<p>Here's an article from today's Boston Globe regarding a lawsuit filed by a white male who was denied admissions at UVA.</p>
<p>Jamimom,</p>
<p>I can honestly say that the biggest value of College Confidential to me has been learning from you, Northstarmom, Momsdream, Vadad, and several other parents of URM children. I started out being against affirmative action because I felt that it was unfair to my children. I now realize that my child benefits from AA the most AND suffers the least from its implementation. </p>
<p>I would HATE to be the parent of a URM college applicant with great qualifications to get into college without affirmative action; I just think I would be filled with conflicted feelings about the whole thing.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Here's an article from today's Boston Globe regarding a lawsuit filed by a white male who was denied admissions at UVA.</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>This will be an open and shut case. The Attorney General of Virginia had already written a detailed letter to UVa saying that first person filing a discrimination lawsuit would have them dead to rights.</p>
<p>The University will probably try to settle this case immediately; however, I doubt that's what the plaintiff has in mind. Most likely, it is a politically motivated suit.</p>
<p>Two things - first IDad is exactly right about the black middle class existing prior to affirmative action. In fact, go to any city in the South, particularly a mid-sized city like mine, and you will see the "tombstones" of the black middle class of the 30s and 40s - they are located along once busy commercial streets, boarded-up storefronts from black owned businesses that were basically destroyed by integration in the 60s. Where do you think folks like Dr. King came from? How do you think black families had enough money to send their children to college (obviously segregated, but college, often rigorous). Others on this board can speak to this from personal experience, but my understanding is that many families lost everything as their businesses slowly went bankrupt.</p>
<p>Second, I'm curious Jamimom, do you have any idea how those recruited athletes from the lower parts of their high school classes have done at selective colleges? Are the high schools you speak of selective prep schools (where the bottom of the class is still pretty darn good) or more typical suburban high schools? The reason I ask, is that I feel, sort of as you were saying, that colleges use "diveristy" and AA for their own purposes, and the welfare of the students involved (whether they are black Native American or poor white) is way down on the list of priorities. I worry about preparation, "use up and discard". If these athletes can succeed, coming form the bottom of the class, plus having to devote considerable time to sports, the young man you spoke of with proper support, can succeed too.</p>
<p>People on this board, kids and adults alike, who are 2-3 generations removed from a hard scrabble existence as we call it, can't appreciate how difficult it would be to go to Yale from a poor rural appalachian family or I would think from an inner city school. Your son's friend, is he better off going halfway across the country to the best college he can get into, or a less prestigious school closer tho the support system he has established? Maybe he needs to start over fresh, that would be hard for a 17 year old, but no harder than putting everything you own into a knapsack and taking a sailing ship to America. (Enough with the philosophy, AA is an argument with NO resolution, I think that has been adequately established on this forum!)</p>
<p>Momrath, as an attorney I have a hard time comprehending that anything "unfair and not equitable" is "the right thing to do." Redressing wrongs is certainly the right thing to do, but shouldn't we do it in a fair and equitable way? All people will never see AA in and of itself as fair, but shouldn't it seem fair to thinking individuals without an agenda? What we are doing at present does not.</p>
<p>Cangel, to answer your question, years ago at Harvard and today as well according to my niece, athletes were the only people who really struggled with the work. The school did a good job of choosing minorities and development kids who could make it through without much problem. Graduation rate is important to them. Top Athletes were the only place where real exceptions to the rule seem to exist. But they are given help and the vast majority graduate at highly selective schools although they often don't at lesser schools. Is it good for the athletes to be there? You bet. Most grow incredibly.</p>
<p>42 Harvard athletes have also been Rhodes scholars over the years:</p>
<p>According to the Athletics Dept's website, there are 1,500 athletes at Harvard out of a student body of 6,500 or so. I'm sure that some of them struggle. Athletes are given a lot of support and most do well.
One question regarding AA is whether students who are admitted into a highly selective school with stats similar to those of recruited athletes are given the same level of support as are athletes. My hunch is that they are not. The story of the Native American who was admitted into Wesleyan (in The Gatekeepers) despite very low stats but was left to flounder once he was there may be rather common. As we know, though, scholarships offered by well endowed, highly selective schools may make them more affordable than state universities and may prove irresistible to a low-income applicant.</p>
<p>Marite, one of the Rhodes scholarship's stipulation is commitment to a sports or some physical activity. The Rhodes scholarship commitee's stance has become more relaxed these days where a commitment to some physical activity is enough; not a light commitment, though. That's why it doesn't surprise me that so many great athletes going to Harvard are Rhodes scholars.</p>
<p>That's not to take away from your argument that athletes get better support once they are in college.</p>
<p>Achat:</p>
<p>That's true but academic excellence still counts the most and has always done. I do remember from my grad days that athletes rather than AA were deemed to be more likely to be struggling.</p>
<p>I tried to step away from this last night and I spent time thinking about it and trying to see it from other sides. I can understand how this gets so heated. Interesteddad is right, the assumptions made about URM students entering top colleges take some of the wind out of the sails. My son is going to walk in with the knowledge that he earned it outright, but he'll be flanked by other black students with the 1200 scores. Yes, on the surface it does detract from the impact of his accomplishments. he doesn't really seem to care. But, I would understand if he came to me and asked why he had to keep retaking that dumb test when he had a score good enough to get in after the second time. Other black parents I know have also pushed their kids to continue to prep and retake - even after their kids hit the 1300+ level. Nobody I know wants to take advantage of AA. But, even if when some of the black students are admitted with the 1200s, I have a hard time believing that these kids aren't prepared. Do they have poor grades? Are they coming out of sloppy public schools? There are so many variable, othe than the SAT score. I still think overall, larger positive impact outweighs any negative. </p>
<p>Kirmum is an example. As a URM she was admitted to Harvard with a 1000 SAT score. She thrived. She went on to another Ivy for a Law degree. She met and married someone with similar education and produced children. She earns enough money to educate he children in competitive schools and now she feels that her own children are prepared to compete without the advantages she was given. That sounds like a success story to me. But, I don't agree that enough time has passed that we can now cast these opportunities aside. I'm surprised that someone who was helped so much would be in favor of elimination of the program. </p>
<p>Really, I can understand all sides of this and see why others might feel angry about it. I think when you stand back and see the bigger picture it doesn't seem so bad.</p>
<p>Marite, I wasn't saying academic excellence doesn't count more for Rhodes!! Just that it doesn't surprise me that some great athletes who go to Harvard (where they take the best of the best academically, and, yes, I am not ignoring the rest of this thread) are Rhodes scholars. In fact, some websites for Rhodes info suggests that if you are totally indifferent to sports or physical activity, then don't even bother applying.</p>
<p>Graci stated, "I just don't feel that their education should come on my dollar when I enter the work force, I want my pay to finance my life and that of my family, and not have it snatched from me to fund someone else who may/may not make anything of themselves regardless of how much money the government steals from me and throws upon them."</p>
<p>Well, I don't want to pay an annual housing subsidy in excess of $1 milliom to Bill Gates but I do because he gets a federal tax deduction in mortgage interest and property taxes on his 60,000 sf palace. Others are buying yachts, living on them for 14 days a year and claiming second home deductions for mortgage and marina fees.</p>
<p>At least with education subsidies there is a tangible benefit to society in the form of an improved workforce(ie more profits for employers), the probability of recouping the money as a result of increased personal income taxes, and the possibility of eliminating future social costs associated with welfare, medicaid in some instances.</p>
<p>As I stated above there are many societal benefits associated with AA programs and at minimal cost to non-minorites. The non-minority displaced at Harvard doesn't mean that he will end up at the local community college. She will end up going to Dartmouth, Penn, Brown or JHU and receive a great education.</p>
<p>I think my position is kind of close to that of Interesteddad: I don't have such a strong opinion on affirmative action. At least, I wouldn't be one to go out and fight either for it or against it. Part of this is because affirmative action is a really slippery concept. Sometimes it may involve actual quotas and points, etc., but other times it's a more qualitative process, for example, at colleges where each applicant is evaluated individually, so it is hard to say whether "affirmative action" was used in a particular case or not. And this type of evaluation can of course be done well, or it can be done badly and misguidedly.</p>
<p>It's more difficult to defend the practice of affirmative action than the concept. Nobody can come up with the exact right thing to do to make things fair for everybody and make up for past wrongs. It seems that perhaps the best thing we can do is to start now with as many institutions as possible treating people equally and not considering race, etc., since that is the type of system we presumably want to end up with. Otherwise it seems that we end up with a system that goes on forever, trying to balance arbitrary discrimination in favor of URMs against arbitrary discrimination against some URMs (often not even really the same people).</p>
<p>I agree that all students in public schools should be funded at the same rate. Of course nobody can pretend that everybody has equal opportunities as long as school funding is inequitable!!!</p>
<p>My understanding of the situation with athletes at many universities (I don't really know or care that much about the Ivy Leagues specifically) is that the "support" that they receive often takes the form of coaches trying to persuade professors to go easy on their athletes, and coaches helping the athletes to find courses and majors that are not so rigorous as to pose a threat to the athletes' minimum GPA requirements or cut into practice time. Coaches have a lot of power and often it is a case of "use up and discard" as Cangel suggested. Many athletes are lured to schools where they cannot really thrive academically because they have to spend too much time on their sport and because they are far below the academic standards of the schools. Of course they want to go because they got such good scholarships and many coaches lead them to believe that they will have a good chance at professional sports. Very few college athletes actually end up in professional sports, and really the overpaid coaches are the ones that benefit from this situation. Again it is a case of naive young people being taken in and used by unscrupulous adults for the benefit of the adults. I know a lot of people resent athletes for getting such a leg up in admissions, but I feel sorry for a lot of them because the outcome is often most unfortunate for them.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think that ultimately a very small percentage of people are either helped or hurt significantly by affirmative action. This is why affirmative action may not be so bad but also does not provide a solution to the problems of society. At worst, it makes society look like it's really giving great advantages to URMs, thus providing an excuse for not doing anything about the vast number of URMs and others remaining in poverty. Ultimately I think we need to have a society where everybody has health care, a living wage, equal funding at school, etc., rather than just picking a handful of URMs from each generation, giving them an advantage, and ignoring the rest. Our society is set up to leave huge numbers of people in poverty, without basic needs being met, whatever their color, and little things like affirmative action in admissions and hiring will not make any difference in this basic societal structure.</p>
<p>Momsdream:
I'm not sure whether kirmum is arguing for ending AA; she seems to be arguing that her children do not need to rely on AA and should not because of the advantages she and her husband were able to give them, including an excellent education. That excellent education is not available to all, however.
My S has a couple of friends who sound like Kirmum's kids. Between them, the parents have 5 Ivy degrees. The kids are awesomely bright (skipped 2 grades, NMF) and well-rounded, loads of ECs. Both because their parents ' educational history and their own achievements, they don't need help getting into any top school. Another AA friend is a recruited athlete at an Ivy and a NMSF. </p>
<p>I agree with you that someone with 1200 SAT should be able to do well at the most competitive schools; whether or not that student would do as well as someone who had 1600 is a different matter, but it is also besides the point. Colleges are building a class and, as long as a student has something to contribute to the college and can handle the work, that is what is most important to the college. What I don't like to see is recruiting students who are borderline like the example in The Gatekeepers and not providing them with the support they need to flourish.</p>
<p>originalloog, agreed. We could crash the CC server with complaints about where our tax dollars go.</p>
<p>marite:</p>
<p>The kids whose parent has 5 ivy degree should be in like any other white or asian if they are qualified. However, if they are not qualified or underperform and score only 1200 in SAT and lower GPA or higher GPA in easier classses, these sort of kids should be not allowed as they have every means to uplift and perform better. I think IVY will serve better by taking a less fortunate URM kid and providing him the opportunity and support in place of underperforming Rich URM kid. This way in 5-10 year period IVY can genuinely claim, that they are trying to reach Youth from every quater. And people will not say that you are URM , that is why you are in beacuse now there are URM kids who can compete with any asian or white. The perception will go away. I know most of the URM whose kids are under performing do not like my argument, but ask any URM from inner city and they will like it. Do not tell me that kid who scored 1000 in SAT and comes from very poor background is less smart than a rich URM kid with URM parents with IVY degree and still underperforming. I have yet to see a parent offer this counter argument to me. Thus claiming that I am against AA. I am trying to be fair with logical arguments. </p>
<p>Jamimom, I am not worried about my kids chances. I am arguing about rest of the smart kids may it be yellow, white, black or brown. I am just saying that IVY by admitting rich (but underperforming URM who are living and going to better school) are not giving chances to really smart but poor URM in inner city. They need to rectify that and reach out the smart but with lesser opportunity kids, the kids you site in your example whose story can bring tear to anyone eyes. That kid in my eyes needs to go Harvard than any other kid I know beacuse he is performing despite odds stacked up agianst him. Prep for prep is doing to correct this action. IVY need to implement same policies.</p>
<p>Marite, there's an easy answer for URMs with backgrounds such as the one you mentioned....don't check the box. </p>
<p>AA will never be perfect. There are more holes than we can count. How about the kids who are more white than black? Should they be able to check the box if they were disadvanated? Should you check the box if the only 100% black person in your family was your grandfather or grandmother on one side? What about black students who come from families where they were adopted and raised by white parents? They get to check. But, a white student with black parents can't check.
It goes on and on.</p>
<p>THis is my last argument beacuse I see that rich URM wants to discriminate against the poor but smarter URM who do not have opportunities. I am sure IVY by admiiting and providing support to these smart but poor URM will reach out to more numbers than serving same few families. This in turn will allow more inner city URM to work harder and thus getting out of poverty, the root cause of their problem in their development and acieeving the sucess they deserve.</p>
<p>"Interestedad, none of us are comfortable with any race based selection process. Therein lies the big problem with the URM category in elite school admissions."</p>
<p>I'm not either - but since I see most elite college-admissions as race-and-income-based affirmative action programs for white 5%ers, I can live with it.</p>
<p>Actually, we have data on the issue of the so-called Black middle class. In 1939, Black household income was rougly 32% of white household income. At the end of WWII, it rose to 54%. This is the so-called Black middle class of which Cangel speaks. Most of this was the result of migration of African-Americans, especially women, to defense plants and naval stations in the north - Detroit, Richmond and Oakland and Long Beach, California, Tacoma, Washington, and New Orleans iand other defense installations in the south. There was a flourishing of Black culture, and funds sent back home to the south which improved life there.</p>
<p>But it didn't last long. As the defense contracts ran out, and the GI bill went into effect, black women were thrown out of work. A major income transfer took place from Black families to white ones. TAfrican-Americans weren't allowed into the suburbs, and didn't go back to the south. A new semi-permanent underclass was created. Black household income, including that in the south, as a percentage of white income, fell for more than a decade. The Black "middle class" (not that there was much of one) was indeed decimated, but it wasn't by affirmative action, etc. But in the 60s, Black household income rose again (through AA) to where it was 60% of white income by 1970. It has actually dropped since then to 58%. Over the past three years, Black household income has fallen 6.3%</p>
<p>Momsdream, in no way do I went to see AA end. I think it should continue to benefit the kids who fit my description when I was a benefactor. Uneducated parents, financially disadvantaged, inner city school, no EC opportunities, artificially low test scores due to lack of exposure. You should see how I IQ test now! My point is a simple one, educated, sophisticated URMs have learned how to play the game and it is their children who are more likely to be taking advantage of the program at highly selective schools. These are not the children AA was meant to give the boost to. They are not the children who need the boost. Yet every year I see the affluent URMs headed off to HYPS while the kids at the large inner city school district I have a class action suit against has sent 2 kids to ivy league schools in the last 8 years.</p>