<p>Feh. Wushanley’s editorial is extremely flawed for two reasons.</p>
<p>First, despite patronizingly referring to “facts about real America,” her argument that it is wrong to expect blacks to have “closed to gap without any institutional advocacy” ignores other facts. As Thomas Sowell has documented in his book, Affirmative Action Around The World, from 1940 to 1960, the percentage of black families with incomes below the official poverty line decreased from 87% to 47%. This was in spite of institutional racism. From 1960 to 1970, the percentage decreased from 47% to 30%. From 1970 to 1980, the percentage decreased from 30% to…wait for it…29%. Even if you wanted to attribute that measly one percentage point decrease entirely to affirmative action, that would still suggest that affirmative action almost did nothing to help poor blacks. This isn’t a surprise since affirmative action is really nothing more than a middle-class entitlement, but obviously anyone who disagrees and refers to these other facts lives in an “imaginary America,” right?</p>
<p>Second, Wushanley conveniently ignores that [at</a> her school and at other Ivy Leagues](<a href=“https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/01/black]at”>https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/02/01/black), first- and second-generation black Americans of direct Caribbean and African ancestry are “overrepresented” by more than a factor of 3. These highly qualified, competitive students have little to no connection to black Americans whose ancestors “were brought here as slaves.” They have little to no connection to black Americans whose grandparents lived through Jim Crow. While it may let Wushanley and you sleep better at night thinking that affirmative action is justified by America’s past sins, I completely fail to see how disproprotionately granting preferential treatment to first- and second-generation black Americans compensates in any way.</p>
<p>Really, you have no argument here, at least no argument that is even remotely coherent. First you give me the stock indignant spiel about how the “URMs” at Penn are as qualified as everyone else. Um, if you actually believe that, then Penn doesn’t need affirmative action. Of course you refuse to acknowledge this. So, you then make the all-too-common mistake of citing socioeconomic disparities as justification for racial preferences. Um, socioeconomic disparities justify socioeconomic preferences. And besides, the vast majority of “URMs” at Penn et al. come from rather privileged backgrounds. But you still won’t admit your argument is bad, so now you give me a really horribly reasoned student editorial to go back to arguing for racial preferences. Except, despite its flaws, Wushanley actually admits that a “crippling failure” of the current system is that it doesn’t take socioeconomic status into account as much as it should.</p>
<p>@picktails
So are Asians not people of color? Or are they not deserving of getting help? do you honestly think there isn’t racism against Asians? Affirmative action essentially punishes asians to help upper middle class hisapnics and blacks who aren’t anywhere near as qualified. @OHMomof2 I don’t think MLK would approve of a program that harms one minority group to help another. I believe he stood for all minorities. </p>
<p>I’m with in agreement with @fabrizio on this, isn’t this the one thread on CC to discuss Race in college admissions and isn’t affirmative action a Race in college admissions topic? If not, where is the AA thread?? If there is a dedicated AA thread, is there a dedicated thread to discuss colleges that practice reverse AA?</p>
<p>@jym626 I don’t think that is the thread which the moderator is speaking about. It is nearly a year old and I have been warned that entering comments on old threads is not allowed. I have been told this is the only thread to discuss Race in College Admission issues.</p>
<p>@jym626 All but one of the comments was 4 years old and the last comment was 9 months old. I commented on a thread where last comment was 9 months old and was given a warning for trying to revive “old” thread. So I don’t think that is what the moderator was referring to. @MaineLonghhorn where is the AA thread we need to go to???</p>
<p>@rhandco I would generally agree with you but I would also say that racial AA should be a tie breaker between similar candidates rather than an additional weighted factor. I am not for giving additional points to an applicant just because of their race. This to me is like giving an Asian runner in an Olympic 100 Meter race a 1 second head start against Usain Bolt to level the playing field and if Usain Bolt only makes up 0.99 seconds, the Asian runner is declared the winner. However, I do not have a problem giving the win to the Asian runner if he and Usain Bolt tie in a fair race, if the rules require only one winner.</p>
<p>Interesting. If I read you correctly, you are indicating that we need to expand AA to all areas. AA towards college acceptance and filling jobs should focus on blacks and Latinos, and maybe women in some cases. AA towards athletes should focus on Asians. AA towards manual labor and the military should focus on women. </p>
<p>The commonality for most AA cases is that there <em>will</em> be extra effort to maintain the person - in college, in the workplace, in sports - if the need for AA is real. This is the case with disabled people, if you take on someone with a disability as a worker or student, you will have to expend some time and money for reasonable accommodations. Yet, I see time and again that colleges <em>do</em> discriminate against disabled/classified college applicants because they see them as a “burden”, but I don’t see any comments on AA for URM relating to the new possibly less qualified students being a burden…</p>
<p>@rhandco Really, that’s what you got from my comments!? How is all of what you wrote have anything to do with racial AA being a tie breaker?? You should reread the comment because it is clear that you have not read it correctly.</p>
<p>We must disregard all aspects of race during the college admissions process. Nowadays, affirmative action is just an excuse to allow unqualified people get spots over the qualified. </p>
<p>@drcharisma Are you saying that we are now in a perfect state of nirvana as it relates to Race? And there is no longer any Racial discrimination anywhere in the US? </p>
<p>AA has been about giving minorities opportunities that were not available because of past and present discrimination based upon race. Your gripe is that your self interest is being jeopardized because whatever there is left of AA will take opportunities away from you. </p>
<p>BTW AA does not “allow unqualified people get spots over the qualified”, it gives some students who are otherwise “qualified” an opportunity to attend top colleges that have much influence and power in our society. I would agree with you that I would not support letting a 2.5 GPA African American student into medical school over an 3.8 GPA White student. But I have no qualms about a 3.5 GPA African American getting in over the same 3.8 GPA White student. In my mind, the two GPAs are similar enough to give the preference to a minority applicant.</p>
<p>However, I cannot understand schools like Washington and Lee that accept White students over better qualified minority applicants because the minority applicant can’t play sports or isn’t a child of an alumni or some other EC that the school claims is prized in its admission decision.</p>
<p>In a perfect world, I would agree with you Dr. Charisma, but we do not live in a perfect world.</p>
<p>@voiceofreason66 My dear friend, no I am not saying that. I acknowledge the fact that “racial discrimination” exists in the world, but I disagree that it exists in the admissions process. I can see why the government would implement AA, but I feel that nowadays it has become antiquated in the admissions process. Nowadays, committees review each applicant. If you are to tell me that each of these members will reject an applicant just because he is Black, then I don’t know what to tel you.</p>
<p>In regards to your example of choosing a 3.5 African-American over a 3.8 White student, that is exactly screwing over the more qualified students. Just because he is Black, that means he should be admitted over the White student? No way. But then again, colleges do have to fill their racial quotas, or else they’ll be criticized.</p>
<p>Boosting an applicant’s chances just because of their skin color is an outdated concept. Racism is no longer as bad as it was fifty years ago. Come to 2014, my friend. The stupid thing is that AA does not take into account socioeconomic conditions. Rich Black kids who have SAT tutors, books, and all the resources available should be put on the same pedestal as White kids of the same circumstances. To think that this rich Black would get preference over a more qualified White just because he is Black is narrow-minded. </p>
<p>@drcharisma You do realize that low socioeconomic conditions are more prevalent to URMs than Whites. As I have stated in prior postings, giving low SES students a helping hand regardless of their race is a good thing. Having said that, when pitted head to head with similarly qualified applicants, one being White and another a person of color, I do not see a problem giving the student of color the nod. (ie Rich Black vs Rich White; Poor Black vs Poor White) Now if it was Rich Black vs. Poor White then my nod will always go to the more disadvantaged, in this case Poor White.</p>
<p>You used my example of two students of different ethnicity as an example of “screwing over the more qualified student.” You realize that under “holistic” admission students with higher GPA and test scores are routinely denied admission so that students who have lower academic qualifications can be admitted for a variety of reasons that is not so transparent by many AdComs. </p>
<p>You also use the “rich Black kid would get preference over a more qualified White just because he is Black is narrow-minded” argument. You assume that being a rich Black kid means that this all such students do not face racial discrimination because of his/her SES. I am pretty sure that is false. So again, if similar students are pitted against each other for admission, I see no problem in giving the minority applicant the nod. </p>
<p>If you really want to abolish discrimination in the admission process, it should for AdCom’s giving admission benefits to “Legacy” and “athlete” applicants. You should champion that cause, because until the color of one’s skin is an afterthought, giving preference to qualified URMs over White applicants does not make me narrow minded.</p>
<p>BTW you do realize that most AdComs do favor the full pay student over those that need financial aid. Rich kids have natural benefit of privilege that money provides but schools are businesses that want to keep its doors open so I do not begrudge them too much even though I do not like it. There are only a handful of need blind colleges and even those schools as describe in prior posts on this thread, wealth of a students seems to be a strong factor in the admission process.</p>
<p>Dr charisma, if you think being black still doesn’t have implications…you are simply naive. I was in the car last week with an AA friend, and he got stopped for driving while black. I WAS THERE, in the car and saw it…the attitudes of the 4 cop cars that ended up there. No drugs, no alcohol, registered car, insured driver. Yet we were detained for 40 minutes. The kicker…the AA driver was a former Philadelphia cop. Shame on him for driving in a upscale white neighborhood. 8-eta…income level doesn’t have anything to do with this kind of treatment.</p>
<p>@GA2012MOM
Do you really think that Asians don’t suffer from discrimination? Do you really believe that they have it better than white people and thus should have a harder time getting into colelges than whites as is currently the case?
Essentially do you believe in asian privilege instead of white privilege.
There’s a reason that few asians go into humanities and in the higher ranks of business there are very few asians, there is still lots of discrimination against them in subjective things like that, which is why they primarily go into more objective stem fields. Asians are stereotyped as being robotic, lacking any actual talent, a hardworking drone, being weak, having poor people skills, not being a part of american culture, stealing jobs taht rightfully should belong to “native” americans (whites), etc, stereotyped into being workers instead of leaders. Just because Asians fight extremely hard to overcome their discrimination (on average), they shouldn’t be punished. Now, I wouldn’t disagree that blacks and hispanics face even more discrimination, so you could agree with giving them a boost, but i don’t see why asians should be punished for working harder and caring more on average (imo which other minorities should try to copy …). </p>
<p>I agree that he would not approve of such a program but I do not agree that AA harms Asian people, at least not directly.</p>
<p>I know you feel differently but IMO, AA for certain racial groups “takes spots” away from academically deserving Asian and white applicants less than other admissions preferences do, legacy and especially athletics.</p>
<p>At selective schools, the athletes are often from high-family-income sports of a certain type, too…fencing, crew, sailing, water polo, etc., though it takes a lot of money to move up the ranks in most all of them (year round travel teams and clubs, coaches, private lessons, etc etc).</p>
<p>I wonder what % of recruited athletes at top schools are Asian?</p>