<p>I think Affirmative Action is the wrong answer to the right question. Affirmative Action addresses this: how to we help under-served populations receive “fair” treatment from employers and institutions of higher learning? When Affirmative Action was established, under-served populations were those that were systematically racially discriminated against. Affirmative Action, with the rise of the new generation, quickly became obsolete. Today, the problem is that Affirmative Action answers the question based on race, when under-served populations have changed. While racism still blatantly exists in this country (in many ways, as I will probably point out later), it is less of a problem. The under-served populations in our country are now, more than ever before, low-income students. When AA was introduced, a college education could be paid for with work and reasonable debt. This increased mobility for low-income and lower-middle-income students. That is no longer the case. It is now impossible for a low-income student to reasonably consider any four-year education. That includes CC –> public, which can cost up to $80,000 total. For that consideration, see another post.</p>
<p>So, Affirmative Action is definitely the wrong program at the wrong time, although it does address the right problem. However, we’d be having the same conversation if Affirmative Action were socioeconomically based (and, I will insert here that I do advocate active socioeconomic based Affirmative Action and believe that a system without any Affirmative Action whatsoever would decrease social mobility to an unbearable level). Low-income students would get into Harvard or Yale and would be perceived to be unqualified. Middle and upper income students would argue that they were being shunted from their “spots” at these top universities because those universities had or wanted to admit more low-income students. Middle or upper income students would argue that the system is inherently unfair because of this or that. It’s true, Affirmative Action in any form is unfair. That’s fine, though, because the college admissions process is UNFAIR. The college admissions process at top schools has remarkably little to do with academic merit. Almost all students who put in an application to the top schools are said to be, by the top schools themselves, ACADEMICALLY QUALIFIED. Those who aren’t are simply not admitted.</p>
<p>Let me segway into the meat and potatoes of this conversation. We have all pretty much determined that Affirmative Action is not a good policy. However, in its current practice, more wrong is done by its strong opposers than is done by the practice. I say that for these reasons.</p>
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<li> RACISM - I would argue that Affirmative Action in and of itself is not a racist policy, but it can be implemented in such a fashion. However, Affirmative Action DOES bring out the blatant racism of some of its opposition (and possibly even its supporters, whoever they are). Rtgrove, for example, has proposed that minorities cannot possibly compete at the same academic level of majority or ORM students:</li>
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<p>Such ridiculous statements are certainly racist, or “the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races.” Now, it IS true that a smaller percentage of African Americans score highly on the SAT than white or Asian students. Absolutely true. However, there are also significantly fewer African American students in the United States. Regardless of AA, if colleges wanted to maintain a black population on campus, it comes to a point where the numbers simply don’t match up. There are simply more white students in the United States. Period. How do Asians factor into the numbers? They have a culture that promotes high academic achievement - as an African American, I’d say our “culture” (which is ridiculous, but alas another argument) has the opposite atmosphere, thus explaining our low percentage of high-achieving students.</p>
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<li><p>DISCRIMINATION. Affirmative Action or not, it doesn’t matter whether an African American student on campus at a 4.0 and a 2400. Some students, especially some of the posters on this board, will still assume that student is academically statistically inferior because that person is African American, and is therefore, in their eyes, an Affirmative Action admit. That sounds like “the prejudice that members of one race are intrinsically superior to members of other races” to me (aka, racism). It doesn’t matter whether a Hispanic has a 2400 on the SAT - perhaps even coming from a non-English speaking home - because some students will always look at that student and see Affirmative Action, not academic talent. And a white student on campus is going to thought to have had a 2350 and a 4.0, when the fact may remain that he or she is a 2000-scoring crew recruit. Or, an Asian student on campus may be thought to have had a 2400 and a 4.0 when in reality had a 2100 and a legacy, or even a 2100 but a knack for winning competitions, or a 2000 and a truly outstanding track record of community service. Affirmative Action is a problem. Discrimination by some Affirmative Action opponents is a bigger problem.</p></li>
<li><p>FAIRNESS. Some opponents of Affirmative Action seem to think that the college admissions process is a meritocracy. Score well and do well in school, and somehow you deserve to be admitted to a top school. This is B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T. Even if AA didn’t exist, the college application process wouldn’t be any more academically-centered. Harvard could easily fill its class, even under the current AA system, with 2300+s and 4.0s. Heck, even if it did it would still have to reject students. It doesn’t. Why? It’s NOT A STATISTICS GAME. The process is not only holistic, its subjective. The college admissions process have very little to do with academic merit as long as the student has a 2000+ and a decent GPA or rank. And it would be extremely difficult to find a student at one of those institutions who doesn’t have a 2000+ and/or a decent GPA or rank. They exist, but it’s rare. And even if they do exist, it’s not a problem. College admissions is NOT based on academic merit - purely or no. Yale, Harvard, Stanford - you name the top school - sits down to create a dynamic class. If they have a star oboist who is only a sophomore, they need not admit three more star oboists. So like it or not, a 2400, 4.0 star oboist music major is not going to get admitted. Two may, but definitely not half a dozen of them. The same goes for athletic recruits or legacies. Why are athletic recruits and legacies fair game but not minority students? Legacy students are certainly born that way, as is an African American student. Athletic students are more often than not the result of opportunity and talent, which come with birth. But why? Because some students can see the intrinsic value of athletes and legacies to colleges, whereas they can’t see the intrinsic value of minority students (and, for the record, neither can I with the exception of reservation Native Americans and potentially some other small groups, but similar groups exist within majority and ORM populations). Even without AA, a 2400 and a 4.0 who is POed to have been rejected from Harvard would have still been rejected from Harvard. And the 2150, 3.9 African American student with a low-income, single parent, first generation upbringing would have still been admitted. Colleges choose who they admit, not numbers.</p></li>
<li><p>UNHOOKED APPLICANTS. There is the argument that unhooked applications are competing for admissions based on academic merit and strength of application alone. This is simply untrue. If it were true, only 2400s and 4.0 white and ORM students would be admitted. But since some of them are rejected every year - in place of white or ORM students who have less “academic merit” - that is clearly not the case. Unhooked applicants tend to have very high statistics because high statistics correlate well with interesting facets, such as competition winning, strong ECs, and so on and so forth. But it is not a numbers game. Unhooked applicants are experiencing the same holistic, subjective, and often arbitrary admissions process of hooked applications. Case and point, a student getting into Harvard and Stanford but not Yale. That proves that the admissions process, even for unhooked students, is not based solely or even highly on academic merit. So even without AA, there would still be “lower scoring” students of every color and creed at top universities, and not because 2400s and 4.0s are uninteresting. It would be because the process is not so easily defined.</p></li>
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<p>In summary, the damage done by AA is more profound in threads like these than it is in the actual admissions process. The racism and skewed viewpoint of some of the people who oppose Affirmative Action the most harshly is more damaging to the college-age - and beyond - population. There is no such thing as an admitted student at top schools who didn’t have something the admissions team wanted besides race - or else the acceptance rate for African American or Hispanic or American Indian students would be 100%, or only the highest scoring minority students would be accepted. Neither is true at any of the top schools, and you can find plenty of evidence right here on CC. There is no such thing as “deserving” a spot at a top school or having a spot “taken.” There’s no such thing as a white student who got rejected “because” of a black student, even if he or she thinks he or she was more “deserving” or “qualified” of that “spot” at a top school.</p>