Affirmative Action, i had to Options

[onenonly101]

Should Affirmative Action be outlawed?

I want to hear what others say before I comment

[ComradeRed]

[quote]Trust me i am not being paranoid, you know when someone doens't like you because of your color. People hide their racism by saying they aren't racist but then they act differently towards because you are a different color, they talk down to you and do things as that. You know when someone doesn't liek you because of your race.[/quote]

And what makes you think this only happens to black people? Certainly, it happens to white people as well, who may be regarded as snobs, etc. Or to Asian people. This can happen to anyone. Most importantly and furthermore, what makes you think that affirmative action isn't killing a fly with a sledgehammer?

[quote]That is what i was saying the good things about black people are not going to be put in perspective like all the negative stereotypes. You are saying that blacks aren't up to par with academics.[/quote]

No, I said SOME blacks aren't up to par and got in from affirmative action, which in the end hurt them because they flunked out.

[quote]Berkeley has been able to diversify its freshman class and, at the same time, greatly strengthen the class academically. If we compare by quintile the freshman class of fall 1994 with that of fall 1984 on any academic measure, we find the fall 1994 freshman class stronger from top to bottom.[/quote]

Interesting, considering California's affirmative action was considerably WEAKENED in 1977 by the Supreme Court case of Bakke vs. U-Cal, and also the fact that affirmative action was continually weakened, until abolished by an OVERWHELMING majority of Californians in 1996.

[quote]Ninety-five percent of the students admitted to Berkeley meet or exceed minimum UC requirements, placing them among the top 12.5% of California's high school graduates. Following UC Regent guidelines, Berkeley has historically chosen from among the full range of the top 12.5%, which includes the overwhelming majority of all admitted minority students. The other 5% are admitted by exception because they are recruited athletes or because they have overcome remarkable hardship and have demonstrated the potential to succeed at Berkeley. This 5% includes students of every ethnicity and racial group.[/quote]

A professor at Princeton calculated that 80% of students who apply to Ivy League universities meet minimum Academic Requirements... the fact remains that even if you meet the minimum, you will still feel academically isolated if everyone does better than you.

[quote] It is important to note that Berkeley admits a number of white and Asian American applicants with lower grades and test scores than many African American and Hispanic students[/quote]

Perhaps for being athletes, etc., but on average, in 1993 the average African American or Hispanic student was admitted with an SAT of 300 points lower and a GPA of 1.0 lower than a white or Asian student. By 1997 (after Prop 209), there was no significant difference between the scores of different races.

[quote]Most minorities DO NOT fail because of it.
Berkeley's overall graduation rates have climbed steadily over the past 15 years and are the highest they have ever been. The campus' current overall six-year graduation rate of 80% is much higher than the six-year rate of 48% for the fresman class of 1955, at a time when the undergraduate student body was overwhelmingly white. Not only are the graduation rates for all students going up, but the rates for African American and Chicano students are going up faster than the rates for Asian and white students, so that the gap between different ethnicities continues to narrow.[/quote]

In 1955, the freshman class had a really high dropout rate because of "White Man's Affirmative Action" -- legacy, etc. In both cases we can blame the same thing--people being moved up above their qualifications. Moreover, the reason that graduation rates for African American and Chicano students has been rising so fast recently is because, in 1996, the State of California ended affirmative action in its public schools. The move, Proposition 209, passed by over a 70% margin -- including nearly half of minority voters.

[quote]In addition, Berkeley's one-year persistence rate is the highest it has ever been: 94% of the freshmen who entered in the fall 1992 returned for a second year.[/quote]

If 8% of the class is black (to be proportional to the population of the country), then black students could have a 70% dropout rate--as statistics suggest--and the overall graduation rate could be as high as 95% (of course, the overall graduation rate was considerably lower).

If affirmative action really does help black people, then I ask-- why did over 45% (along with 75% of whites) vote in FAVOR of abolishing affirmative action? Because they saw too many cases of black students failing when they should have succeeded ... and too many cases of white students using AA to hate blacks.

[quote]How is what i said racist? Maybe i shouldn't have used the word kind, but people of different races ARE different. I don't need statistics and scientifical facts to tell me that. There are some things that just are, and that is one of them. Me saying that does not mean I don't treat people as individuals. black white asian hispanic whatever you are a person but it doesn't mwan you are different, and are more alike with people of the same race.[/quote]

This only strengthens the white supremacist argument. It goes like this:

If people of different races are indeed different, then one can attribute differences in people to race. If this is true, it is clear that historically, white people have performed the best. Therefore, one could argue that the lower scorings of blacks can be attributed to race. In other words, saying that race is a handicap. Refer to my post above about why handicap affirmative action is moronic.

Of course, I don't agree with that, but it appears to be the clear implication of your argument -- that black people are handicapped on account of race.

[quote]Before AA did you see large amount of blacks being let into colleges by the dean of admissions?Until the mid-1960s legal barriers prevented blacks and other racial minorities in the United States from entering many jobs and educational institutions. Although women were rarely legally barred from jobs or education, many universities would not admit them and many employers would not hire them.[/quote]

First question, no, largely because blacks at the time were mostly not qualified due to social inequities. The solution to that is to improve education, not use affirmative action.

Second question, the First Amendment granst the Freedom of Association. Employers who do NOT recieve government funding have the Constitutional right to association. An inherent part of association is discrimination (when you associate, you also refuse to associate with others). An inherent part of FREE association is discrimination on whatever basis one so chooses, including race.

An example: I don't have to be your friend. If I hate you because you are black, I have a legal right to have nothing to do with you.

Similarly, if I own a store, it's MY store... I ought to have the legal right to only let people I want in. If I don't want to let black people in, I'm a racist, I'm a bigot, I'm not a nice guy... but I am still within my rights as a citizen of a Republic.

[quote]IF the schools says they are in all white school, who cares. Like you said we have all black schools. [/quote]

Yet you want to force affirmative action on schools, which would make it impossible for a school to declare itself all-white.

Let's be realistic. If Harvard declared itself all-white, do you really think there wouldn't be a public uproar?

[quote]and never did i say it wouldn't hurt white kids.

Somehow people think that by hiring under represented groups their jobs are being threatened, or they are giving minorities jobs are wrong.That is wrong because white men are still holding most of the position and minorities are still struggling to be hired in larger numbers[/quote]

Why is it justified if it hurts people? Furthermore, you are once again treating people as mere pawns in your race game. While it is true that whites may make up a majority of a given field, that is no consolation to an INDIVIDUAL white person who is denied a position that is rightfully his.

People are individuals. By treating them as mere parts of a "race" you are only creating more racism.

[quote]Until we truly have a color-blind society, however, people will always wonder whether women of color qualify for positions. Women of color often have to work harder just to get the respect that their white male colleagues enjoy as a birth right. The presumption favoring white males seems to be that they are qualified until they prove otherwise. With women of color, the presumption seems to be that they are unqualified until they prove otherwise.[/quote]

That simply isn't true. You have provided no evidence to support that. Presumptions are much more commonly based on things like what college you went to, etc. The underlying causes of inequality are underlying causes, not racism itself. The fact is -- in situations where a black person is IDENTICAL to a white person -- he is several times more likely to be offered a position, largely due to affirmative action.

Even if affirmative action were abolished de facto, blacks would still have a tremendous advantage in the college admissions over whites, simply because colleges want to look diverse, and break out of the "Ivy Mold". The advantage held by blacks might not be 400 points worth, but a 100-200 point advantage would undeniably exist.

[quote]Quotas, are illegal. What is permitted under current affirmative action instead are benchmarks, targets and goals.[/quote]

Which achieve the same amount of discrimination, just less honestly.

[quote]How is it hurting the U.S.? When 95% of top corporate executives are white males?[/quote]

Stop grouping people. I'm an Asian male, and I don't care how well another Asian male does. It's not a consolation to a white student who is rejected that ANOTHER white student got in... If all people of the same race were the same, the point would be moot because there would only be like 6 people in the world.

[quote]Racism is power plus discrimination. The parameters of discrimination based on race are distinguished by the power dynamics. Reverse racism is not, therefore a reality if people of color are not in positions of power and perpetrating the discrimination[/quote]

Okay, fine. If racism is POWER AND DISCRIMINATION, then affirmative action is THE main source of racism in this country. The most powerful agency in the country is the government. It is the agency perpetrating affirmative action. The government is far more powerful than the KKK. If you define racism as discrimination PLUS power, than one could make a very good argument that the KKK is not racist, because they have no real power any more. Does the KKK influence your college admissions? No. But the government does.

[quote]the selection of unqualified candidates is not permitted under federal affirmative action guidelines and should not be equated with legal forms of affirmative action. [/quote]

Who determines what unqualified is? Unqualifed means that you weren't good enough to get a position. If you needed affirmative action to get that position, then you were, by definition, unqualified. Your only qualification was a legal fiat.

You have still not refuted any of my evidence showing that, at Ivy League and other highly selective institutions -- black students (who, on average, have lower qualifications) are accepted at a rate of over THREE TIMES higher than white students. According to Michele A Hernadez, former admissions officer at Dartmouth, the average white student would need SAT I of 1300 and IIs of 650, and a rank near the top 10% of his class to even be considered, whereas a black student would need only an SAT I of 900, SAT IIs of 400, and rank in the top HALF of the class. A white student with those qualifications would have trouble getting into Penn State, much less an Ivy League university.

And finally, none of this matters because affirmative action is about to die. Recent gallup polls show that 3/4 of Americans, including almost half of minorities, support ending affirmative action. The Supreme Court ruled against it THREE TIMES and only narrowly upheld a very strict form of affirmative action in a 5-4 decision. Affirmative action might have been saved for 5 more years, but it can feel the Sword of Damocles hanging over its head. Sooner or later, taxpayers are going to be pissed off that their kids are being turned into sacrificial lambs. Sooner or later, every state is going to follow the example of California, and let the people vote -- the result of which will not be in question.