<p>Does it really matter? Life is unfair. It's been proved numerous times in the past...like Hitler smiting the Jews..LIFE IS UNFAIR.</p>
<p>My GRANDPARENTS, who grew up in the South, are racist. My father is not. I won't comment any further on this issue... I'd just like to say that attacking my family is a bit... immature, on your part?</p>
<p>well the above post i think was totally out of order, i mean. to generalize genocide in "life is unfair" in itself was extremyl unfair and inappropriate, really. i'd like to see you say life is unfair when your entire family is shot and dumped into a well or something, y'know? give better examples if you wanna say "life is unfair". </p>
<p>back tot he discussion, colleges justify their approach to AA to maintain diversity. without it, you'd get what's going on in California when 50% of Berkeley kids are Asian. to let go of AA in itself also goes against the whole maintaining diversity thing, so in a way colleges need to be absolved from some blame against the whole race issue.</p>
<p>having said that it's a pity that some minorities (asians in particular) will be ousted for "lesser" applicants in the need to create diversity. but until you are accepted, you are essentially a producer trying to sell youreslf to a customer (the college). the college is looking for certain things - and too much of certain thigs may not be in their interests.</p>
<p>the analogy that the Stanford dean gave of having an orchestra i think was apt. 100 flute players are needed, and therea re 150 flut applicants. you have to reject 50 of them.. but you only have 1 timpani space and yet only 1 applies, then that 1 will get in regardless of whatver. sure, some people may have more expensive isntruments that make them sound better, but this is where the "Life is Unfair" from above comes in.. trying to ablanace too much may cause a bit of an imbalance like California state schools are enduring now.</p>
<p>above post as in the post above above, MonoTombow's post.
Silverkinz managed to beat me by 2 minutes heh</p>
<p>norcalguy, how do you suggest society correct the problem as you see it? If your hypothesis is true then the change needs to be in the home and community at a very young age. Society cannot bring a child to preschool, read to him/her, provide educational toys etc.. The change and focus must come from within the disadvantaged communities whether they be white/black/hispanic/asian/indian...i believe that no matter where a child resides in this country the opportunity to suceed is available if sought out actively, it may be more difficult for some then others but it is there.</p>
<p>Just Browsing - I'm going to have to disagree with you there. WatchMeShine is 100% correct on his point that AA should not take into account race because race is a poor indicator of advantaged/disadvantaged students.</p>
<p>It's less about making allowances for disadvantages and more about creating a diverse college environment that is enriching for all students. That's where race figures in prominently. People of different races bring different cultural heritages and life experiences which enrich the college experience for everyone. Also, business and other workplaces (non-profits) have recognized the value of a racially and culturally diverse workforce -- think about the market of any business or constituency of any non-profit. Organizations realize the insights and questioning of assumptions that come from diversity in the workforce are very valuable. College admissions is not just about rewarding scholastic accomplishments but preparing students for the real world.</p>
<p>You're right, totally inappropriate of me to criticise your family.</p>
<p>But I found your post screaming with racism that without any evidence at all you would blame minorities for your fathers unfortunate story.</p>
<p>I don't agree at all with AA, and I'm not white.</p>
<p>Ug...why do we always manage to get into these same AA debates? We just reiterate the same points over and over.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
you shouldn't have to worry at all about affirmative action because it wouldn't affect you.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>When you're thinking at the margin in college admissions, it's impossible to say that if one is helped, another is not hurt. If a college has a fifty percent acceptance rate, for example, it's a zero sum game; for every person admitted, another is rejected. At more selective colleges, more are rejected for each one admitted.</p>
<p>When we're talking about affirmative action, we're talking about more privileged, qualified white or Asian people against less priveleged URMs who may be equally or slightly less qualified. If they are equally qualified, I have no problem with the URMs getting in. However, if they are less qualified, they really shouldn't get in in an attempt to force diversity among people.</p>
<p>You're also forgetting that there are poor white and Asian kids, and there are rich African-Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. The fact that these privileged people get some kind of advantage angers me, and the disparity in earnings by race could more accurately be fixed by an income-based affirmative action program.</p>
<p>Also, colleges, when considering AA, often like to look at Asians as nerdy, boring, etc. I've never met one Asian who fits the colleges' portrayal of them. There has also been a very extensive history of racism against Asians, especially in the West. The only reason people don't know about it is because there aren't many Asians and their history isn't taught in schools. We've suffered worse than Plessy (People v. Hall, Takao Ozawa v. United States, Bhagat Singh Thing v. United States, etc.), and we really can't take slavery into account here, because it was mostly the post-slavery period up to the '60s, mostly just in the South, that caused so many African-Americans to be impoverished. However, we don't get anything out of this, nor do we deserve it; in fact, nobody deserves compensation for something their great-grandparents suffered.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
The problem is cultural. To correct this, we need more education programs in the URM communities to instill the value of education at a young age. By age 18, your views on education are pretty much set whether some Ivy League college gives you a boost in admissions or not. That's why affirmative action does not work. It doesn't act until these kids are already college age. Whites and Asians consistently outperform blacks and hispanics not because of socioeconomic advantages (as evidenced by the fact that poor whites still outperform rich blacks on the SAT's) but because there is no stress on education in the URM community. Shooting free throws is more important than reading the biology textbook. We need to correct that. Affirmative action only addresses the surface of the problem. It gives the politicians an easy way of addressing the "minority problem." Instead, we should be attacking the problem at its roots.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>If that was written more subtly, I would agree with it. Trying to fix things up at that age will do little. I know for a fact that most Asian parents push their kids to work hard, and the kids rise to the level, even when the expectations are gone.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
the analogy that the Stanford dean gave of having an orchestra i think was apt. 100 flute players are needed, and therea re 150 flut applicants. you have to reject 50 of them.. but you only have 1 timpani space and yet only 1 applies, then that 1 will get in regardless of whatver.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Now you're talking quotas. 100 non-URMs are never needed, nor is 1 URM. The quota system was ruled unconstitutional in Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, which, unfortunately, also upheld Johnson's Executive Order 11246. That example is dismal, and if Stanford practices that, it's violating common law.</p>
<p>Also, remember that AA does not benefit so many of the poor blacks whose ancestors suffered through slavery; it mostly benefits new arrivals from Africa and the West Indies, who are already considered a model minority as it is.</p>
<p>prole</p>
<p>You write as if an individual has an entitlement to a place at a top school based on his or her credentials as a student. It's not about the individual student, it's about the college. Admissions officers are doing what's determined to be in the best interests of the institution, and that may include weighing factors beyond scholastic accomplishments in order to create a diverse student population. </p>
<p>You talk about "more qualified" and "less qualified" but that adresses only one aspect of the admission decision-making process: a student's potential to perform academically at a satisfactory level. There's a lot more to it than that, as there should be.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
You talk about "more qualified" and "less qualified" but that adresses only one aspect of the admission decision-making process: a student's potential to perform academically at a satisfactory level.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Well, race certainly plays absolutely NO part in determining to academic potential of a student.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Admissions officers are doing what's determined to be in the best interests of the institution, and that may include weighing factors beyond scholastic accomplishments in order to create a diverse student population.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>So far, in California and Michigan, public institutions are not allowed to practice affirmative action, and many indicators show that this will spread. Also, judging by the large proportion of voters, even in more liberal states, against affirmative action, it isn't so much in the best interests of the institution. I don't see why it is in the interest of schools to try to force diversity, and it really shouldn't be.</p>
<p>There are many ways to promote (not force) diversity, and affirmative action is not the best.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, race certainly plays absolutely NO part in determining to academic potential of a student
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well pro, neither does gender, geography, nationality, economic status, athletic, artistic, dramatic or musical ability, most ECs or number of community service hours (among other things), but all of these things are considered by most schools in the admissions process.</p>
<p>A suggestion for all of you out there who are so averse to colleges who seek racial diversity in admissions:</p>
<p>Don't apply to any of those schools! If you are pleased with the UC and UMichigan way of admitting students, then just apply to those schools - they are excellent, and you won't have to deal with any angst caused by your percieved "unfairness" of URMs getting in.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Well pro, neither does gender, geography, nationality, economic status, athletic, artistic, dramatic or musical ability, most ECs or number of community service hours (among other things), but all of these things are considered by most schools in the admissions process.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Artistic, dramatic, and musical ability, as well as ECs are relatively good indicators of academic potential, if used in the proper way. As for the others, I never did say they should be used.</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Whites and Asians consistently outperform blacks and hispanics not because of socioeconomic advantages (as evidenced by the fact that poor whites still outperform rich blacks on the SAT's) but because there is no stress on education in the URM community. Shooting free throws is more important than reading the biology textbook. We need to correct that. Affirmative action only addresses the surface of the problem. It gives the politicians an easy way of addressing the "minority problem." Instead, we should be attacking the problem at its roots.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>I outperform every white student in my class, and as a Hispanic, I find it offensive that you would generalize all Hispanics this way. </p>
<p>Most of the time, it is because white students have advantages over URM's that they score higher. Being from a ghetto neighborhood, I can tell you now that surviving is, and will forever be, way more important than over achieving in school. </p>
<p>A white student having lived in a upper middle class society his entire life and has been given all the opportunities a student could imagine. </p>
<p>A Hispanic student having lived in a lower class society his entire life and hasn't been given all the opportunities because 1) his family can't afford it, 2) he has to work to support his family on top of school, 3) language barriers, and 4) his parents are too busy supporting the family to keep them off the streets to push education. </p>
<p>Affirmative Action does not mean an under qualified Hispanic is going to get in. If a Hispanic got in over a white person, it's because he earned it.</p>
<p>hkstrpd: thanks for your support and thats exactly what i meant. </p>
<p>Ok, I'm sorry but for everyone who supports Affirmative Action, I really don't understand your point. Many of you are bringing in the whole "economically" or "socially" disadvantaged thing. I think this is discrimination itself! Is it just me, or can a white person be poor and disadvantaged? Is it just me, or can a URM be rich and go to a top high school? Race should have nothing to do with college admissions WHAT SO EVER because I believe any person, URM or not, even female or male or what ever...everyone can find themselves in similar situations and each type of person is no less capable of succeeding. I'm not comparing a poor black to a rich white or a poor white to rich black...im comparing a poor to a poor and a rich to a rich. Now, I have nothing against helping kids who are from disadvantaged situations/places/school/etc but the people who come from these places are all different colors, orgins, sexes, and etc.</p>
<p>I feel like a broken record but I must say again, AA contradicts itself. It actually promotes discrimination by raising/lowering the bar for different types of people.</p>
<p>I hope no one minds me joining in the debate, and I hope I don't step on anybody's toes.</p>
<p>Having many people of varying skin tones in the same building does not equate to diversity. I live in a middleclass suburb, and about 6-8 percent of the students at my high school are black (i.e. of African origin) and as a group neither behave differently, think differently, nor hold different ideologies from other races. Assuming they have equal credentials, I don't see how accepting a black student over an Asian student in this situation would accomplish any diversity. It's one thing to give some leeway to a socioeconomically disadvantaged student who had fewer opportunities and a poorer learning environment, and completely another to a student who was born with a genome entailing dark skin.</p>
<p>Perhaps this is a moot point, but consider which is group more diverse: an Asian, a Hispanic, a black, and a white, OR a socialist, a facist, an anarchist, and a capitalist? Now, obviously it makes no sense to have political affiliations affect the decisions process, but you get my point. Race does not create diversity. Thought creates diversity. Beliefs create diversity. The only factor to affirmative action is race, and race should never be decisive a factor in admission (which, despite arguments otherwise, it has occasionally proven to be).</p>
<p>Futhermore, as proletariat has pointed out, URMs are not the only races to have suffered injustice in the past. There were such things Japanese internment, the Chinese excluisionary act, and all kinds of phobias of the "yellow peril". While slavery was a terrible thing and went on much too long, it ended 140 years ago. Asians underwent much of the same cruelty in the mid-twentieth century as blacks and Hispanics, sometimes even worse. They did not receive as much attention because they were fewer in numbers, but in my opinion this does not take away from what they suffered.</p>
<p>In many ways, affirmative action can be counter productive, undervaluing the achievements made by women and URMs. It's disgusting how many times I've heard people say behind the backs of others, "Oh, he only got in because he's black" or even to their faces: "Why don't you give up your job to the white man who deserves it!" Some people have, unfortunately, come to believe that the only ways in which women and URMs can compete in the real world is if they get a leg up. This is not just leveling the playing field, especially since reverse discrimination in the working world is becoming more and more prevalent. This is just confirming the suspicions of backwards racists that yes, women and minorities are genetically and intellectually inferior, and yes, they can't accomplish anything on their own without affirmative action.</p>
<p>Another point was brought up earlier, albeit not very tastefully, that many Asian families value education and push their children harder than some URM families. Before I get death threats over this, allow me to quote William Raspberry, a black man, in his 1982 "The Handicap of Definition" (and honesty, not a lot has changed in the intervening 25 years).
[quote]
What we have here is a tragically limited definition of blackness, and it isn't only the white people who buy it.
Think of all the way black children can put one another down with charges of "whiteness." For many of these children, hard study and hard work are "white."...
...Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could infect black children with the notion that excellence in math is "black" rather than white, or possibly Chinese?...
There is no doubt in my mind that most black youngsters could develop their mathematical reasoning, their elocution and their attitudes the way they develop their jump shots and their dance steps: by the combination of sustained, enthusiastic practice and the unquestioned belief that they can do it.
[/quote]
As far as I can tell, affirmative action does not meet this last goal, despite its attempts. It does not teach URMs or anybody to work harder to achieve their dreams, but that, because they are different, things should be easier for them. This system makes no sense to me. Race should not be the key issue when it comes to increasing diversity or helping intelligent but disadvantaged students.</p>
<p>Perhaps I don't understand the fundamental basis of affirmative action, and if anyone else here does, feel free to explain it to me. I'm open to other opinions :)</p>
<p>
[QUOTE]
Affirmative Action does not mean an under qualified Hispanic is going to get in. If a Hispanic got in over a white person, it's because he earned it.
[/QUOTE]
</p>
<p>Well, if he earned it, he shouldn't have a problem getting in without the benefit of affirmative action.</p>