’s undergraduate demographics include 38.6% Latino, 15.6% Asian, and 4.9% black, not too far off from the state of California’s 37.6% Latino, 14.9% Asian, and 7.2% black.</p>
<p>I took the point a different way. (You’re probably not surprised.) </p>
<p>Some commentators hope that by forcing selective schools to focus on class diversity, a crackdown on affirmative action is a blow struck against elitism…[but a] rich university with a small entering class can afford to review each plausible application individually and apply the highly nuanced type of evaluation that might yield racial diversity without explicitly considering race.</p>
<p>And the highly nuanced evals are just what privates are doing. They will continue to work toward the diversity they want.</p>
<p>Isn’t the pool at Fresno pretty self-selecting? Not a flagship, but one of the alternates of the sort Texas also has. Is it affected by the catchment (whatever it is called,) so Slate’s comment about defacto holds?</p>
<p>The further a school gets from the elite schools in terms of selectivity and prestige, the more it becomes biased toward serving a local or regional set of students. This means that its racial and ethnic diversity or lack thereof tends to be influenced by that of the local or regional area. This means that the answer to Slate’s question will be “no” for most non-elite schools in areas with racial and ethnic diversity.</p>
<p>However, non-elite colleges and universities in not-very-racially/ethnically-diverse areas are already not very racially/ethnically diverse now, so the Fisher decision is unlikely to have the effect that Slate claims, at least with respect to those schools.</p>
Apparently some people do. Therefore they need some “extra” help to level the playing field. If you don’t believe it, then the “extra” help is insulting.</p>
No, what’s insulting is your mischaracterization of what people who support affirmative action for URMs think. You might want to read back over the thread to make sure you grasp it before you make statements like that one.</p>
<p>^Hunt, do you believe there is intelligence differences between races or not? That’s a simple question. I assume the answer is NO. So why poor white and asian students have to have higher academic credentials to get into the same colleges that blacks and hispanics get in? And no spin, please. And what kind of messages are we sending to our kids by doing so? Only rational debate with logic and reasoning please.</p>