<p>"They are still reserved for certain races in practice, but the language is changed to make them open to students who further diversity efforts."</p>
<p>Or to paraphrase the President of Swarthmore's speech in the schoolhouse door, "Racial preferences today! Racial preferences tomorrow! Racial preferences forever!"</p>
<p>Patuxent:</p>
<p>Yes. Images of George Wallace in the schoolhouse door in Tuscaloosa are what make me queasy about racial preferences. </p>
<p>Wallace had a theory, widely accepted I might add, that education would be better served by the separation of races. Today's college presidents have a different theory, a theory that I happen to agree with. However, there is no guarantee that, having granted an exception to the Equal Protection Clause, some future college presidents won't use race-based admissions in support of some disturbing new theory. I think it puts too much faith in the "educational theory du jour".</p>
<p>IMO, Martin Luther King, Jr. had it right when he suggested that the only sure-fire solution is to simply not judge based on the color of a person's skin. </p>
<p>Thus, while I am strongly in favor of diverse college environments, I'm philosophically troubled by the concept of race-based admissions. What makes it more perplexing is that I can't think of an alternative approach that would result in admission of reasonable numbers of minority students to the top colleges and universities. I like the result, but I don't like the risk associated with abandoning a fundamental tenent of equality in our Constitution to achieve that result.</p>
<p>interesteddad - so it is not the racial discrimination per se that bothers you it is the victims or beneficiaries that justify it - the theory du jour :-) I sympathize - I'd like to torture terrorists and child molesters (and make Senators Durbin and Kennedy watch) but </p>
<p>"...when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on youwhere would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This countrys planted thick with laws from coast to coastmans laws, not Godsand if you cut them downand youre just the man to do itdyou really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then?"</p>
<p>A Man for All Seasons</p>
<p>
[quote]
so it is not the racial discrimination per se that bothers you it is the victims or beneficiaries that justify it
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't think that's what I said at all. </p>
<p>If given my druthers, I would prefer not to see the current exception to the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. I believe that ML King, Jr. had it exactly right. </p>
<p>I believe that if we, as a society, had rigorously pursued color-blind policies for the last 40 years, there would probably be less need for "affirmative action". In that regard, I'm in agreement with Justice Thomas' dissenting opinion in the Michigan cases. I think that, overall, affirmative action (in all of its entitlement guises) has undermined the assimilation of minority groups into the US middle class.</p>
<p>It's sad that, after nearly 4 decades of the most aggressive affirmative action, my daughter's school finds it more difficult to enroll black students today than when it started, with a smaller percentage of African-American enrollment today than in 1976. </p>
<p>Nationwide, black enrollment in college has only increased from 1.03 million in 1976 to 1.7 million today, which is pathetic given both the starting point and the huge increase in availability of four-year schools at the community level. It is hard to argue that affirmative action has worked. In my opinion, it's a band-aid that has detracted atttention from the real community-based issues.</p>
<p>Having said that....I'm not angry about affirmative action. It is what it is. I like the results in the particular school of interest to me. My D benefits from a school that can afford to attract reasonably high numbers of very highly qualified minority students. Attending a college that is not lilly-white is a good thing.</p>
<p>The thing is, I feel we can never have a truly colorblind society. Each race is invariably fused with its own culture, and if we blind ourselves to color, we inevitably blind ourselves to cultural differences. Example: Asian culture emphasizes objective, memorization-based studies, while American culture emphasizes subjective, concept-based studies. Admissions processes that attempt to skew the number of creative applicants therefore end up skewing the cultural proportions, from which it directly results that they skew the racial proportions.</p>
<p>Therefore, we have not "racial discrimination", but "cultural discrimination". And cultural discrimination is not necessarily bad. After all, haven't we been preaching that we need to be "sensitive" to other people's values?</p>
<p>
[quote]
"They are still reserved for certain races in practice, but the language is changed to make them open to students who further diversity efforts."</p>
<p>Or to paraphrase the President of Swarthmore's speech in the schoolhouse door, "Racial preferences today! Racial preferences tomorrow! Racial preferences forever!"
[/quote]
I generally ignore the baiting that goes on in affirmative action discussions on this board, but as someone sending an African-American son to Swarthmore in the Fall, I find patuxent's paraphrasing comparison to George Wallace too disingenuous to resist. As interesteddad pointed out, Swarthmore's commitment to aggressive A.A. has failed to make a substantial dent in African-American enrollment in the past 4 decades. However, for me the statement by Swarthmore's President does not reflect "preference" so much as it reflects awareness of the issues faced by an an institution whose diversity efforts haved failed to achieve a critical mass. And while my son is one of the "very highly qualified minority students" that interesteddad cites, and while Swathmore has been his first choice from the beginning of this god-awful process, I could not in good faith send him to a school that employs "color-blind" policies in a society that is anything but. In this case, the speech in the schoolhouse door reflects a healthy awareness, not preference. A.A. might be a band-aid, but lacking a viable alternative it's all we've got.</p>
<p>
[quote]
As interesteddad pointed out, Swarthmore's commitment to aggressive A.A. has failed to make a substantial dent in African-American enrollment in the past 4 decades. However, for me the statement by Swarthmore's President does not reflect "preference" so much as it reflects awareness of the issues faced by an an institution whose diversity efforts haved failed to achieve a critical mass.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Actually, that's not how I would characterize Swarthmore's admissions. More accurate, I think, is that the college achieved critical mass 30 years ago. According to the IPEDs statistics, Swarthmore had 8% Af-Am enrollment as early as 1975. So probably a better description would be that their affirmative action efforts paid strong early dividends and, since then, those same efforts have been required to maintain those early gains in the face of increased competition for a limited applicant pool. </p>
<p>Right now, Swarthmore does exceptionally well with Af-Am females, both in terms of enrollment and a graduation rate (97%) that is higher than for white students. The recent stats, enrollment and grad rate for Af-Am males are weak -- probably a reflection of cultural issues in the applicant pool compounded by the short-term reverberation of the decision to dump football during a time-frame that is still counted in grad rate statistics.</p>
<p>Swarthmore has also done an admirable job in diversifying the faculty -- among the highest percentage of Af-Am faculty and tenured Af-Am faculty in the country.</p>
<p>What is hidden in the stats (because colleges won't release the data) is that Swarthmore's Af-Am applicant pool is certainly much stronger today than 30 years ago. Following "The Crisis" in 1969, Swarthmore basically accepted every Af-Am applicant they could find for the next ten years. Today, that is definitely not the case. My impression is that the stats for today's Af-Am students are very high. So that's a major gain that is, unfortunately, hidden. That's an especially important gain for Swarthmore. There is no denying that it is an academically challenging place. They wouldn't be doing anyone favors admitting students who can't do the work.</p>
<p>A measure that I think should be considered more heavily is the degree to which diversity exists in the reality of campus life. Diversity stats on paper with de facto apartheid when students actually arrive on campus is an empty gesture, IMO. All the evidence points to a lower than average degree of de facto segregation and alienation in the campus community, certainly much less than a generation ago. Even the objection to the decision to open up the Tri-Co Summer Orientation to white students was relatively muted. That's a gain, IMO.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Diversity stats on paper with de facto apartheid when students actually arrive on campus is an empty gesture, IMO.
[/quote]
interesteddad, I totally agree, and the strong community commitment to diversity without the need for "specialized" housing was one of the attractions of Swarthmore for my son and his parents.</p>
<p>So much wrong information. No where are Vietnamese considured an URM, for this fact. California has the largest Viet population at around 1.5%, Vietnamese represent around 5% of the Uni of Cal student population and for Cal Stat system it is even higher. By no strech of the imagination can Vietnamese be consiured an URM.</p>
<p>Hell Vietnamese outnumber blacks in all the top California Universties and there are around 10X as many blacks in California as Vietnamese.</p>
<p>The only reason some think Vietnamese are an URM is due to the low college degree attainment rate, howevever this cannot and should not be used to determin if someone is a n URM, because what is measures isn't reflective if the current college graduating population.</p>
<p>As I watch events unfold in the UK and the rest of Europe with their large minority of unassimilated and unassimilatable Muslim minorities it occurs to me that "diversity" might be an over rated value. It is after all what people share in common and value in common that holds a society together. Baseball, hotdogs, motherhood, apple pie, the Super Bowl, and the 4th of July parades are what keep civil society civil in the USA. </p>
<p>There may be other icons in other countries that hold those societies together, some sissy commie footsport like soccer or wine sipping petanque matches. Or kissing a carpet five times a day while facing Mecca. Nothing really wrong with that and it is good to know about but they are not our things and ours are not theirs. Once somebody starts imposing their things on somebody else all hell is apt to break loose. </p>
<p>Before you let somebody in the house you need to decide as a society what you value and how much you value it. Then you need to make that explicitly clear to the invited guest. When in Rome you do as the Romans do.</p>
<p>"Before you let somebody in the house you need to decide as a society what you value and how much you value it. Then you need to make that explicitly clear to the invited guest. When in Rome you do as the Romans do."</p>
<p>The problem is, America seems to have difficulty deciding as a society what its values are. A side effect of the party system is that America basically has TWO sets of values, and neither of them will disappear as long as its supporters remain. This ends up sending mixed messages to immigrants. Try as hard as we might, we still cannot present a united position, and the end result is that we simply cannot "practice what we preach" because we preach mutually exclusive values.</p>
<p>..."diversity" might be an over rated value.</p>
<p>Well, it certainly WASN'T an over rated value when George Wallace declared in his fiery 1963 inaugural speech, "Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" And clearly, diversity is not a "over-rated value" today when people brazenly compare the scant implementation of educational Affirmative Action to 100 years of Jim Crow. Such people undoubtedly stood by during the civil rights struggles of the 60's and 70's, wringing their hands in the belief that, "Martin Luther Coon" was a clear and present danger to the "American way" of life. So it somehow comes as no surprise that these same people are quick to deviously and disengenuously co-opt the words of Dr. King in order to DE-VALUE the ideals of opportunity and diversity.</p>
<p>I see what you mean, Patuxent. Affirmative Action has everything to do with Muslim extremism and terrorism...</p>
<p>"You had my argument slightly backwards. It is all a matter of probability. IQ is a predictor of income, so if your parents are smart, chances are, they are richer than average. This intelligence is heritable and thus passed down from generation to generation."</p>
<p>Ashernm, are you acquainted with the concept of regression to the mean? </p>
<p>More importantly, your statement that "this intelligence is heritable" is an opinion, not an established fact. As you surely must know, it is not one that is widely accepted by psychologists or biologists.</p>
<p>Dr. King was a successful American leader because he embodied American values. George Corley Wallace was a failure because he did not. My fear is that the values of Islam may be antithitical to the American values.</p>
<p>Put another way poetsheart I doubt if you would be any more inclined to encourage widescale immigration of Afrikaner Nationalists than I would or Neo-Nazi skinheads. Of course I could be wrong about that.</p>
<p>You didn't really "get" my post, did you, Patuxent?</p>
<p>Yeah I did. I suggested that familiarity sometime breeds contempt rather than acceptence. Once you came to understand my thinking you proceeded to prove my point and call me in so many words a bigot. We got along much better before we started talking :-)</p>
<p>Probably the wrong thread for me to have brought up the UK events.</p>
<p>"My fear is that the values of Islam may be antithitical to the American values."</p>
<p>Umm...no religion's values are "antithical to the American values." At the core of every religion are brotherly love, self-sacrifice, following of the conscience, and submission to just authority. If these are anti-American, then we have a BIG problem.</p>
<p>It's important to separate Islam from the extremist cults that lead to terrorism.</p>
<p>I am not sure that "At the core of every religion are brotherly love, self-sacrifice, following of the conscience, and submission to just authority." Indeed I am quite sure that is not the case. Ritual sacrifice, infanticide, and cannibalism have all be integral parts of some religions. In the case of Islam it explicitly calls on believers to wage war on non-believers and apostates and demands that they either convert or accept second class citizenship in a theocratic state. You will have a pretty hard time squaring that with our Bill of Rights or our conceptions of Natural Law.</p>