<p>Interesting points beyphy. Perhaps when Michigan becomes known as the University of Caucasions, Latinos, and Asians, (UCLA) then you will better understand the reasons why black enrollment will probably never be at a much higher percentage then it is currently.</p>
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<p>Michigan has already had its hand slapped by the Supreme Court for giving weighted advantage to URMs. It’s former “point” system used to give additional weight precisely in order to recruit underrepresented minorities. After GRATZ and HAMACHER v. BOLLINGER, et al, it changed its system to (and to my mind more properly) give extra weight to individuals of any race who faced and overcame “adversity” and “low socio-economic status.”</p>
<p>And the effect has been, I suspect, not favorable for those from particularly challenging public school environments such as Detroit, or even Grand Rapids, because at the end of the day, you still have to be capable of success and you have to have build the foundation for success.</p>
<p>In Michigan, through a very pork-barrel deployment of something called Proposal A that had been intended to equalize funding, urban schools have been dramatically underfunded over the last 15-20 years and have not kept pace, have been subject to “white flight” and in some cases, offer an educational curriculum that’s awarded 50% of the funding Bloomfield Hills gets, by way of example. In Michigan, we are living in what amounts to a partitioned society. The “haves” get a decent education. The “have nots” unfortunately, do not.
It is appalling that this structural deficit within the public education system in Michigan has not been rectified, to my mind. But the political powers that be do not appear to have the will. You can make a difference by letting your legislators know this is not acceptable to you.</p>
<p>That said, here is information on the supreme court findings in the case that have led to a different holistic approach than that used formerly:</p>
<p><a href=“THE SUPREME COURT; Excerpts From Justices' Opinions on Michigan Affirmative Action Cases - The New York Times”>THE SUPREME COURT; Excerpts From Justices' Opinions on Michigan Affirmative Action Cases - The New York Times;
<p>“It is appalling that this structural deficit within the public education system in Michigan has not been rectified”</p>
<p>There is nothing to be rectified. If anything, it should be rectified the other way. The current way is an obvious redistribution of contribution. The state should stay out of it in general, and property tax receipts in each school district should stay within and solely within that school district. Getting what you pay for is the only fair way. This equalized funding BS is just robbing Peter to pay Paul because Peter is smart, hardworking and productive and Paul is just a dumb lazy bum who sits on his hands. </p>
<p>“The “haves” get a decent education. The “have nots” unfortunately, do not.”</p>
<p>And rightfully so. The “haves” pay their share and part of the “have nots” share, the “have nots” don’t pay even their own share. If we were to be fair, the “haves” should get an EXCELLENT education, and the “have nots” should get little to none.</p>
<p>Enough is enough. This bullying and constant squeezing of the hardworking, capable ones to subsidize the lazy, unproductive ones need to stop. Unfortunately it would not because we live in a nation that’s more and more addicted to government spending, subsidies and entitlement. The number of Peters are decreasing and the number of Pauls are increasing, so it will always be favorable for politicians to continue to rob the Peters of the world to pay the Pauls of the world.</p>
<p>“while the whites are discussing affirmative action and constantly saying that blacks don’t deserve to be there. I hate it. I honestly thought that students in a postsecondary institution would be more aware, mature, and accepting of all of this”</p>
<p>So you hate the truth. I wholeheartedly agree with you, why let the truth get in the way of political correctness?</p>
<p>“I’m surprised and concerned by comments that suggest that it is understandable or ok that UMich’s black student population is low because it is an elite institution. Most elite institutions are falling over themselves to increase their minority student populations both to increase the diversity of their campuses and to provide opportunities to students whose socioeconomic circumstances prevented them from being as successful as they could be. Just optically, I have been surprised by the lack of African Americans on campus. I find this interesting because it appears (just optically, I have no data) that the campus staff is well represented by African Americans. Whether this segment of the student population comes from Detroit or out of state, I think Michigan could do a better job of recruiting African American students with potential.”</p>
<p>lol. I love this kind of posts.
It’s almost as hilarious as the apologists who claim that it’s society’s problem that one in three black men go to prison in their lifetime.
Blame everyone else, instead of the real problem, because blaming the real problem would be not PC.</p>
<p>How do you rectify this type of thinking?</p>
<p>[Black</a> Students Who Are Afraid of ‘Acting White’ by Larry Meeks on Creators.com - A Syndicate Of Talent](<a href=“http://www.creators.com/health/ethnically-speaking-larry-meeks/black-students-who-are-afraid-of-acting-white.html]Black”>http://www.creators.com/health/ethnically-speaking-larry-meeks/black-students-who-are-afraid-of-acting-white.html)</p>
<p>Someone said something to the effect of “black students have it easy in admissions as is.” The truth is that no one has it easy in admissions. That’s one of the things that Michigan does. It weeds out the applicants who can’t handle it here. Blacks don’t have it easy in admissions… But neither do whites, Asians, Hispanics, native Americans or anyone else.</p>
<p>Bearcats, forgive my pragmatic thinking, but to my mind it’s cheaper to educate the have-nots than to incarcerate them 
Eg. $7,500 year vs. $50,000 year.</p>
<p>Besides, we’re talking about children here, who are inherently innocent of whatever conceivable shortcomings their parents may have in terms of earning capacity. Your suggestion to continue the downward spiral by educationally shunning those in the urban core will net us a society that in the end you might not like much You know…Detroit.</p>
<p>So which one of us is really being the “conservative” here – the person who feels its in our collective interest to maintain a reasonably well-educated population to sustain the social fabric to fund and fuel the free market, or the person who resents educating children of parents who are not adequate earners? Do you think that punitive model actually works? Is one of us being a tad short-sighted?</p>
<p>I know you think I’m terribly liberal, but in some ways I’m just looking at things from a level up or a longer view.</p>
<p>And did you catch the movie Elysium? Not so sci-fi really, is it? ;)</p>
<p>@kmcmom13</p>
<p>You make some very strong points, especially “it’s cheaper to educate the have-nots than to incarcerate them Eg. $7,500 year vs. $50,000 year.” But children are only in school M-F for 6 hours a day, 9 months of the year. Short of putting all of them in boarding school, it’s impossible for the school to keep kids from being corrupted by the toxic environment outside of school walls. I think we know how a “boarding school” would be perceived in the Detroit community, i.e., “They want to put our babies in prison!” And psychologists would argue the majority of developmental issues stem from age 0-5, before the students even enter a school.</p>
<p>What happened to BAM and the U of M pledge to have a 10% African-American student body? That was a BIG deal when I was on campus in the early 1970s.</p>
<p>BTW - I was shocked when I attended my D’s white coat ceremony for the medical school in 2009 by how few incoming med students were African-American.</p>
<p>“Bearcats, forgive my pragmatic thinking, but to my mind it’s cheaper to educate the have-nots than to incarcerate them Eg. $7,500 year vs. $50,000 year.”</p>
<p>Great logic to assume everyone from poor school district goes to prison and everyone from a good school district doesn’t. Also, I don’t know where you pull the $50000/year figure. It’s 18031 per year in Texas and the national average is 24656. I am sure you pull it out of your you-know-what to support your point. Seriously, Why let facts get in the way of an argument? Realistically this number should be a lot lower but because of the “waste taxpayer money because it’s not yours mandate”, you obviously have to pay the 330k per year prison nurse.</p>
<p>[Million-Dollar</a> Nurses Show California?s Struggle to Cut Payroll - Bloomberg](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?)</p>
<p>“Is one of us being a tad short-sighted?”
That would be you.</p>
<p>“I know you think I’m terribly liberal, but in some ways I’m just looking at things from a level up or a longer view.”</p>
<p>Again, I would be the one taking a longer view and looking at things from a big picture perspective. </p>
<p>You, like a lot of others (and I am sure you guys have good intentions), with your tunnel vision and naivety unfortunately think you can fix problems of the Pauls brought upon by their own fault by taking from the hard-work of Peters, but completely forget the fact that eventually the Peters would just pack up and go. The Peters, with the skills and hardwork, usually are the most mobile and able to find gainful employment/opportunities elsewhere. They don’t need to sit around and deal with this kind of BS. </p>
<p>And history has proved that my hypothesis. This was why white flights happen. This was why situations like Detroit happen. The root of Detroit’s problem wasn’t it’s poor and lazy bottom feeder demographic. The demographic problem is simply a symptom. Detroit’s problems originated from the fact that it was unable to keep its productive demographics. I have lived in many cities throughout my life, and most of these thriving cities have pockets that are as bad as detroit. But most of these cities don’t fall into turmoil because it doesn’t rob its capable tax payers to the degree detroit used to, that these tax payers just say screw that and move away.</p>
<p>Now Detroit has no more Peter for you to rob. See instead of allowing Peter to invest Peter’s hard earned resources to grow his crops locally, and have Paul be thankful for what Peter trickles down that do not belong to Paul in first place anyway, you force Peter to move elsewhere where he can invest his hard earned income without being robbed (so badly anyway). That’s why you see talented workers move out of highly taxed states to the TX and FL of the world. Your way of thinking is analogous to killing the geese that lay golden eggs.</p>
<p>I see the exact parallel here in Dallas. Dallas ISD is awful, so what do the more capable people do? They all move to independently incorporated area like Highland Park ISD (and when I have kids, that’s where I am buying, maybe even before then anyway). Some of the poorer representations of Texas tried to pull similar BS with this normalized funding crap and limit the amount each school can spend using its property tax (with the overage going to the state pool to be redistributed to other ISD). So what do the smart and hardworking people in Highland Park/University Park do? They lower the property tax so there would be less overage, then they ask its residents to donate to an endowment that exclusively funds Highland Park/University Park schools.</p>
<p>[Highland</a> Park ISD Seeks to Create $100M Endowment - Dallas/Fort Worth/Metroplex - HAIF - Houston’s Leading News Forum](<a href=“http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/6023-highland-park-isd-seeks-to-create-100m-endowment/]Highland”>Highland Park ISD Seeks to Create $100M Endowment - Dallas/Fort Worth/Metroplex - HAIF - Houston's original social media)</p>
<p>See, your plan would never work, because it’s certainly not pragmatic as you try to put it. It involves robbing the most educated/hardworking/skilled segment of the demographics. Whatever you come up with, we will have a counterplan. And when we don’t have one, we just move away to somewhere that’s more welcoming of us, because we have the mobility to do so. You can’t force “this is for the good of the society” down our throat when in reality you are just blatantly robbing us.</p>
<p>A middle-class, suburban white girl’s response to the black Detroiter’s essay:</p>
<p>[Viewpoint:</a> Enter Detroit with respect - The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/opinion/10viewpoint-how-enter-detroit-respectfully09]Viewpoint:”>Viewpoint: Enter Detroit with respect)</p>
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<p>She also includes 6 tips nobody visiting Detroit should forget.</p>
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<p>Aren’t social welfare programs, additional state and federal dollars so they literally won’t rob us? Crappy schools churn out hopeless souls, who live a life of crime and or underachieve and never contribute to the tax base. Isn’t it in our best interests to make sure people (especially those that live near us) can function, be employed, contribute to the economy? With that said, I have no idea what to do with Detroit. I don’t think more money is the answer. I don’t know if there is an answer. Sad state of affairs there.</p>
<p>“Also, I don’t know where you pull the $50000/year figure. It’s 18031 per year in Texas and the national average is 24656. I am sure you pull it out of your you-know-what to support your point. Seriously, Why let facts get in the way of an argument?”</p>
<p>Michigan averages 35k a year per inmate so her 50k isn’t very unreasonable possibly for select prisons. But heck, the figure varies so much throughout the country, it’s easy for 50k to be the average that is local to her. I mean back in NY, they pay almost 170k a year per inmate for that hot-mess they call Rikers Island.</p>
<p>The number I’ve always heard quoted is $64/inmate/day, which is a little over 23K/inmate/year. Nonetheless, it’s a lot. I think if the math was broken down for people they’d be less inclined to support prison sentences for nonviolent drugs and firearms charges. </p>
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<p>How shocked could you have been? What proportion did you expect and what proportion did you see? </p>
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<p>I’m failing to understand why the University should favor promising Black youth over more promising White, Jewish, and Asian youth. It seems to be that optimally the university should take who they consider to be the best, regardless of race. It seems that, barring some financial considerations that they need to make to keep the school running, that’s what they do. Why should that change?</p>
<p>“The number I’ve always heard quoted is $64/inmate/day, which is a little over 23K/inmate/year.”</p>
<p>[Mi</a> Dashboard - Prisoner Cost](<a href=“http://www.michigan.gov/midashboard/0,4624,7-256-60564_60567_60618---,00.html]Mi”>SOM - 404 - Page Not Found)</p>
<p>Related Michigan Daily article:</p>
<p>[Black</a> Homecoming celebrates community’s achievements - The Michigan Daily](<a href=“http://www.michigandaily.com/news/black-homecoming-2013]Black”>Black Homecoming celebrates community's achievements)</p>
<p>I find many discussions around this topic one sided. There are two sides to every story. Michigan does not enroll more African American students because not enough of them who apply are qualified, and many of those that are will receive acceptances only to end up going to other schools. The yield for qualified African American applicants is probably lower than the yield for OOS students! And admitting under-qualified applicants based on their URM status only to increase their representation on campus would be setting them up to fail. </p>
<p>When on campus, several African American students do not always integrate well with the overall student population, but many do. Those that do not integrate sometimes fail to do so because they do not meet accepting students of other races, but sometimes because they are reluctant to try. Making friends of any race requires a lot of effort, and if one gives up before even trying, it is not going to happen. The segregation of URMs on most campuses is a pretty common occurrence. People will almost always gravitate toward the familiar. That is not a sign of racism. Most of my friends when I was in college were international students like myself. Americans were never inhospitable or racist toward me, but we just didn’t have much in common. </p>
<p>Finally, while I appreciate the idealism that suggests that if Michigan admitted more students from Detroit, those would in turn go back to Detroit and transform it, the reality will be far from it. There is no way those students will be sufficient in number to put a dent in Detroit’s woes, and many of them would probably not even return to Detroit after graduation, choosing instead to work in areas that have better career prospects, such as Chicago, Minneapolis etc…</p>
<p>Parent 08765, it is true that funding a school is not the lone measure required to solve complex programs; it goes a lot deeper than that. But there are places in the world where the poor are not viewed as disposable, and where tax dollars can be spent in a meaningful way to improve the odds of children and reduce or mitigate the social burden that is actually carried by everyone one way or another. In Michigan, if the average cost of incarceration is $94 a day (less than where I’m originally from, but this Michigan figure doesn’t account for prosecution and legal aid defense) but we are not willing to spend more than $20/ day to educate our children it just seems to me that we’re “valuing” the wrong things, and it shows.</p>
<p>I value a safe neighborhood and having a jurisprudence system, but I also value having an educated workforce, mitigating teen pregnancy, drop outs and other risks that ultimately have social costs for us all that have high rates of occurrence in urban centers. The fact that a basic personality orientation is developed by age five is a great argument for early education, social assistance, nutritional guidance and all kinds of preventative interventions that we seem less willing to fund than many other countries. People wonder why the gross average performance of students in the PISA study puts the US 37th compared to counties like Canada or Sweden in the top ten. This attitude, this increasing division of have/have-nots is why. We seem blatantly or unconsciously to just “write off” an entire segment of our society. Gate up our communities. Not in my back yard.</p>
<p>What people like bearcats don’t see is that they’re also eroding their furure market 
They can flee and partition until the cows come home, but eventually, the sheer numbers and will get them. If you leave an entire segment of society behind, if basic needs like nutrition, education and inclusion continue to be unmet, you eventually end up with a country unable to navigate or negotiate social policy because the haves and have-nots are alien to one another.</p>
<p>I hope I don’t live long enough to see this dystopian prophesy fulfilled, but the writing is on the wall. The vigorous hollering you hear from folks now signals a dawning consciousness that our current way is ultimately unsustainable.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding everything I just said, none of this supports active compensatory treatment of Detroit students to UM matriculation. The crime in this case is not that so few from these underfunded urban educational areas are admitted. The crime is that so few are ABLE to be admitted. And the problem isn’t UMich. The problem is much larger and the roots much deeper.</p>
<p>And I don’t have a lot of patience for folks taught how to fish who instead ask for fish. But that doesn’t stop me from observing the structural dysfunction of our society and considering the variables that contribute to this dysfunction. </p>
<p>Bearcats, I would love to lose this argument, but I’m not being short-sighted or engaging in tunnel vision at all. Wait for it :)</p>