Affirmative Action - Yeah or Nay.

Great Debates
21

I guess I don’t understand the logic involved in this particular form of discrimination.

It is so patronizing to say someone didn’t do as well in school because they are black, Native American, Libertarian, or (pick a minority). Every single person I have met that worked hard in school has done well. I see a high correlation between college grades and financial success. The same should apply in advanced college courses.

I also don’t understand why there needs to be numeric parity in any field. Positions for medical students are limited so I want the absolute best to advance. I could care less what my doctor looks like when I’m getting my heart worked on.

Think of how stupid it would appear if we applied this to college sports.

22

robertliguori:

Because that’s not what the argument is. The argument is that racism and sexism are constants in America that are impossible to be destroyed. Thus, a beauracratic, non-human system is needed to balance everything out.

23

You will not solve old injustices by creating new ones.

24

I think you wanted to use the word “fair”, but chose to phrase it differently. Forcing things to be fair is the oppostie of fair. Reverse discrimintation is still discrimination any way you phrase it.
Giving a false advantage to one group over another is creating a false representation of the actual group that should be in that position. There should be NO barriers, and AA is a barrier.

Lets say I started a contracting business and I get some funding through the city/state for start-up help. The city says that I need to hire 10 percent minority. I need to fill twelve positions. Several things will happen. I may not get any minority applicants, which would cause me to actively pursue minority applicants (bad for me good for them). I may get twelve highly qualified applicants who are all monority (good for everyone). I may get the ten percent mix just by coincidence (good for everyone). I may get the twelve positions filled with the best applicants in which none are minority even though many applied (bad for me-city withholds funds). I dont get to have full control over my hiring because Im stuck with this quota to fill. Not only does it hinder my attempts to hire the best twelve (maybe), it can cause resentment among my employees. Even if I hire my minority quota (2) I may have one that made my cut and one that didn`t. The one that made the cut will resent the one that got in because of the quota (not to mention the applicants that missed out legitimately). The other (10) non-minority will feel the same way towards that person. How is that beneficial to anyone but that one person whose only reason for employment is the quota.
It can cause resentment, poor performance, and forces people to use race/gender in their hiring practices. I as the employer may be disadvantaged depending on the work pool at the time. My employees may feel disadvantaged because they may be forced to work with an employee of sub-par skills.

As the The Peyote Coyote said: You will not solve old injustices by creating new ones.

25

Nay. If standards are good enough for sports, they’re good enough for hiring.

26

whuckfistle, I believe robertliguori is on your side. The standard AA theory is that AA needs to be in place until discrimination ceases. By claiming that discrimination is “constant and impossible to be destroyed”, he’s mocking their arguments in a sarcastic manner.

At least, I hope to god he’s not being serious.

27

Right, it was pizzabrat that I should have been responding to.
If pizzabrat were a conservative saying that, then I could see the sarcasm. A liberal, on the other hand, might actually believe that.
Im not sure of his/her (**pbs**) stance on these issues.

28

I don’t see what’s so ridiculous about the idea that racism and sexism will never go away. And I wasn’t stating a side on the issue, I was just stating what the issue was. People keep saying “if it’s about poverty then why don’t you just base it on economic status and whatnot.” But it’s not about poverty, it’s about racism and sexism.

29

Ah jeez, he IS serious.

Racism does indeed go away. This has been said several times previously in this thread. Sexism has had a far harder time of it, but has been making great strides once the current (and correct, IMO) mindset of this culture- namely that we’re all equal- has set in.

The complaint with affirmative action is that I goes against the “we’re all equal” mindset. It suggests instead the mindset of “I’m a minority, therefore I deserve to be treated better.” All it does is substitute one discrimination for another.

AA was put in place to help equalize the playing field while society was able to adjust. It was never intended to offset a permanent problem with American culture, as you seem to think. Although it did have a noble purpose, those who decry it do so because the method it goes about making “equality” is basically to force everyone to discrimination in the opposite direction. The means does not justify the end.

The “poverty” argument goes like this: AA is there because minorities have had a hard time competing socioeconomically with whites. By forcing employers/schools to hire minorities, it gives them more of a chance to catch up and be treated equally. But, they reason, there are rich people who happen to be minorities, and poor people who happen to be whites. The rich minorities don’t need AA, while the poor whites could certainly use it. Wouldn’t it be more fair to give the “hand up” to EVERYONE who was poor? That way, the law would not have to discriminate, you’d still accomplish your intended goals, and no one would be able to slip through the cracks/take unfair advantage of the system.

30

I attended the University of New Mexico for 5 years and graduated last May. If I remember correctly, European Americans (to be PC) were the minorty at the school. Yet, every single scholarship fund was for Hispanics, African Americans, Asians etc. If I was to start up a European American Scholarhip Fund at the University, I would be labled a racist and be thrown out of school, even though I would be trying to attract more “minorty” students. Where is the affirmative action there? I was uneligible for pretty much every scholarship the campus offered simply because I am White, I mean European American. Where is the Affirmative Action or Equal Opportunity there?

Someone already posted this, but I think it is a fantastic analogy. Where is the Affirmative Action in the NBA and NFL “workplaces?” Shouldn’t we force coaches and GM’s to hire enough Whites, Asians and Native Americans to even out the racial bias on the playing fields? That would never fly, because anyone that proposed it would be considered a racist.

Affirmative Action is flat out wrong, why should I have to pay for the previous generations wrong doings? Then again you could say that minorities are paying for my previous generations wrong doings, but hell, my “ancestors” were poor Russians, moved here and became poor farmers in the midwest. What the hell did I or my family do to them? It’s a messed up practice conjured up by some desperate messed up people. I’m suprised more minorites dont rise up and say “I dont need your handout!” I know my great-great-great-grandparents didn’t.

31

Tezmac, in case you don’t remember, your family is singlehandely responsible for the oppression of the entire african american, native american, hispanic, and asian american races. And women.

What’s that you say? You family immigrated to a high minority area after the civil war, where the population of african americans is extremely low and therefore relatively unaffected by jim crow laws? Tought shit. You get the shaft because of the color of your-- uuh, on general principle.

And don’t complain that it isn’t fair. Klan member.

32

Wow, I cant believe you just called me that. I thought this was a place for quasi-intellegent debate and comments, guess I was wrong.

33

I was kidding, tezmac. Read my earlier posts (like the one directly above yours) and see if what I said above matches with what I said to you.

34

whuckfistle:

So you get a little government reward for putting out extra effort to hire a minority. You don’t have to accept it if you don’t want to.

InquisitiveIdot:

So what if it’s been said several times, it’s still not true. For a while people started being quiet about their racism, that’s true, but now that it’s hip to be “politically incorrect”, people are just as open with their racist nonsense as they were before. Just search this board’s archives for “blacks” and see how many of the resulting threads are positive.

35

You don’t get a reward. You get fined if you don’t hire them. And you HAVE to accept it.

36

I don’t see the problem with AA. The amount of people discriminated against by this policy are clearly a small minority. Now, of course if you happen to be a member of that small minority, then you’d be pissed. But if you happen to be the beneficiary, then it works out fine, if that minority has advantages elsewhere.

To clarify. Legacy points are pointedly skewed toward the wealthy, and the white. Yet these don’t seem to bother most people. Athletic points are skewed toward men. These don’t bother people. Affirmative action points are skewed toward racial minorities, yet these seem to bother white men. Why? It’s not like you guys don’t have advantages elsewhere that women and minorities don’t have.

For example. I’ve worked for two small companies. In both companies the sons of the founders were placed in the VP positions, despite overwhelming evidence that they were not qualified for the positions. In addition both companies were rife with nepotism. Unqualified family members and friends placed in jobs for which they were unqualified, at the expense of more qualified candidates. These were not publicly traded companies, so what’s the problem, you may ask? None, I say. However, the publicly traded companies aren’t much better. In 2001 only 14 companies in the S&P 500 had minorities as CEO. So to imply that “fairness” should be inherent in the system is just plain naive.

As for awarding points based on socioeconomic school standing, that doesn’t work either. In Texas the admission process is based upon the guaranteed acceptance of the top 10% of graduating student body of any public high school. This clearly discriminates against the very good/competitive high schools where the lower scoring students might be far more qualified than those of the top 10% of a crummy performing school. In fact, this has happened in the case of students from a section of Dallas called the Park Cities where the schools are extremely well-funded and competitive, and students scoring high enough to be accepted at Princeton on their SATs were not accepted to UT because of the policy.

Considering the racism inherent elsewhere in the American system, I don’t see a problem with this bit of backasswardness.

37

So you’re telling me to stop whining, and let society have it’s way with my rear end, solely on the basis of my race?

Keep in mind that where I come from, whites are the very small minority. If anyone has been discriminated against during my upbringing, it would be me. Yet you say, because of the color of my skin, it’s perfectly fair for me to be unfairly disadvantaged at everything in life?

I thought the civil rights movement said that NO ONE should.

38

Okay… so? No one I’ve ever heard has claimed this is right. Rather the opposite, the consensus is that the law should be repealed. But what does this have to do with using socioeconomic standing? Suppose all schools are ranked on the basis of performance, from 1-10. A student’s bias, when applying for college etc., would be primary school rating3+ secondary school rating3+high school rating *4. That way, the law avoids rewarding students who say in poor home high schools instead of going to magnet schools, while still being fair to everyone. It also avoids race, btw, which was the entire point. It would be more ethical this way.

39

Translation: As long as injustice cannot be measured in millions of people, it’s perfectly all right.

Au contraire, it bothers those of us who think the primary function of universities and schools should be education, not athletics. If the NFL & NBA want to prep kids for pro sports, let them start farm teams.

What advantages? Being from a relatively poor family and being unathletic, I would have no advantage other than academic achievement if I were to apply for college today. If I make better grades than a minority member or a woman, why should I be denied admission? If I have better qualifications for a job than a minority member, why should I be happy to see it go to them? I repeat: you ain’t going to solve the problems created by old injustices by imposing new injustices.

You also seem to be overlooking the point that many schools in rural white America are nearly as bad as inner-city schools. Also, I would venture to say in these days of NAFTA and the dying family farm, that suburban minorities have far more opportunity than many rural whites. If you want policies to help poor people, then make them color-blind.

I, too, have worked for such companies, including one newspaper where the owner’s son should have been fired after I indirectly presented evidence to the managing editor of his incompetence. On one hand this bothers me as advancement should be based on merit. On the other hand, my observation is that such companies sooner or later go out of business because the people running them don’t know what they are doing.

Since legal discrimination ended in the 1960’s, this is only to be expected. It takes several decades to rise to CEO in traditional industries. I think we should see that number increase in the years ahead.

Just out of curiousity, are you white or a minority?

40

Yup, Idiot, I’m saying exactly that. Suck it up. If you are a white male you will have many other advantages.

Take this example. An optics lab technician whom I know, who happens to be a man makes $50,000/ yr without a college education. However the technicians in my lab, who are primarily Biology graduates start at $20,000/ yr and are almost solely women. A construction worker makes $20/hr while a cashier makes $7.00. The laboratory I work in has about 80% women, however, we only have one woman supervisor, and one woman Scientist (me). I work for a huge, publicly traded, pharmaceutical company. When a woman acts aggressive, she’s a bitch, when a black person does, he has an attitude, when a white guy does, he’s a go-getter. I’ve seen this pattern repeated over and over in my 26 years of work experience. Feel free to tell me that it’s my imagination, or to give me some bull-shit story of how you would love to have a woman engineer, but simply can’t find one, and I’ll tell you that you’re full of shit. Men’s pay out-paces women’s because historically they were the bread-winners, and this hasn’t yet changed. This is the advantage you get for no other reason than your gender. The advantage escalates considerably because you’re white.

Which brings me to the preference for blacks in jobs things, does anyone have any real-world experience with this? I have heard repeatedly that blacks are taken with preference, and yet I’ve never (in 10 years of hiring) been requested to do this, and have never found anyone who has. I also have never even met anyone who claims this to have happened to them, for or against. Is this actually imaginary? Does anyone even have anecdotal evidence that this practice is even mildly wide-spread? On the other hand, I know of at least one HR person on this board who had publicly admitted that s/he discards the resumes of people with “black” sounding names.

Coyote, exactly. If an injustice is for the greater good, and the number of people harmed by it are minimal, than that injustice can be justified (think Iraq).

I noticed that you didn’t address the question of legacy points. However, to address your statement of the rural white schools, if you look at the U of M’s admissions point system (see the lower right side of the link), rural students are given extra points based on underrepresented counties, and points are also given based on socio-economic disadvantage. Also where is the fury over the points given for men in nursing? I don’t see one for women in the sciences? Note also, that although you claim that women are taking your space in college or jobs, there is not one single category that allows only women a point.

FTR I am white, female, and overeducated.