Affirmative Action Options

[*kryogenix*]

For or against?

I'm against affirmative action. It's simply not fair to deny entry to a college to someone with an astronomical gpa so that someone with a 2.0 gpa can get in just because of their skin color. Racism, pure and simple.

[ComradeRed]

Against ...

But just as a note, affirmative action will ALWAYS exist ... even if it isn't race-based affirmative action, humans themselves have a tendency to sympathsize with the poor. In this sense, the poor will always have a leg up in college admissions. Especially since colleges admit based on many subjective criteria that are often more important than GPA and SAT, such as your personality and character, essays, etc., it is literally impossible to stop income-based affirmative action.

[ryfitaDF]

against. racism against whites is still racism.

[*CrackedRearView*]

Do you really need an answer to know my opinion? Just check the other threads...

Affirmative action is the scourge of every category of society and the working world.

[ComradeRed]

I wouldn't go that far... ^_^

[gerundio]

Do you really need an answer to know my opinion? Just check the other threads...

Affirmative action is the scourge of every category of society and the working world.

Yeah of course it is... because they have affirmative action in China.

Anyway...

I am for affirmative action, the main reason being it helps me.

[ComradeRed]

You say that now, but if you go to a college you aren't academicallly prepared for and it let you in beacuse of affirmative action, then you graduate with straight-Cs or Ds or worse, fail out, you'd rather have gone to a less selective college and done a stellar job.

African-American dropout rates in the California public university system was 70% while affirmative action was in place. Now it is only 25% -- because the ones that should go to Santa Barbara don't get accepted into Berkeley and fail out any more.

[sadolakced acid]

now, we can't all be against it. so i guess i'll argue for it.

Affirmative action is neccisary. sure, it's not perfect. but it's necissary. because...

- minorities have been suppressed for ages. whites have been going to colleges like harvard before slaves were emancipated. (like you were ever a slave)
- people disciminate against minorities. it happens. affirmative action counteracts this. (by disciminating some more?)
- you do not take a person bent over by the weight of chains, remove them, take them to the starting line, and tell them they are free to compete fairly with everyone else. you take them, take off the chains, to the finishing line, tell them they're free to compete with everyone else.

alright, so i can't argue for. it seems wrong...

[ComradeRed]

-  minorities have been suppressed for ages.  whites have been going to colleges like harvard before slaves were emancipated.  (like you were ever a slave)

First of all, Harvard was one of the only colleges around at the time... You either went to Harvard or you didn't go anywhere.

In 1776, America only had 7 Colleges: Harvard, Rutgers, Princeton, Yale, Penn, Brown, and Columbia. You either went there or you didn't go anywhere.

Secondly, because they were surpressed 150 years ago doesn't mean they are disadvantaged today. Asian-Americans were surpressed only 60 years ago, and today they, on average, make MORE money than white-Americans do ... without affirmative action. As long as we make a distinction between different races, the minority race will ALWAYS be surpressed -- affirmative action only perpetuates this.

-  people disciminate against minorities.  it happens.  affirmative action counteracts this. (by disciminating some more?) 

Nope. Affiramtive action CAUSES racism. People have been racist against Irish, Italians, Chinese, what have you for CENTURIES -- yet as soon as those ethnic minorities started working hard and achieved economic power WITHOUT affirmative action -- racism against them basically disappeared. Yet there is still racism against blacks and Hispanics -- because they get affirmative action.

-  you do not take a person bent over by the weight of chains, remove them, take them to the starting line, and tell them they are free to compete fairly with everyone else.  you take them, take off the chains, to the finishing line, tell them they're free to  compete with everyone else.

But...they're...dead. We're talking about other people right now. People are INDIVDIUALS, not just black or white.

[gerundio]

You say that now, but if you go to a college you aren't academicallly prepared for and it let you in beacuse of affirmative action, then you graduate with straight-Cs or Ds or worse, fail out, you'd rather have gone to a less selective college and done a stellar job.

LMAO. You think that I am unprepared for any school in the United States? LOL. Maybe with the exception of MIT and Caltech because mathematics is not my strongest subject, I am more than prepared for any curriculum.

African-American dropout rates in the California public university system was 70% while affirmative action was in place. Now it is only 25% -- because the ones that should go to Santa Barbara don't get accepted into Berkeley and fail out any more.

And this has to do what with me? I am not black.

[ComradeRed]

The average student at Harvard has an SAT of 1546 and had a High School GPA of 3.91 unweighted. Do you have that?

Yale, which is even more selective than Harvard, shows an average SAT of 1540 and unweighted GPA of 3.94. 35% of students accepted to Yale have published a major article while in high school. Another 50% have done a substantial research project (defined as over 40 pages and under the advice of an adult mentor).

The percentage of African-American, Native American, and Hispanic students at Yale is 15% -- yet among the top quarter of Yale's class of 2004, only 4% of the students fall into those categories... The bottom quarter of Yale's most recent class was one-third minority... because most of those people were admitted due to affirmative action, and were academically mismatched for Yale, so they all ended up getting low grades and graduating without honors.

I don't have stats for Hispanics, so I used ones for blacks ... but they correspond to roughly the same. Failure rates dropped among all races after affirmative action ended, jsut most of all among blacks.

In later news, Penn's new application has 20+ different "ethnicities" to choose from, PLUS you can fill in your own. Even I checked three boxes, and I'm about as pure-blood as they come. Not surprisingly, "European" is all one big category.

[*corizzle20*]

i dotn know what this is

[ThunderEvermore]

For or against?

I'm against affirmative action. It's simply not fair to deny entry to a college to someone with an astronomical gpa so that someone with a 2.0 gpa can get in just because of their skin color. Racism, pure and simple.

Do you actually have proof that something like that happens?

Its generally much closer.