Affirmative Action, i had to Options

[onenonly101]

Should Affirmative Action be outlawed?

I want to hear what others say before I comment

[ComradeRed]

Do you have any PROOF that racism exists in public employment? No.

As in, can you prove that, with all else being equal (SAT scores, grades, etc.) and no affirmative action, a black person is more likely to be rejected than a white person at the same public institution? No.

There is nohting more tragic than seeing a beautiful young theory massacred by a gang of brutal facts. Take for example, before ending affirmative action:

Average SAT score for an Asian studnet at UC Berkeley (in 1993): 1254
Average SAT score for a white Student at UC Berkeley in 1993: 1232
Average SAT score for a black student at UC Berkeley in 1993: 952

My statistics come from the Hoover Institution's Scholar Thomas Sowell. The fact is affirmative action held black students to a standard THREE HUNDRED SAT points lower (let's put this into perspective: a black student with a good but not excellent score of 1300 is more competitive than a white student with a perfect score), proving that the only racial discrimination here is against white and Asian students.

California abolished affirmative action in Proposition 209. Following its passage, the average SAT scores among all races were within twenty points of each other -- something easily attributed to statistical variation. This proves that there was in fact NO MEASURABLE RACISM in the University of California admissions process without affirmative action. The only colleges in the country that are racist without affirmative action are places like Bob Jones University, which are private institutions recieving no public money, that have a LEGAL RIGHT to discriminate (upheld by the South Carolina, and later United States Supreme Court), and where no black person would EVER WANT TO GO.

Moreover, it is not enough to show that blacks are "underrepresented". That does NOT prove that the college admissions process itself is racist. If blacks overall have lower achievement rankings, it is logical to assume that they will be underrepresented. This proves that there are UNDERLYING CAUSES, such as socioeconomic differences, fradulent primary education, etc. This does NOT prove that there is racism. I agree that we should deal with root causes of racial inequality, but the fact remains that the root causes do NOT LIE IN RACE ITSELF. Affirmative action will NOT solve them. Affirmative action will just piss more reasonable moderates off, violate civil liberties, and achieve NOTHING.

In fact, affirmative action HURTS blacks as well. By moving underprepared black students into colleges that are academic mismatches, they are harmed. Before California ended affirmative action, black students had a 70% dropout rate at Berkeley and a 75% dropout rate at San Jose University. The black students that should have went to San Jose University and went on to lead successful lives, were recruited to Berkeley by affirmative action where they were turned into artificial failures. It's certainly better to graduate from one's second choice than to flunk out at one's first choice. Affirmative action clearly disregards the needs of over two-thirds of black students so that colleges can create a facade of classroom asthetic. The only people who benefit from affirmative action are a small minority of minority students, but mostly the government and public school system itself, which can use affirmative action as an excuse to continue to expand its powers, most of which are already of dubious legality.

Walter E. Williams, a distinguished black professor from George Mason University: http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj17n1-1.html

Excluding affirmative action, there is no racism in public collegiate admissions.