Giving diversity its due.

<p>"I don't play word games, And you obviously don't seem to know what a word game is. Simply using the definition of a word is not playing word games...."</p>

<p>Manipulating a definition in order to suit one's own argument is word games. Which is what you did in saying that discrimination based on race is comparable to discrimination based on merit.</p>

<p>Attacking the poster instead of the argument contributes nothing to the thread, either.</p>

<p>To return to spideygirl's quote that some factors always trump others in admissions decisions: this is true. but colleges state in their publicized information (common data sets, etc) that they are looking specifically for these factors. For instance, almost every competitive university states the 'rigor of secondary school record' as a very important admissions factor, while very few give race/ethnicity more than considered status. Why then should the color of one's skin trump the content of one's character, if colleges are looking overwhelmingly for merit-based achievements? Why should being a URM be comparable to a 240 point increase in SAT scores or a half a point increase in GPA?</p>

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Proletariat you have effectively added nothing to the conversation. skim the thread next time k?

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<p>It seems that you use these types of comments as a filler because of a lack of real substance.</p>

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Simply using the definition of a word is not playing word games....

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<p>Check any dictionary. None would use your definition of discrimination as their main one, and you cannot interpret these words radically differently from the way we mean them just for the sake of your argument; to do so is a logical fallacy.</p>

<p>My mother was the first class in her university to have women & men on one integrated campus. Women were the victims of instituionalized descrimination since the first American College opened it's doors (until quite recently) </p>

<p>Now most schools openly acknowledge a "reverse discrimination" against women as they make up 60% of college applicants, and most schools want a 50/50 balance between the sexes.</p>

<p>How can it be for 200 years higher education was a dream of American men (yes, mostly white) and within two generations of women finally being accepted into co-ed schools, their grand daughters are being discriminated against?????</p>

<p>gets my irish up (andmI'm Italian@!@!!)</p>

<p>discrimination: the power of making fine distinctions; discriminating judgment: She chose the colors with great discrimination.</p>

<p>taken from dictionary.com
-regardless of whether or not its the "main definition", of which there is no such thing, its the definition of the word nonetheless. And i did state, if you actually read, that using the merit definition, ANY weight given to ANY form of diversity would be discrimination. So read the thread before you accuse me of "playing word games" next time</p>

<p>-I'm not arguing how much weight should be given for the sake of promoting diversity, but i do believe that colleges should be able to give it some weight.</p>

<p>I thought I would bring in some information to bring into context who "really" has benefitted from affirmative action.</p>

<p>
[quote]
So, for instance, whites hold over ninety percent of all the management level jobs in this country (1), receive about ninety-four percent of government contract dollars (2), and hold ninety percent of tenured faculty positions on college campuses (3). Contrary to popular belief, and in spite of affirmative action programs, whites are more likely than members of any other racial group to be admitted to their college of first choice (4). Furthermore, white men with only a high school diploma are more likely to have a job than black and Latino men with college degrees (5), and even when they have a criminal record, white men are more likely than black men without one to receive a call back for a job interview, even when all their credentials are the same (6). Despite comparable rates of school rule infractions, white students are only half to one-third as likely as blacks and Latino youth to be suspended or expelled (7); and despite higher rates of drug use, white youth are far less likely to be arrested, prosecuted or incarcerated for a drug offense than are youth of color (8).

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<p>Think that happens "naturally?"
Whites control, possess, and own an OBSCENE amount of resources in this country and yet vehemently deny others from sharing in those resources. Think it's about merit? Read on.</p>

<p>It doesn't suprise me when I have conversations with those about who is deserving of certain entitlements, the position that whites generally take. It is a position that has been indoctrinated for many generations. A very brief American History lesson:</p>

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But the notion of the white race found traction in the North American colonies, not because it described a clear scientific concept, or some true historical bond between persons of European descent, but rather, because the elites of the colonies (who were small in number but controlled the vast majority of colonial wealth) needed a way to secure their power. At the time, the wealthy landowners feared rebellions, in which poor European peasants might join with African slaves to overthrow aristocratic governance; after all, these poor Europeans were barely above the level of slaves themselves, especially if they worked as indentured servants (9). </p>

<p>In 1676, for example, Bacon's Rebellion prompted a new round of colonial laws to extend rights and privileges to despised poor Europeans, so as to divide them from those slaves with whom they had much in common, economically speaking. By allowing the lowest of Europeans to be placed legally above all Africans, and by encouraging (or even requiring) them to serve on slave patrols, the elite gave poor "whites" a stake in the system that had harmed them. Giving poor Europeans the right to own land, ending indentured servitude in the early 1700s, and in some cases allowing them to vote, were all measures implemented so as to convince lower-caste Europeans that their interests were closer to those of the rich than to those of blacks. It was within this context that the term "white" to describe Europeans en masse was born, as an umbrella term to capture the new pan-Euro unity needed to defend the system of African slavery and Indian genocide going on in the Americas (10). And the trick worked marvelously, dampening down the push for rebellion by poor whites on the basis of class interest, and encouraging them to cast their lot with the elite, if only in aspirational terms. </p>

<p>This divide-and-conquer tactic would be extended and refined in future generations as well. Indeed, the very first law passed by the newly established Congress of the United States was the Naturalization Act of 1790, which extended citizenship to all "free white persons," and only free white persons, including newly arrived immigrants, so long as the latter would make their homes in the U.S. for a year. Despite longstanding animosities between persons of European descent, all blood feuds were put aside for the purpose of extending pan-Euro or white hegemony over the United States (11). </p>

<p>During the Civil War, the process of using "whiteness" to further divide working people from one another continued. So, for example, Southern elites made it quite clear that their reason for secession from the Union was the desire to maintain and extend the institution of slavery and white supremacy, which institutions they felt were threatened by the rise of Lincoln and the Republican Party. One might think that seceding and going to war to defend slavery would hardly meet with the approval of poor white folks, who didn't own slaves. After all, if slaves can be made to work for free, any working class white person who must charge for their labor will be undercut by slave labor, and find it harder to make ends meet. Yet by convincing poor whites that their interests were racial, rather than economic, and that whites in the South had to band together to defend "their way of life," the elites in the South conned these same lower-caste Europeans into joining a destructive war effort that cost hundreds of thousands of lives (12): their lives, in fact.

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<p>Isn't this the same mindset that happens with poor and middle class whites today when we speak about issues pertaining to people of color?</p>

<p>This dynamic continues to perpetuate itself in the discussion of higher education and everything that is of any value to this day. Think about it. Learn YOUR history. Free your mind.</p>

<p>I think that advantages shouldn't be given to African Americans blindly. I mean, there might be VERY rich African Americans who will benefit from AA when in fact they don't anymore. So really, the advantage should be given to people who constantly face problems everyday.</p>

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I think that advantages shouldn't be given to African Americans blindly. I mean, there might be VERY rich African Americans who will benefit from AA when in fact they don't anymore. So really, the advantage should be given to people who constantly face problems everyday.

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<p>That statement very easily could be intelligently argued about most people of color, regardless of socio-economic status. In most scenarios, comparing apples to apples, people of color will be at a disadvantage, not of their own making.</p>

<p>I have said it once before, elite colleges are like the old Studio 54, where the rich and famous were generally given a "free pass", while the regular folks were handpicked from the long lineup for their amusement value. </p>

<p>The separation of ORM and URM is, to me an act of divide-and-conquer.</p>

<p>Kamikazewave's post 139 expresses my thoughts perfectly. I do not for a second believe AA is used for anything but to keep those in power in power.</p>

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I do not for a second believe AA is used for anything but to keep those in power in power.

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<p>Canuckguy. I fail to see your point of view. Would you elaborate?</p>

<p>great post madvillle! I didn't know where the term "white" came from. Very interesting and informing!</p>

<p>Thanks for posting that quote in 185, Madville. Really interesting! Today, the last holdouts for White Supremacy are the lowest class, marginalized, dysfunctional people of European descent who cannot create any other access to upward mobility other than to try to push some other group below them.</p>

<p>Let's define natural equilibrium to be the result when the "chips fall" uninhibited.</p>

<p>Segregation was not natural equilibrium; it was artificially induced. We didn't let the chips fall back then. We snatched some out of the air (non-white chips but especially black chips) and gave others additional acceleration (white chips). The final result was not the product of natural forces. If instead we had let all the chips fall by themselves based on their weight (merit), then the end result would have been the product of natural forces.</p>

<p>Race-blind policies promote the creation of natural equilibrium. By comparison, positive discrimination dictates that there must be some "balance." Thus, positive discrimination doesn't allow for the chips to fall uninhibited. Imposing restrictions on schools is not necessarily evil. Brown imposed restrictions on how school's could build their classes. Race-blind simply forbides schools from any type of discrimination.</p>

<p>Your second-to-last paragraph seems to suggest that race-blindness can only be feasible when our society becomes an equal representation society on its own. If that's the case, then we'll never be race-blind. Some people will work harder than others. Some people care more than others. Some people grasp certain things quicker than others. To require equality of result as a prerequisite for race-blindness ignores all of those things.</p>

<p>
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In order to expect that natural equilibrium will have the best results, we have to right the artificially destroyed natural equilibrium we have now.

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<p>Let the market adjust on its own. When it does so, there will be no under-representation and there will be no over-representation. There will only be a market-clearing quantity, the equilibrium quantity.</p>

<p>Enderkin: “To return to spideygirl's quote that some factors always trump others in admissions decisions: this is true. but colleges state in their publicized information (common data sets, etc) that they are looking specifically for these factors. For instance, almost every competitive university states the 'rigor of secondary school record' as a very important admissions factor, while very few give race/ethnicity more than considered status. Why then should the color of one's skin trump the content of one's character, if colleges are looking overwhelmingly for merit-based achievements? Why should being a URM be comparable to a 240 point increase in SAT scores or a half a point increase in GPA”</p>

<p>Colleges could never come close to listing in their common data sets all of the factors they are seeking. Particularly in the elite admissions arena (with statistics failing to adequately discriminate among applicants), innumerable other factors are used to choose an incoming class. </p>

<p>The color of one’s skin should not trump the content of one’s character. In addition, colleges should be free to compose an incoming class which is diverse (and therefore meets its educational and business goals). An assumption can be made that no student would be admitted to a university if his or her character was in question.</p>

<p>Being a URM should not be “comparable” to a 240 point increase in SAT scores or a half a point increase in GPA. Being a football player or a bassoonist should not be “comparable” to those things as well. Maybe a bouquet of flowers could help illustrate this. If you are looking for a mix of varieties, you aren’t going to “compare” the tulip to the daffodil - you are just going to choose the best flower from every bunch in order to assemble a beautiful composition. I know this isn’t perfectly analogous to admissions, but it helps to illustrate the fault in the point you made about comparisons.</p>

<p>
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Let the market adjust on its own. When it does so, there will be no under-representation and there will be no over-representation. There will only be a market-clearing quantity, the equilibrium quantity.

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<p>Sticking with your economist type analogy, does not the fed "artificially" create, or otherwise manipulate market forces in an attempt to bring about desired outcomes? I think that it could be said that progressive Adcoms do the same. They don't believe it happens by putting a disproportunate amount of human capital (i.e homogenous individuals) in one admission class. To do so won't bring about the desired effects______<strong><em>(list here) By using AA as only one tool of many manipulative procedures in bringing in more diverse human capital, (i.e. people of color, foreigners, athletes, etc) we get the desired benefits of</em></strong>___(list here). Studies have shown that invention and creativity stagnates within homogenous environments. Fresh ideas from broad perspectives bring about inventions and more dynamic innovation. It is one of the main reasons that the post secondary institutions in the country remain the envy of the world. Even those, that many of the anti AA faction would consider not worthy of elite school consideration have contributed enormously. And what about the one in the majority that was "overlooked", "passed over", so to speak? Those individuals more than likely have gone on to do tremendous things as well because more often than not, their support system provides ample other opportunities to succeed. The same can not be said for those people of color because their support system is not as intact. </p>

<p>Remember this when you compare the situations of whites and blacks in this country when we speak about market forces and other types of socio economic obstacles:</p>

<p>"If the white man catches a cold, then the black man catches pneumonia."</p>

<p>For one group, a nuisance, the other, a potentially life threatening condition.</p>

<p>Fabrizio: “Segregation was not natural equilibrium; it was artificially induced. We didn't let the chips fall back then. We snatched some out of the air (non-white chips but especially black chips) and gave others additional acceleration (white chips). The final result was not the product of natural forces. If instead we had let all the chips fall by themselves based on their weight (merit), then the end result would have been the product of natural forces.”</p>

<p>Exactly, fabrizio. And that is why you should be all for allowing natural forces to work in the marketplace today. Allowing businesses and universities the freedom to to do what makes them more effective and profitable (as long as they are not doing anything which is evil and comes from the notion that certain groups are inferior) is stepping back and letting supply and demand forces to do their magic. </p>

<p>Fabrizio: “Race-blind policies promote the creation of natural equilibrium. By comparison, positive discrimination dictates that there must be some "balance." Thus, positive discrimination doesn't allow for the chips to fall uninhibited. Imposing restrictions on schools is not necessarily evil. Brown imposed restrictions on how school's could build their classes. Race-blind simply forbides schools from any type of discrimination.”</p>

<p>Race-blind policies are the same thing as snatching those chips from the air. The notion of “race-blindness” imposes and artificial reality on the market. The world is not race-blind. There are ethnic groups which branch from racial groups. There are demand factors which can be traced to those ethnic groups in market research, for example. Forcing your will upon natural market forces sanitizes the most interesting parts of human society, and sounds like something which could lead to a nightmarish dystopia.</p>

<p>Race-blindness may occur someday. This planet is becoming less and less a Tower of Babel with certain languages becoming more prominent and the population of racially or ethnically mixed people rapidly rising. But you cannot try to speed up the process artificially. Pretending not to acknowledge that there are different ethnic and racial groups (and therefore different cultural groups), and expecting natural economic forces to do so as well, is absurd. Forcing markets, through litigation, legislation, or even direct vote, to operate without the ability to respond naturally to the actual state of humanity, is tyrannical. Feigning indignation when such differences are allowed to be acknowledged, and throwing up a “positive discrimination” smokescreen, is ridiculous. Markets do not discriminate.</p>

<p>This view of the "market" as sacrosanct presupposes that people act as logical economically motivated beings. In reality, markets can be just as bigoted as the consumers that comprise it, e.g. boycotts of nonwhite businesses in pre Mandela South Africa and jewish businesses in Nazi Germany.</p>

<p>madville,</p>

<p>Yes, our Fed certainly does manipulate market forces (e.g. it can adjust the discount rate, increase the money supply, etc.) It indeed does so in an attempt to bring about desired outcomes. There’s no guarantee that what they came up with will work.</p>

<p>I have no problems with schools attempting to increase numbers of students of group X. Encouraging students to apply is a perfectly acceptable goal. But, during the evaluation process, weight should be given solely based on merit. Though I dislike its history, “holistic” admissions need not be evil. UCLA, for example, uses admissions that is both holistic and race-blind. Removing race from the process does not render the process un-holistic.</p>

<p>spideygirl,</p>

<p>OK, so businesses and universities want more of group X to be in their environments. That’s fine. Can they do it without resorting to judgments based on race?</p>

<p>You’ve been talking about how these institutions want to “round out” their incoming employee and student bodies. I quote Justice Powell from Bakke, “Preferring members of any one group for no reason other than race or ethnic origin is discrimination for its own sake.”</p>

<p>Race-blind policies are quite different from segregation. The first says, “treat all equally without regard to race.” The second says, “treat some better than others based on race.” The first does not allow for the snatching of chips from the air. The second mandates it.</p>

<p>
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Forcing markets, through litigation, legislation, or even direct vote, to operate without the ability to respond naturally to the actual state of humanity, is tyrannical.

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<p>So, it was tyrannical for Mr. Oliver Brown to walk his daughter to school and demand a seat for her? It was tyrannical for future Justice Thurgood Marshall to defend Brown before the Supreme Court? I mean, the “actual state of humanity” at the time was segregation, and markets responded to that. Are you saying it was wrong for those individuals to change the “actual state of humanity”?</p>

<p>Markets don’t discriminate. That’s why under-representation and over-representation are both ridiculous concepts.</p>

<p>^yes they do, because in order for race-blind policies to be the most fair and effective method, there can no longer be a negative correlation between academic ability and economic status, and being of a currently underrepresented group.</p>

<p>and i dont understand your justification for all other forces manipulating market forces, including race blind policies.</p>

<p>would that not mean that schools should also be gender blind, socioeconomic status blind, geographically blind, and legacy blind?</p>

<p>
[QUOTE]
-regardless of whether or not its the "main definition", of which there is no such thing, its the definition of the word nonetheless. And i did state, if you actually read, that using the merit definition, ANY weight given to ANY form of diversity would be discrimination. So read the thread before you accuse me of "playing word games" next time

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<p>Please don't quote out of context. You know what we mean, and to use a radically different definition from that which you knew us to be using is pure logical fallacy.</p>