<p>Yes, that too :D</p>
<p>If I resented URMs for “taking the places” of higher stats students, I’d certainly resent athletes and legacies and perhaps even musicians. They all get a bump that puts them over higher GPA or score students. Legacies are easiest to resent, I think.</p>
<p>Bclintock - thank you for saying what you said. Couldn’t have said it better myself. As the mother of a URM, I get irritated with the notion that my son was accepted as a ‘less qualified’ student than any of his peers. My son is a bright, intellectually curious talented young man and I would match him up against anyone who scored a 2400 on his/her SAT or was ranked number one in his/her class. Grades and test scores are only part of the picture. </p>
<p>On a personal note, I would never want to be around people who were the same as I am all the time. How do you grow as an individual unless you are exposed to a diverse group of people? This is the same thing that universities are trying to do when they build their classes.</p>
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<p>But the reason is simple. All you have to do is compare “race” with all of the other categories and you should immediately see the difference. Most people do not believe that a person’s race should play any part, affirmatively or negatively, in a decision to admit, hire, or rent to that person. But a significant majority believe that it is okay for a college to consider the SES of an applicant and what economic circumstances they have had to overcome. The net result will probably still be somewhat the same because a significant number of URMs come from low SES backgrounds.</p>
<p>And BTW, I see plenty of complaints on CC of the “advantages” given to legacies, athletes, siblings, children of professors, etc. Legacies are always taking a beating. I think “honest” first-gen favoritism is probably the only one that I rarely hear anything negative about. Geographic diversity is usually viewed from the standpoint that “I can’t get into XYZ college because NYC is over-represented”, not “They shouldn’t take students from ND”.</p>
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<p>However, not everyone who agrees with considering of race or ethnicity in college admissions agrees that it should have that goal (which can be difficult for them to talk about in concrete terms because then it sounds too much like quotas), as opposed to other goals.</p>
<p>For example, some may see such consideration, on a holistic basis (as opposed to a blanket check-box preference), as a means of finding merit. For example, someone who achieved a certain level of achievement despite some adverse conditions like racial discrimination may be seen as being more meritous than someone who reached the same level of achievement from a background without any adverse conditions. Others may see it as a means of compensating for presently existing racial discrimination.</p>
<p>Note that the argument in favor of diversity is one that makes Asian students suspicious about colleges possibly having a motivation to limit the number of Asian students attending in order to keep white enrollment up, since too high a percentage of Asian students may make it harder for the colleges to solicit donations (since wealthy donors tend to be whiter than current students) and attract white students (as seen here, some white students seem to be hesitant about attending schools where white students are a minority group).</p>
<p>Fisher is basically Grutter on steroids, with much tougher scrutiny given to a university’s attempt to first employ race neutral alternatives to achieve diversity before using race and then once using race to make sure it is narrowly tailored. </p>
<p>So essentially, a university has to prove to a court (a key part of Fisher – the university gets deference in deciding diversity is an important goal, but then the court gives the university no deference in examining the specific AA program) four things to keep an AA program subject to an EPC challenge: </p>
<p>(1) a specific diversity goal linked to some defined educational objective (general platitudes will not be enough and probably not school-wide goals either; suspect courts will look to see diversity’s impact in the classroom which is the purported good fostered by diversity but also by far the hardest diversity to achieve); </p>
<p>(2) program used for diversity and not for any other purpose (ie no social engineering, quotas, attempts to get a specific type of minority (like in Texas where program geared towards minorities from wealthier districts that just missed the top 10% and would be, at least initially, stronger students than the top students from weak school districts); </p>
<p>(3) considered race neutral alternatives but they could not achieve the specific diversity goal (ie documentation and evidence to back up need for program and likely some consideration of alternatives like percentage or socio-economic plan and why those would not work re diversity); and </p>
<p>(4) program narrowly tailored to achieve the goal but no more (ie this will be extremely tough to meet and the more diversity the less likely the plan is narrowly tailored; what is the sweet spot will likely be subject to lots of second guessing by courts).</p>
<p>Quite frankly, I do not think any university will be able to meet this test and that unless the composition of the SCT changes in favor of liberals, the universities will lose these cases most of the time.</p>
<p>Ultimately, I think universities will go in three directions to avoid constant legal battles – (1) class rank like in Texas, (2) socio-economic plans, or (3) a mixture of one and two focusing on academic and personal factors but not expressly race) (ie what Texas did to get the students not admitted by class rank, but w/o the race component).</p>
<p>muckdogs07 - I agree with your analysis of Fisher. It is not the “punt” that so much of the media is calling it. AA will be much tougher post-Fisher.</p>
<p>Has anyone mentioned how the biggest beneficiaries of AA is white women.</p>
<p>Pretty soon it will be Hispanics. With amnesty, blacks will be a distant 2nd place as a minority group and will soon suffer a massive loss of political and economic clout which is already in the tank.</p>
<p>I’m not really sure how white women can be seen to have been the biggest beneficiaries of AA when they have to get higher scores to be admitted to most universities since they are the largest percentage of college students in the country.</p>
<p>But, that said, whites will no longer be a majority in this country soon. soon we will be a country of minority groups. Diversity will continue to be important. I can’t see any university giving up the right to diversity if it wants to remain a top school. </p>
<p>I also wanted to say to those who believe that high or middle SES minorities ought not to receive a preference, that nothing could be more important in terms of true diversity than a diversity of SES among a diversity of people. That’s America. This is who we are.</p>
<p>The more we embrace this diversity, the better we do.</p>
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<p>Just so. It’s much harder for women to get into many colleges, especially LACs, than it is for men. There are more of them applying and they have better stats, in many cases. But colleges don’t want to get too female-heavy (obviously excepting single sex colleges), as apparently it leads to fewer male *and *female applicants.</p>
<p>The idea that white women are the biggest beneficiaries of AA stems from the move from pre-AA underrepresenstion of women to current “overrepresentation”. It is cited as a counter to those who argue that it is not necessary to keep AA in place till the percent of URMs at a particular college equal the percent of URMs in the population. The question is why percent represenation seems laudable in the case of women but, an impermissible quota in the case of URMs?</p>
<p>Don’t think there ever was COLLEGE AA for women, was there?</p>
<p>sure, how about in Engineering or Business? Or even law school?</p>
<p>True women are more heavily recruited for those. Engineering, anyway, not too sure about the others. One reason I’m glad D is mathy-sciencey - she may not have to compete with the men who will be accepted with lower stats at many colleges, especially the good LACs.</p>
<p>Funny thing about this particular “AA for men” is, men aren’t at a disadvantage socially or economically nor have they been historically oppressed.</p>
<p>The issue of donations isn’t clear cut. Asian Americans donate, too. Wealthy Asian Americans may donate large amounts, too. Same for other groups.</p>
<p>Race can be a factor because we have different races and ethnicities and in general we recognize differences in appearance. Sometimes also in subculture. </p>
<p>As long as “merit” is viewed in terms of stats, some get waylaid. Also, as parents, looking at our kids, their hs performance and what they “deserve,” some miss how limited that is.</p>
<p>In that respect, the chance me threads show the misperceptions. I often say, an admit isn’t a reward for your hs record. Its how that and your app suggest your potential at that college. And potential isn’t so narrowly focused on soph college GPA or sticking with one major, etc. It can include potential to grow, to be influenced and reflect that back. </p>
<p>Why not share opportunities?</p>
<p>Its also too simple to assert that minorities or lower SES are automatically disabled by their circumstances, unable to achieve, think critically/analytically, learn, etc. Granted, my experience is with a top segment. But my IMO is this isn’t simply about enduring. Many can come through with the same rigor, achievement, substantial activities as “our” kids. Sometimes more substantial impact. Despite their realities and our assumptions. We know there are problems with some hs. Not sure everyone realizes it’s not so easy to generalize.</p>
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<p>However, the past generations of college graduates who became wealthy enough to donate were more white than the current college student generation (of course, that varies between colleges). They are also likely to be more politically conservative simply due to age. So it is certainly possible that they may be bothered by their alma mater becoming a majority-minority school (even now, there are occasional white posters on this forum who shy away from majority-minority schools that may otherwise match their stated criteria), and be less prone to donating if that were the case.</p>
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<p>That’s because (as I have said before) “affirmative action” as practiced by colleges and universities in their admissions policies is NOT about curing past or present social injustice. It’s entirely about diversity in their student body. For many LACs, that includes maintaining some approximation of gender balance. Since they typically get far more applications from women, and especially from well qualified women, it gives men an edge in admissions–not because men as a group need extra help, not because men have historically been excluded or oppressed, but because they’d like to see a rough gender balance in their student body. Simple as that. And that’s essentially the same reason they practice race-based “affirmative action” as well: to get the kind of class they want, one that at least roughly reflects our society’s racial and ethnic diversity. It has nothing to do with righting past wrongs.</p>
<p>“That’s because (as I have said before) “affirmative action” as practiced by colleges and universities in their admissions policies is NOT about curing past or present social injustice. It’s entirely about diversity in their student body.”</p>
<p>This is true at public universities that are obeying the letter of federal law, but I don’t think it is true across the board at private institutions. I can’t speak for any institution on the record, but I believe that Harvard and its peers view themselves as credentialing America’s/the world’s leadership in science, business, arts, and the academy, and they believe that we can’t have a just nation without diversity in those leadership roles. They are acutely aware that they are admitting not just a class of college students but the future of the upper middle class and the holders of power. Perhaps you will view that as a solely semantic distinction, but I think those are two different goals. Social engineering, if you will, does come into play.</p>
<p>I agree with Hanna. I would also add that just because institutions are forced to say that they’re using AA to achieve diversity doesn’t mean that’s really the only reason they are doing it. And it’s a bit circular, anyway–you can’t really achieve racial diversity without making allowances for past social injustices–as I noted above, those social injustices are (in my opinion) a big part of why URMs have lagging stats, even those of better SES.</p>
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<p>Here is an added dimension. Schools such as Harvard might not feel compelled in curing all past and present social injustice, but simply correcting some of their OWN errors of a recent past. And yes, this is a reference to the historical accounts exposed by Karabel and others. </p>
<p>After all, it takes time to understand why certain policies fail, especially when such policies tend to appease the “new discrimination” squeaking wheels. And, perhaps, better understand where the returns on education investments come from, and this for both the school and the graduates. There will always be givers and takers; the key is to find the appropriate balance.</p>
<p>If the above phrases are unclear, they do mean that the schools that are free to make choices without political pressures have realized that continuing investments in the education of mininorities are needed, and that they can and should play a role to LEAD the way as long as our K-12 public system of education turns its back to the less powerful groups. The importance to create leaders at our best schools has never been more important than today.</p>