Affirmative Action? For/Against?

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08 Apr 2003, 04:34 AM
Hero

Eh, I'm in Long Beach/Cerritos/Norwalk, and everyone seems to be about as fair off as the next. Meaning, for someone driving a nice car, there's another of a different race...same goes for the homeless.

To be honest, I think even without AA, someone who did have to bust his or her ass through the rough streets and help themselves because the education system wasn't cutting it will get into college anyway, AA or not. Especially since schools in CA aren't what I'd call 'KKK University.'

I guess that's where I stand. Someone who works hard for themselves should get in. I don't think they need a 'helping hand' in any of that - after so much struggle and strife, that work ethic along with how well they preformed ought to be indicator enough to the admissions office, regardless of race.
08 Apr 2003, 06:06 AM
Fe 26

If something helps someone, they like it, if it hurts them, they hate it. Thats really what all of this comes down to.
08 Apr 2003, 07:04 AM
Schlep

Quote:

Originally posted by ShineAqua
Why is it that you assume that a student with a 3.6 GPA and a 1250 on the SAT?s is less prepared for Harvard than one with a 3.8 GPA and a 1350 on the SAT?s? I mean it?s not like they are letting students with 2.8?s and 800?s.

Quote:

Originally posted by http://www.cir-usa.org/articles/michigan_60minutes.html
Jennifer Gratz is a white female
Gratz had a 3.8 grade point average and scored in the top 20 percent on her College Boards. She was a member of the National Honor Society, vice president of the student council, a varsity cheerleader for four years, the class historian and even found time to volunteer as both a tutor in math and as a senior citizen escort. But for the University of Michigan, it wasn't enough. She was rejected.

Quote:

Tom Turner is a black male
You know, I was a mid-C student at best. But the fact of the matter is, is that since I've arrived at the University of Michigan, I've done far better than my GPA or my SAT scores would have implied. I was probably, you know, if I was lucky, a 2.5, 2.8 student in high school. I'm a 3.9, Phi Beta Kappa, honor student in American culture now. Nobody could have possibly predicted that based on my high school scores or anything that came from high school.

Quote:

Here, 51 applications, one admit; 61 applications, one admit; 2 percent, 3 percent chance of getting in. Not easy. That was for Caucasian Americans...And they prepared another sheet for African-Americans. Same cells, same scores: 10 applicants, 10 admits; five applications, five admits. One hundred percent, instead of 2 percent opportunity, which is what the case is for whites. A hundred percent for blacks.

I think it's great that the one guy who got in ended up doing a really good job, but who deserved it more? The black guy who was unfocused in HS or the white girl that busted her ass for 4 years?
08 Apr 2003, 10:04 AM
Master

Hey, I'm just wondering, why does everybody assume we are talking about black people? There are more, less represented minorities in this country.

By the way, affirmative action helps asians. Statistically speaking, asians don't need any help getting into college. The system needs to be reworked and hard.
08 Apr 2003, 10:30 AM
Shine

Schlep: That's the excepion not the rule. I can be pretty damn sure about that. But one thing I can say for sure is that a good number of students who don't really have to work so hard to achive that 3.9 GPA and the godly SAT scores actually do poorly in comparison to students who have to work hard to achive a lower GPA (from the mouth of a college admissions board member that came to my highschool.) College is a different world compared to highschool so it's not too surprisng that those who do poorly in highschool sometimes do much better in college.
08 Apr 2003, 12:39 PM
Kidnemo

Against.

A perfect example of how it affects me:

My g/f goes to school full time. Shes a double major. She tutors. Shes a "peer advisor". She is in a couple of "developing the world for the future" clubs at school. She is training our dog to be a therapy dog. She volunteers at a local wildlife refuge. She works on average 15 hours a week.

Unfortunantly her parents suck and give her nothing to help her get through school.

To think that people can get scholarships/grants/financial aid because of their ethinic background, not because they are working harder than her angers me beyond belief.
08 Apr 2003, 02:05 PM
SonofdonCD

I'm in total agreement with ShineAqua and diffusionx.

Most people just think that AA automatically gives minorities everything, when it is just upping the odds for success. If the person didn't at least hover around the standard grades and other criteria in order to get into Harvard, how in the hell could AA help? The people still have to do their jobs.

ShineAqua said it best: AA is a Necessary Evil. I wish we didn't need this. It seems racist almost, but in all honesty, there is nothing else that can replace it. The only time where a system similar to AA would be unecessary is when economic and educational opportunities are truly equal across the board. Unfortunately, you have to erradicate racism along the way (or at least be tolerant of other races). Getting rid of AA will not correct the problem, but only feed it, and make it grow out of control. Yes, every now and again this will affect someone on the opposite side of the fence. Well every policy has its pros and cons. But the pros by far outweigh the cons in this instance. Besides, as diffusionx said, Muffy's life is set. All the racism in this country works in her favor anyway.....

Can you all honestly try to think what this country would be like without Affirmative Action? Not if it were to disappear now, but if it never existed? I'm willing to bet this country would be worse for it.

I can go into so many different topics as to how and why there's this stigmatism that blacks, latinos and other minorities are worse off, and need assistnce through programs like Affirmative Action. And why poor whites perhaps aren't in the same boat. These issues aren't easy to think about, much less discuss with others. But this issue can't be summed up by just saying that "All people should be equal." There is so much more going on behind the scenes that have to be taken into account.
08 Apr 2003, 02:06 PM
spacecowboy

Quote:

Originally posted by Kidnemo
To think that people can get scholarships/grants/financial aid because of their ethinic background, not because they are working harder than her angers me beyond belief.

It's unfair to say they didn't work as hard. Maybe they didn't do exactly what she did, but they might have done their work in other areas. But I can relate to her, yet also to him. I worked extremely hard during high school, made good grades, but then I dropped out during eleventh grade so I could get a job to help my family out. Luckily, I made a 32 on the ACT so I was able to get into OU. Since then, I've been a 4.0 every year, member of like 6 honor societies, officer in the Film Club, Academic Club, Anthropology club, and member of the Political Science club. I've organized parties for various benefits and most recently, helped to set up Relay for Life Cancer walk. So I know what it's like to work hard, but I don't think your high school career is indicitive of how you will fare in college.

SC

BTW, Kidnemo, you're helping her right? That's a pretty honorable thing to do.
08 Apr 2003, 02:43 PM
Kidnemo

Quote:

Originally posted by spacecowboy
It's unfair to say they didn't work as hard.

I have no problem if somebody works harder, give them the scholarships n' stuff.

Quote:

Maybe they didn't do exactly what she did, but they might have done their work in other areas.

Many of the criteria for acceptance into those programs like what I listed above are very quantifiable: ie. extracurricular activities, grades, etc. So it should be very clear which person is achieving more.

To think a person is getting "in" for doing less because of a skin pigment is detestable IMHO.

That's just as bad as black guy not getting a job because a white employer (for a very generalized example) doesn't want to hire them because of race.

To think that affirmative action is supporting the very thing it was set in place to prevent is bullshit.

(I'm no expert in Affirmative Action, so if I'm not understanding the facts here, feel free to set me straight)

Quote:

BTW, Kidnemo, you're helping her right? That's a pretty honorable thing to do.

That's what you do for family. When shes a pulling down big bucks as a doctor, then she can put me through school. :D
08 Apr 2003, 03:09 PM
Calliander

Quote:

Originally posted by Schlep
I think it's great that the one guy who got in ended up doing a really good job, but who deserved it more? The black guy who was unfocused in HS or the white girl that busted her ass for 4 years?

Jennifer Gratz can kiss my grits and apply to another school. With credentials like those, she's got a wide choice of colleges. She wanted to go to UM and got rejected; why didn't she apply to other schools? That doesn't seem like very much effort (a.k.a. busting her ass) if she didn't get accepted to UM and then gave up. Or, if she did, did she get accepted to some other school? Well then, if she did, she can have a Coke and a smile and shut the hell up. Where would Tom Turner be if he hadn't gotten accepted to UM? I was a 2.5 student (and that might be a generous guess on my part) and got an 1190 on my SAT's, a few extracurricular activities (no sports), and even though the class of '98 in my school missed having community service as a requirement for graduation I had some hours under my belt. The best I got was a state school here in CT and an acceptance to the University of New Haven under a special program after starting at the state school. I applied to Northwestern, Georgia Tech, University of Miami and the above mentioned schools. So I have some doubts as to Mr. Turner's future sans-UM. However...

Quote:

Originally posted by Kidnemo
My g/f goes to school full time. Shes a double major. She tutors. Shes a "peer advisor". She is in a couple of "developing the world for the future" clubs at school. She is training our dog to be a therapy dog. She volunteers at a local wildlife refuge. She works on average 15 hours a week.

This is where I think AA should be applied - not on a skin-color/ethnicity basis, but on background. Your lady's parents don't help her out and there's only so much you can help her with. She's the kind of person we want getting an education and entering the business world, not some jock in a fraternity who's majoring in finance. (That's an anti-fraternity sentiment, actually, I have nothing against jocks since without baseball jocks I'd be upset.)

I guess, though, that no matter how you apply it, you're still going to have people upset. I say... just smack 'em and tell the whiny pricks to deal with it.

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