Jul -- News: Affirmative action: for or against?

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Jul - News - Affirmative action: for or against?

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Posted on 12-27-09 04:23:16 PM

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What is your opinion on race- or ethnicity-based affirmative action? (This is mostly from a US perspective but could apply to other places. Just be warned.)

I am mostly against it. I think that citizens of all races should be treated equally both before the law and for things like access to jobs and schools, provided that they are not hindered by something else that actually would affect their productivity (like someone with little or no knowledge of English should not be given a job that requires heavy use of English unless they are also taught the language).

I believe that affirmative action is ultimately damaging as it perpetuates racial stereotypes as well as being inherently racist. If your college or university allows White students with a GPA of 2.5 or better but Black students can slide in with a 2.0 or better, you're going to have a lot of Black students at your school with GPAs between 2.0 and 2.5. You would have White students in that range too if you hadn't forbidden them from attending your school, but as it stands, you don't. This isn't because ZOMG BLAX R DUM LOL, this is because you are upholding different individuals to different standards because of their race. Because of the school's policy, Black students will have a lower average GPA than White students, because you let them in.

This has some consequences. For one, since the Black students will on average have lower GPAs then the White students, they will be perceived as dumb, and many of the students at the school will go there for years and think that all Blacks are dumber than Whites, serving to perpetuate an already-existing stereotype throughout their lives. For another, if a given student has a GPA of, say, 2.25, they would be admitted if they were Black but denied if they were White, solely because of their race. If the student has, say, one White parent and one Black parent, the race they select on the form could determine whether they get in, and they may be tempted to select Black even if they prefer to identify as White otherwise. This is why I believe that affirmative action policies are racist.

And yet people who oppose them tend to be perceived as the racist ones. Now, if they were prioritizing White people, that would be racist just like the above system, but otherwise the opponents are the ones promoting racial equality. Arguments for helping out "minorities" don't hold much water, either. Many schools with systems like this penalize Asians even more than Whites, and Asians are only about 3% of the US population. That's not helping a minority, it's hurting one! Furthermore, while Whites make up around 72% of the US population, they are not a majority in every area. For instance, the White population of Detroit is only 12.3% (and that is including Hispanics and Arabs, who are often considered to be non-White), and they are a minority in some of Detroit's suburbs as well.

Arguments correlating race with income may be a bit more justifiable, as some races do tend to make less than others on average, but I still don't think they work. Why not prioritize poor students and hurt rich ones instead in that case? Poor students are more likely to have grown up in poor neighbourhoods, gone to bad public schools, and dropped out of school, and now they come to college to better their lives and get out of the rut of poverty. But what about the poor White student from the trailer park, and why are you giving so much priority to the daughter of the millionaire executive who just happens to be Black if you're trying to give poor people a better chance? It doesn't seem to make sense to me.

Personally, I think the application forms shouldn't bother even asking about background. Why is it important?

Note: I used GPA to simplify things; typically schools will assign points based on various factors like GPA, ACT/SAT scored, location, race/ethnicity, and if a parent was an alumnus (another aspect I disagree with).

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Posted on 12-27-09 07:52:55 PM (last edited by FieryIce at 12-27-09 04:53 PM)

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Colleges want diversity, you can't blame them if they give priority to rarer, minority students. This is done in many countries around the world.

You have 10 apples, 8 red apples and 2 green apples and you want a more balanced pack. You are offered to choose a green apple and a red apple that otherwise seem similar to you, you're obviously going to pick the one of a rarer kind, the green one. With this, I think it's normal for colleges to prefer a black student over a white one if both of them report a similar background in their applications.

I don't, however, think it's right to reject a clearly better prepared majority student (say GPA of 3.5) over a less prepared minority one (say GPA of 2.5-3.0)

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Posted on 12-27-09 08:40:01 PM

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How about some Universal Action, huh? I'm not a minority, yet I live in poverty, too. You'd think it'd be nice if they could just help all poor people, rather than just based on skin color.

So I say, keep AA and then expand its reach to all races.

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Posted on 12-28-09 03:50:03 AM

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Affirmative action is a bad idea in its current implementation; it should favour the person who comes from a worse economic background. Unfortunately, this often means the black person (thanks, American society!), but not always.

Also, anything that favours a 2.5 black student over a 3.0 white student is racist. That's not affirmative action. It should only be applied when two applicants are so close to each other in qualifications that to choose between the two would basically be a coin flip anyways.

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Jul - News - Affirmative action: for or against?

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