NationStates Jolt Archive

I'll give the benefit of the doubt to those who support giving non-whites selection advantages over their white counterparts for employment, contracts, scholarships, or university placement that you're actually interested in doing what is fair and/or right. I believe that the argument is that the groups receiving preferential treatment have been historically disadvantaged because of their circumstances, not their abilities.

My concern is that giving a group of people preferential treatment based on their physical appearance alone is too superficial and doesn't solve any of the problems it seeks to mend. For example, let's go to the hypothetical people model (based on real people):

Person A is a black female who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. Her father is a mechanic and her mother is a nurse. Her parents immigrated to the United States before she was born from Eretria, Africa. Throughout her childhood, her parents nurtured her, groomed her, and early on instilled in her great value in obtaining higher education and a prestegeous job. With financial help from her parents and scholarships, Person A earned a liberal arts degree in undergraduate school with a GPA of 3.5 and decided to attend law school. She took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and scored 160, thereby placing her in the top 15% of test takers. She subsequently applied to Columbia University school of law in New York and was accepted into the program with a 50% scholarship.

Person B is a white male who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. His father is a mechanic and his mother is a nurse. His parents immigrated to the United States before he was born from Romania. Throughout his childhood, his alcholic parents despised the institutions of higher learning and, between verbal abuse sessions, belittled Person B for ever thinking he could make something of himself. Person B received no financial help from his parents nor from scholarships, but nonetheless held on to his dream of one day being an attorney and paid his way through undergraduate school to receive a liberal arts degree with a GPA of 3.7. He subsequently took the LSAT and scored 162, thereby placing him in the top 10% of test takers. He also applied to Columbia University's law school; after the admissions committee finished laughing at his LSAT score, they gleefully sent him a rejection notice because, afterall, Columbia is a premere school and his academics are merely excellent.

Clearly, despite Person B's obstacles, Person A and Person B were raised in mostly similar environments with similar opportunities. A blind person who spoke with them about what life was like growing up, what their influences have been, what kind of music they listen to, wouldn't be able to tell which was black and which was white. Nonetheless, based on nothing but the color of her skin, Person A had access to an institution of higher learning with scholarship assistance whereas Person B--who objectively has better demonstrated greater qualification for admission, is denied alltogether because he wasn't the right color.

What I would propose would be the elimination of race or gender-based preferences and instead offer individual applicants the opportunity to explain any difficulties that they have had to deal with that have hampered their journey up until that point. This would give disadvantaged individuals, including those who would argue that they have been disadvantaged circumstantial consideration before disqualifying them, or giving unfair advantage to others.

If it's a job interview or something similar, sure. It makes sense to look at the individual, not just steretypes or generalisations.

However, when forming policies it does make sense to use generalisations. All sorts of demographic data can be used in determining which groups are disadvantaged, and race/ethnicity is a very important one. It really depends on the situation.

I think racial preferences were useful and necessary. The question is; what is the exit strategy? When do we end the program? Everyone who is yippin and yappin about announcing an 'end date' to Iraq should be able to announce the 'end date' to affirmative action as easily.

I think racial preferences were useful and necessary. The question is; what is the exit strategy? When do we end the program? Everyone who is yippin and yappin about announcing an 'end date' to Iraq should be able to announce the 'end date' to affirmative action as easily.
Sure. Once the income differential balances out. Though I agree, race shouldn't be a factor, socio-economic factors should be.

Private universities and businesses should be able to hire whoever they wish and should be able to require whatever they want from the people they are going to hire or enroll. I’m not saying I agree with basing a decision on race, I just think people should have that choice, if they want.

Sure. Once the income differential balances out. Though I agree, race shouldn't be a factor, socio-economic factors should be.
An unqualified person is an unqualified person, no matter their background.

An unqualified person is an unqualified person, no matter their background.
Who is saying we'll put someone with a 2 on their GPA into harvard? Only affirmative action programme that does that is the one that let Bush 43 (and John Kerry, while we're at it, can't say I'm not fair) in.

I think this points to a dilemna that completely supplants Affirmative Action. More and more the "merit-based" scholarships and booster programs are no longer interested in helping those in need. Even the affirmative action programs are now simply choosing rich black people from the burbs over poor inner city blacks. Sympathy is no longer afforded to the disadvantaged.

A generation ago class and race were one and the same, so it made sense to link social justice with helping the shafted ethnicities. But that's now changed, with a few rich African-Americans simply monopolizing Affirmative Action and screwing over the rest of black America.

I was a son of one of those African-Americans. Since I did not feel I should get bonuses when there were others who needed them more, I indicated that I was white on my applications and did not attend the colleges that offered me minority scholarships. Yes I shot myself in the foot, and opportunists will call me a fool, but I did it was because I did not want to participate in something I thought was monumentally wrong.

Just to clarify, the majority of American blacks are still left out of American prosperity, things are still incredibly unequal, and something must be done to disassociate race from social privelege and integrate this country. I just don't think Affirmative Action will accomplish this.

I think this points to a dilemna that completely supplants Affirmative Action. More and more the "merit-based" scholarships and booster programs are no longer interested in helping those in need. Even the affirmative action programs are now simply choosing rich black people from the burbs over poor inner city blacks. Sympathy is no longer afforded to the disadvantaged.

A generation ago class and race were one and the same, so it made sense to link social justice with helping the shafted ethnicities. But that's now changed, with a few rich African-Americans simply monopolizing Affirmative Action and screwing over the rest of black America.

I was a son of one of those African-Americans. Since I did not feel I should get bonuses when there were others who needed them more, I indicated that I was white on my applications and did not attend the colleges that offered me minority scholarships. Yes I shot myself in the foot, and opportunists will call me a fool, but I did it was because I did not want to participate in something I thought was monumentally wrong.

Just to clarify, the majority of American blacks are still left out of American prosperity, things are still incredibly unequal, and something must be done to disassociate race from social privelege and integrate this country. I just don't think Affirmative Action will accomplish this.

Amen.

I think this points to a dilemna that completely supplants Affirmative Action. More and more the "merit-based" scholarships and booster programs are no longer interested in helping those in need. Even the affirmative action programs are now simply choosing rich black people from the burbs over poor inner city blacks. Sympathy is no longer afforded to the disadvantaged.

A generation ago class and race were one and the same, so it made sense to link social justice with helping the shafted ethnicities. But that's now changed, with a few rich African-Americans simply monopolizing Affirmative Action and screwing over the rest of black America.

I was a son of one of those African-Americans. Since I did not feel I should get bonuses when there were others who needed them more, I indicated that I was white on my applications and did not attend the colleges that offered me minority scholarships. Yes I shot myself in the foot, and opportunists will call me a fool, but I did it was because I did not want to participate in something I thought was monumentally wrong.

Just to clarify, the majority of American blacks are still left out of American prosperity, things are still incredibly unequal, and something must be done to disassociate race from social privelege and integrate this country. I just don't think Affirmative Action will accomplish this.

That's a very good point. I agree with the principles of affirmative action but if it's available to anyone well-off it's obviously not working.

I think the only thing that will even out the races economically is time. Time is causing stereotypes and hatred to lessen as the different races come more and more into contact with each other in everyday life. Time is causing the different races to marry and breed with each other. I think in about 500 years there won't be any race except perhaps in the least ethnically diverse places like Africa and a few countries in the far north.

With affirmative action, governmentally mandated anything never works out the way you would think, because there are always paths by which you can cheat the system or ignore it altogether. I think all affirmative action does is give one socially underprivileged class some opportunity while taking it away from another - poor whites. Because you know people with money are gonna get ahead regardless of color or what the government lays down. Too many times economic issues are confused with racial ones.

Don't forget, too, that foreigners from many places qualify as 'minority'. So what often happens in our colleges and other places that instead of hiring or educating a poor black American, they'll give out a visa to a rich person from Saudi Arabia or some such place so that they can get paid or get an overqualified person in the door while still keeping their quota where it should be. Ultimately the whole program just hurts America and causes resentment.

What we need is a volentary program of procreative racial deconstruction.--Everybody just keeps screwing everybody till we're all the same color.

Seriously though, nothing but good points have been brought up. The fact of the matter is as far as economic equalality is concerned, no government forced program is going to help with that. Time is the only way for that to happen. You can't undo 500 years of history in 50 years. Yes affirmitive action is wrong, and the fact that i may lose my spot at a competative college becasue I am white is very upsetting. Such as in example B, my sister died and my grade slipped a little for a short while, but that isn't considered all theys ee is a small slip in grades. But just the basis of affirmitive action is wrong, becasue it includes no whites even though history shows that "white protestant America" discriminated against many white groups as they arrived in america, including the Irish, Italians, and other groups specifically, Catholics. But where is the government program for the Italian Catholic? The only way to settle out these sorts of issue is to let time do it, as bigitry and prejudices die out, things will lesson and eventually equality might even be possible.

Sure. Once the income differential balances out. Though I agree, race shouldn't be a factor, socio-economic factors should be.

Bad news - they got WORSE since it began.

I think racial preferences were useful and necessary. The question is; what is the exit strategy? When do we end the program? Everyone who is yippin and yappin about announcing an 'end date' to Iraq should be able to announce the 'end date' to affirmative action as easily.Certainly. The day where there are no more KKK members, Neo-Nazis, or assorted unaffiliated racists will be the day that affirmative action is no longer needed.

Bad news - they got WORSE since it began. Yes, for reasons completely unrelated to AA, such as the dismantling of the welfare programs.

I think that for jobs and such its not fair to discriminate against ppl just because its PC to have a woman( I am one before any one does their nut in) or ppl of a certain ethnic background. If a person is from a disadvantaged background they should certainly be entitled to scholarship, not just because of the colour of their skin.

It would make a load more sense if everyone was just treated equally no matter what their race or background was. Scholarships and bursaries make sense, they allow for gifted but disadvantaged students to attend good schools and universities, thus including a wider range of people. However, implementing a minimum number of ethnic workers, women, handicapped workers etc is discrimination in itself. Say a business has to employ a minimum of 15% ethnic workers, 25% women and 5% handicapped workers, you end up with few spaces available for the majority of people. Another example of discrimination working the other way is that at my school, there is an "Asian society" but we asked if we could start up a "British-born society" and were told not to be so racist.

KKK and Neo-Nazis were mentioned. How about gangs exclusivly of Africans who push drugs in my area? How about the fact that ethnic minorities are very rarely accused of racism? How about the fact that black people may call each other "niggers" and Pakistanis may call each other "Pakis" but if a white person mentions the word they are immediately accused of racism?
This isn't exactly fair, but not many people dare mention it for some reason. I'm not happy with racial discrimination - against anyone, including whites.

I was a son of one of those African-Americans. Since I did not feel I should get bonuses when there were others who needed them more, I indicated that I was white on my applications and did not attend the colleges that offered me minority scholarships. Yes I shot myself in the foot, and opportunists will call me a fool, but I did it was because I did not want to participate in something I thought was monumentally wrong.
I never fill in my race, or if I have to, I just tick Other. My dad is from India and my mum is from about 7 different countries in Europe and Asia... what does that make me?

It would make a load more sense if everyone was just treated equally no matter what their race or background was. Scholarships and bursaries make sense, they allow for gifted but disadvantaged students to attend good schools and universities, thus including a wider range of people. However, implementing a minimum number of ethnic workers, women, handicapped workers etc is discrimination in itself. Say a business has to employ a minimum of 15% ethnic workers, 25% women and 5% handicapped workers, you end up with few spaces available for the majority of people. I don't know of any country that has this type of quota.
Another example of discrimination working the other way is that at my school, there is an "Asian society" but we asked if we could start up a "British-born society" and were told not to be so racist.I can't speak for Britain's policies, but in the U.S. starting a "U.S.-born society" would be redundant.

KKK and Neo-Nazis were mentioned. How about gangs exclusivly of Africans who push drugs in my area? How about the fact that ethnic minorities are very rarely accused of racism? Do those gangs exclusively of Africans who push drugs in your area dictate who gets hired or not at a particular place of employment? Do ethnic minorities have positions of power more often than very rarely? In the U.S., the answer to both questions is no.

How about the fact that black people may call each other "niggers" and Pakistanis may call each other "Pakis" but if a white person mentions the word they are immediately accused of racism?
This isn't exactly fair, but not many people dare mention it for some reason.Well, in some cases where a white person mentions the word, being accused of racism would be unfair. However, most of the time when those words are used by white people, it would be as a racial slur. I would point out that there are instances of white people being close friends with blacks and using those words in a way that wasn't a racial slur, without anyone being offended.
I'm not happy with racial discrimination - against anyone, including whites.Neither am I, but it happens, which is why we need AA to help balance it out.

I'll give the benefit of the doubt to those who support giving non-whites selection advantages over their white counterparts for employment, contracts, scholarships, or university placement that you're actually interested in doing what is fair and/or right. I believe that the argument is that the groups receiving preferential treatment have been historically disadvantaged because of their circumstances, not their abilities.

My concern is that giving a group of people preferential treatment based on their physical appearance alone is too superficial and doesn't solve any of the problems it seeks to mend. For example, let's go to the hypothetical people model (based on real people):

Person A is a black female who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. Her father is a mechanic and her mother is a nurse. Her parents immigrated to the United States before she was born from Eretria, Africa. Throughout her childhood, her parents nurtured her, groomed her, and early on instilled in her great value in obtaining higher education and a prestegeous job. With financial help from her parents and scholarships, Person A earned a liberal arts degree in undergraduate school with a GPA of 3.5 and decided to attend law school. She took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and scored 160, thereby placing her in the top 15% of test takers. She subsequently applied to Columbia University school of law in New York and was accepted into the program with a 50% scholarship.

Person B is a white male who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. His father is a mechanic and his mother is a nurse. His parents immigrated to the United States before he was born from Romania. Throughout his childhood, his alcholic parents despised the institutions of higher learning and, between verbal abuse sessions, belittled Person B for ever thinking he could make something of himself. Person B received no financial help from his parents nor from scholarships, but nonetheless held on to his dream of one day being an attorney and paid his way through undergraduate school to receive a liberal arts degree with a GPA of 3.7. He subsequently took the LSAT and scored 162, thereby placing him in the top 10% of test takers. He also applied to Columbia University's law school; after the admissions committee finished laughing at his LSAT score, they gleefully sent him a rejection notice because, afterall, Columbia is a premere school and his academics are merely excellent.

Clearly, despite Person B's obstacles, Person A and Person B were raised in mostly similar environments with similar opportunities. A blind person who spoke with them about what life was like growing up, what their influences have been, what kind of music they listen to, wouldn't be able to tell which was black and which was white. Nonetheless, based on nothing but the color of her skin, Person A had access to an institution of higher learning with scholarship assistance whereas Person B--who objectively has better demonstrated greater qualification for admission, is denied alltogether because he wasn't the right color.

I will make many more comments in a second post.

My overall comment is that this is an entirely false and misleading syllogism.

Your argument summarizes as follows:

A. Affirmative action is supposed to be justified by giving preferential treatment to compensate for the historical disadvantages of some groups.

B. One can imagine a hypothetical where preference is given to a relativey advantaged individual over a relatively disadvantaged individual.

C. Therefore AA is not justified, is bad, etc.

Problems:

1. Your major premise is false and misleading. AA serves many purposes. One of them is to compensate for historical disadvantages between groups. Affirmative action traces its moral roots to at least the following goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being (i.e., fighting poverty, urban despair, lessening racial and income inequities, etc), and (5) promoting diversity.

2. Your minor premise is fictional and misleading. Your minor premise is a hypothetical that (taking out the inflammatory hyperbole) supposes that an individual African-American daughter of immigrants with supportive parents gets into an elite law school while a similar, but white male individual with abusive parents does not -- despite having a slightly higher GPA and LSAT score. (BTW, your implicit assumption that the former is more advantaged than the later assumes that A has never faced racism or discrimination. Merely being middle class in America is not enough to make an African-American free from disadvantages.)

Although you claim this hypothetical involves "real people" it clearly is not literally true. All that stuff about the laughing admissions office, for example. Nor do your simplifications accurately reflect the admissions process at US law schools. I'd love to see evidence Columbia University uses such a pathetic model. If they do, it likely does not pass legal muster. As you should know, the Supreme Court has closely scrutinized such admissions systems. I can make up a hypothetical involving "real people" in which I am raped by Pope Benedict, but that doesn't make the hypothetical real.

3. Your conclusions are deeply flawed. Your factual conclusion is misleading. Under your own scenario it is not true that A does not get into Columbia because of his skin color. It is because his "laugh[able] LSAT" score and "merely excellent" academics did not qualify him for the "premere school." Your (fictional) gripe is not that B didn't get into Columbia, but that A did. Sour grapes.

Next, your main conclusion does not flow from your premises anyway. Your major premise correctly refers to the relative disadvantages of groups, but your minor premise only claims to refer to the relative disadvantage of individuals. The possibility of some scenarios were AA does not aid, and may even harm, the putatively more disadvantaged of two individuals does nothing to disprove AA's worthiness or effectiveness in aiding disadvantaged groups.

Moreover, you seek to manipulate people's sense of fairness and sympathy for individual B. It is easy to point to situtations where (for any number of reasons) one individual gets into a law school and another doesn't and claim it is unfair. But what is the "fair" outcome here? You state flatly that B is not qualified to attend Columbia (laughably so, you claim). So, apparently the only "fair" outcome is that neither gets to go to Columbia. That is your "fairness." You don't describe any "fair" scenario under which individual B -- let alone both individuals -- get into the law school. So, your railing against AA wouldn't help B at all. It only hurts A.

Here is an actual fact: For example, many complain that they cannot get into college because of affirmative action. But, if half of the people of color who are admitted to schools under affirmative action programs were cut, the acceptance rates of white men would only increase by 2%. (And that ignores the possibility that schools could increase enrollement, be better funded, etc. Hording your part of the pie is hardly the morally high ground.)

And here is another fact: Ending affirmative action helps shut minorities out of college. This is exactly what has happened in California when affirmative action was banned via proposition. In fact, without affirmative action the percentage of black students at many selective schools would drop to only 2% of the student body. This would effectively choke off black access to top universities and severely restrict progress toward racial equality.


What I would propose would be the elimination of race or gender-based preferences and instead offer individual applicants the opportunity to explain any difficulties that they have had to deal with that have hampered their journey up until that point. This would give disadvantaged individuals, including those who would argue that they have been disadvantaged circumstantial consideration before disqualifying them, or giving unfair advantage to others.

Every law school in the country already looks at individual applications and considers individual cases. In fact, recent Supreme Court cases require that public insitutions give individual consideration to each applicant. Moreover, quotas are illegal. Race is merely allowed to be a positive factor.

BTW, your "solution" gives little focus to merit. AA emphasizes merit. Ironic.

Anyway, I'd like to add few statements -- largely related to what is "affirmative action."

1. The umbrella term "affirmative action" refers to a broad array of gender, race, national origin, ethnicity or color-conscious programs (what I will call "gender- and race-conscious"). It includes outreach programs, targeted at specific groups, to notify them of education, employment and contracting opportunities. And it includes programs that favor -- among similar candidates, all of whom are otherwise qualified--members of historically subordinated and still underrepresented groups.

2. People can, in good faith, worry about the times affirmative action operates in the wrong way. In the name of affirmative action, for example, some employers have used illegal quotas and have hired unqualified people. They have done it; they were wrong to do it; and I will not defend them or their programs. But every serious study concludes these abuses of affirmative action are exceptions -- indeed, exceptions more prevalent in the very early years of affirmative action than in today's world.

3. People may well have other concerns or objections to affirmative action. But at least they should accurately describe the affirmative action programs I am defending (and they should insist others do the same). Here again is what those programs do: In an effort to make available opportunities for those groups still not much represented because of historical and contemporary discrimination, in an effort to draw upon diverse skills and sensibilities, affirmative action takes gender and race into account in deciding which otherwise qualified candidates deserve a chance at education, employment, or government work.

4. But let me be more explicit. Affirmative action programs should not impose -- and the programs I defend do not impose -- criteria that substitute a search for gender and race in place of a search for qualified candidates. Merit doesn't just matter as a part of affirmative action programs. Merit is and should be at the heart of every defensible outreach, educational, employment and contracting program. Because merit matters, it is wrong if an unqualified person gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified person. It is wrong if an unqualified white man gets a job over a qualified woman or minority. And it's every bit as wrong if an unqualified American Indian, Latino, African American, Asian Pacific American or woman gets a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over a qualified white man.

5. It is not presumptively wrong, however, to award a qualified woman, Asian Pacific American, African American, American Indian, or Latino a job, a scholarship, or a government contract over other qualified candidates (perhaps white men, perhaps other women or people of color), even those with, say, more experience, or better standardized test scores. Merit rarely means -- and rarely should mean – automatically concluding that the person with the highest test score or the most years experience is demonstrably the best candidate. No single test or predictor reveals everything (or often very much about what) we might want or need to know about a candidate, and even the best tests and predictors are imperfect. Institutions regularly find themselves, in applying even the most trustworthy predictors, making carefully considered but necessarily tentative distinctions between qualified candidates. Done well, that is not violating merit or thwarting merit. That is taking merit seriously -- fully aware of its promise and limits.

6. Affirmative action traces its moral roots to several related goals: (1) fighting discrimination, (2) compensating for past injuries, (3) striving for a fair distribution of opportunities and responsibilities, (4) seeking social well-being, and (5) promoting diversity.

7. We should keep the grounds we are debating clear. If you wish to disagree with my definition of affirmative action, that is fine. But you wish to insist affirmative action as it exists is something different, you should be clear exactly to what you are referring and be prepared to defend your definition. I believe my statements are consistent with affirmative action law and general practices. If you wish to provide an alternate theoretical definition, you should be clear what your definition is and why it is relevant.

Also, there are distinctions between public and private affirmative action programs, programs that are court-ordered as a remedy for discrimination, etc. Affirmative action arises in a number of situations, but is most often discussed in terms of education or employment. If you are going to make an argument based on a specific context, you need to be clear. Specificity is your friend.

Finally, as many of you may be unfortunately aware, I can go off on the law. If you wish this to be a debate about the legality or constitutionality of affirmative action, I can do so, but I will try not to go there unless you do.

I think racial preferences were useful and necessary. The question is; what is the exit strategy? When do we end the program? Everyone who is yippin and yappin about announcing an 'end date' to Iraq should be able to announce the 'end date' to affirmative action as easily.


Really?

Why? When?

When do you think they should end?

And how many people die each day due to Affirmative Action?

An unqualified person is an unqualified person, no matter their background.

Affirmative action policies strictly forbid, and do not encourage, the hiring or admission of unqualified persons.

The same cannot be said for other common hiring/admissions policies.

Person A is a black female who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. Her father is a mechanic and her mother is a nurse. Her parents immigrated to the United States before she was born from Eretria, Africa. Throughout her childhood, her parents nurtured her, groomed her, and early on instilled in her great value in obtaining higher education and a prestegeous job. With financial help from her parents and scholarships, Person A earned a liberal arts degree in undergraduate school with a GPA of 3.5 and decided to attend law school. She took the Law School Admission Test (LSAT) and scored 160, thereby placing her in the top 15% of test takers. She subsequently applied to Columbia University school of law in New York and was accepted into the program with a 50% scholarship.

Person B is a white male who grew up in a middle class neighborhood in Rhode Island. His father is a mechanic and his mother is a nurse. His parents immigrated to the United States before he was born from Romania. Throughout his childhood, his alcholic parents despised the institutions of higher learning and, between verbal abuse sessions, belittled Person B for ever thinking he could make something of himself. Person B received no financial help from his parents nor from scholarships, but nonetheless held on to his dream of one day being an attorney and paid his way through undergraduate school to receive a liberal arts degree with a GPA of 3.7. He subsequently took the LSAT and scored 162, thereby placing him in the top 10% of test takers. He also applied to Columbia University's law school; after the admissions committee finished laughing at his LSAT score, they gleefully sent him a rejection notice because, afterall, Columbia is a premere school and his academics are merely excellent.


Your examples don't work the way that current (and legal) affirmative action programs do. By the way they currently work, person B would get in over person A (although they would probably both get in), if GPA and LSAT were the main qualifiers (which they most likely are). There would probably be an essay of sorts required as well, and a listing of extracurricular activities or jobs.

Now, if they had the exact same qualifications and were at the cutoff, so that only one of them could be admitted, current AA policies might cause person A to get in and person B to be rejected. However, person A will have barely made it and person B will have been the highest of the rejected.