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E. Royster Harper, the University’s vice president for student life, was part of the protest, as well as members of University Housing, Security, the Office of Admissions and the Office of Academic Multicultural Initiatives.</p>
<p>“Michigan has this huge appeal of diversity — or that’s the way that they market themselves. But when you get here it’s completely different.” -LSA senior Chloe Brown
<p>My opinion is that these protests are pointless until we address the education inequality that many of these minorities are facing in high school. I’m sure Mich would love to accept more Blacks/Hispanics but the question is whether or not they can find enough that meet the academic standards</p>
<p>I’ve heard the minority yield is really bad. The URMs the University lets in often decide to go elsewhere, often times less selective schools like Michigan State and HBCUs.</p>
<p>I don’t actually understand why Michigan tries to claim it is or tries to be diverse. I don’t see the benefit or potential upside. What good does diversity do for the majority of it’s students?</p>
<p>I didn’t see it but I have a hard time imagining that there was anyone who wasn’t looking simply for more of their own, or someone who simply wanted to look “enlightened.”</p>
<p>Well, it might help them get jobs. Most major employers have their own diversity hiring/recruitment/retention goals. Some may decide to pass on doing any recruiting at schools that are not very diverse, and instead concentrate their recruiting efforts on schools where they’re more likely to find the diverse mix of job candidates they’re looking for. In addition, many major employers say they strongly prefer to hire candidates who are accustomed to working in diverse settings, because they have or are attempting to build a diverse workforce and they want employees who will help make that work. In entry-level hiring, the easiest screen for that is to ask, how diverse was the campus environment this applicant came from?</p>
<p>I also strongly believe that college is about more than just the classroom and career preparation. It’s also a time when young people are learning about life, and about the world they live in. Having the opportunity to interact with peers from a wide variety of backgrounds is an important part of that learning experience. Everyone gets shortchanged, IMO, if the student body doesn’t reflect the diversity of the state, of the nation, and to some degree of the world.</p>
<p>Beyond the benefits to students already on campus, the University of Michigan is a public institution and, as such, has an obligation to serve all the people of the state. That means recruiting not just affluent white kids from suburban Detroit (and suburban Chicago, and suburban New York, and suburban DC). In fact, what it has to offer is probably more important to first-gens and kids from lower SES backgrounds as a way of creating avenues for upward social mobility. If a public higher education system isn’t doing that, I see no reason why it should remain public.</p>
<p>To what extent does this occur? On the point that a company wouldn’t want to recruit at the school, it seems that any individual company’s hiring from a single school is going to be so small compared to the graduating class, that it’s not really an issue. And let’s say that a campus is the same ethnic make-up at the country, how can a company tell if that means that the applicant has a diverse group of friends? Maybe there aren’t enough Eskimos in the school that any Eskimo could only interact with other Eskimos, but for any other ethnic group you can’t really say anything. Maybe employers want that, but they don’t have any way to determine who to hire or where to recruit based off of it. </p>
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<p>Just a difference of opinion I guess, but I think it’s more valuable for me personally to interact with people in college who are more like who I will interact with in professional life. I have no doubt at all that it will look more like the ethnic make-up of UMich than the ethnic make-up of the country or of Michigan. I guess I don’t know where the balance should be though, as other students might interact professionally with people more like the make-up of the US. </p>
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<p>What is your opinion of how the admissions should decide on who to admit and who to reject? In full? What role should stats play, essays, and race or other factors? I’m not understanding your thought process on this point.</p>
<p>“Well, it might help them get jobs. Most major employers have their own diversity hiring/recruitment/retention goals.”</p>
<p>What is the point of that?</p>
<p>Isn’t more important for the employer to get the best employees possible, rather than the most diverse group possible?</p>
<p>Seriously, what is so great about racial/ethnic diversity? Everyone talks about how great it is and how beneficial it is for everyone. Where is the hard core proof? Where is any hard evidence that shows the benefit?</p>
<p>I grew up in a very white city. I turned out to be fine. I don’t think I would have turned out to be a better (or different) person had the city been less white.</p>
<p>At U-M, I (a white person) hang out with mostly Asians. I don’t think I am better person now than before because I am hanging out with a lot more Asians.</p>
<p>During the summer, I interned in a mostly white department for a company. Once again, I don’t feel like I missed out anything because the population wasn’t racially diverse.</p>
<p>Where is the hard core proof that shows a community is better off when it is more racially diverse?</p>
<p>I’m not saying I hate diversity. I don’t hate diversity. However, I hate it when universities and employers try to force it. I don’t see the point in race based affirmative action.</p>
<p>I would rather see diversity occur naturally. For instance, when black baseball players started to play in MLB, there was no affirmative action. Jackie Robinson and company earned their spots. They were not given the opportunity to play because they were black. There are more Asians playing in MLB now than before too. They were signed because they can play. They weren’t signed to increase diversity.</p>
<p>In this thread are people who don’t know what it’s like to be a poor minority in America. People who got into a University because of privilege and want their alma mater full of students from similar privileged backgrounds. Why interrupt the unfair cycle that keeps people like you at the top, right?</p>
<p>^By minority do you just mean Blacks and Hispanics? Because Asians and Indians from poor families certainly do not get the racist affirmative action boost.</p>
<p>"^By minority do you just mean Blacks and Hispanics? Because Asians and Indians from poor families certainly do not get the racist affirmative action boost."</p>
<p>Because Detroit, Baltimore, Oakland and Memphis are just full of high-achieving Asians and Indians, who somehow find a way to dodge bullets and get perfect ACT scores. You sound outrageous.</p>
<p>Actually, you are the one that sounds outrageous and incapable of getting the point, but we have already established that from the other thread.</p>
<p>You are arguing from the premise that poor minorities don’t have the opportunity to succeed, and hence college admissions should adopt racist policies to give them a boost. </p>
<p>What you neglected to consider is that if you rewind one generation or two (and this is even true to some degree today, just look around in Chinatown in any major city), most asians and indians were in the exact same boat. They came here penniless (unlike the new money Chinese foreign students nowadays), either from the railroad worker generation or basically fled their country with no job and skill rotting in Chinatown/Koreantown or running 7-11s. Many of them climbed their way out of whatever craphole they came from because of hardwork, intelligence and determination, as opposed to some racist boosting system. Culturally, they are programmed to think that being educated and saving every penny they got is the way to lift themselves out of their undesirable situation. Parents, even with their humble backgrounds, would spend every last penny for their kid’s education. This group of poor minority did not have to benefit from affirmative action. If anything, Asians and Indians suffer from the opposite effect of affirmative action nowadays. But did this stop them? No.</p>
<p>The lack of qualified admissible students from the black/hispanic community is a cultural thing, and has nothing to do with being poor or being a minority. Countless studies have pointed out the prevalent cultural thinking within the black community that being educated, studying, going to school is a “white” thing; and it’s uncool to be white. And when kids from that community see the light and try to work hard, they get bullied and ridiculed for being a traitor to their heritage. The black and hispanic community needs a cultural change, not an unmeritocratic, racist affirmative action system.</p>
<p>Of course most people already know this. But supporting racist action is a great political position for a lot of politicians to take, especially when Blacks (12.6%) and Hispanics (16.4%) make up a large chunk of the voting population</p>
<p>The fact is, if you are an underrepresented minority (black, Hispanic) and you have the stats to get into Michigan, you will be heavily recruited by many prestigious private universities like the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Duke, Northwestern, Hopkins etc. Many of these schools will offer financial packages that are way better than anything Michigan can offer because they have more financial aid available and they have affirmative action policies that compel them to recruit URMs.</p>
<p>I’ve seen many instances of lower to middle income minorities who not only choose a private school over Michigan because of the perceived prestige difference but because it was actually cheaper to attend.</p>
<p>Plain and simple, there’s not enough high stats URMs to go around.</p>
<p>“I want the university to accept the most qualified applicants, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, etc.”</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>“In this thread are people who don’t know what it’s like to be a poor minority in America. People who got into a University because of privilege and want their alma mater full of students from similar privileged backgrounds. Why interrupt the unfair cycle that keeps people like you at the top, right?”</p>