—I was more irked that the “enlightened” view we have here seems to be that racism is perfectly acceptable, so long as it’s directed against whites.—
Not that I agree with quotas or even points systems, but this seems to be a misuse of language. Racism implies that you think a group of people are actually inferior. The poster quoted seemed to be saying that in a school with low minority representation, minorities were more valuable additions to the student body. That isn’t necessarily about racial inferiority or superiority.
If there is racism anywhere in there, in fact, it is directed not at whites, but at minorities. It implies that skin color makes one an expert on a particular culture, or a representative of it. But if cultural diversity is what they are after, they should look at economic status and geography, not race.
Likewise, there are plenty of white historians who know far more about black history and culture than most African-Americans. And what if minority students don’t WANT to be respresentatives of their culture for the benefit of the student body?
Sorry to have not been in here to answer specific U-M questions, though it seems we’ve moved beyond the ones I saw on page 3.
I too dislike the concept that anyone is “punished.” Disadvantaged, perhaps, but not punished. Students are going to be disadvantaged by not going to a school with AP classes, by being from a county that sends a lot of kids to U-M (or by being out of state), by getting a B their sophomore year, by not being one of those rarer females who wants to major in engineering, and so on. It’s not punishment. Unless U-M decides to educate all qualified people who apply, there will always be qualified applicants who don’t get admitted. And who are disadvantaged by the criteria U-M uses to admit people.
I don’t know that anyone has paid much attention to the points one gets for school quality and rigorous curriculum. This is another way that students who don’t have good educational opportunities in high school are disadvantaged in the admissions process. If your school is poor, and you can’t take AP classes, you cannot get those points. There’s simply no way. This can work for or against certain kids
