I hope I didn’t give you the impression that I favored using any of my socio-economic indicators for admissions purposes. I don’t. My point was that if someone’s stated position is to have a socio-economically diverse student body, then they can do so w/o using race as a criteria. The assumption that you MUST use race is, in my opinion, false.
Also, I don’t believe I used a statistica refernence of background in a previous thread about race. I could have mentioned physical features or genetics, but not background.
I think the bottom line is that neither one of us knows whether racial diversity improves education or not. We don’t know if it makes it worse, or has no measureable effect. You are willing to enact policy based on your gut, and I’m not. Probably not much more to debate about.
One more question, though. Do you see any validity to my statement that many Affirmative Action supporters us the “diverstity improves education” slogan as a way of sidestepping the debate about whether or not it is appropriate to grant racial preferences based on past discrimation?
Can I reiterate a really dumb question? If being exposed to so many different viewpoints is good… then why wouldn’t we try to ensure that we maintain a reasonable variety of different viewpoints? In other words, if we make all of our colleges the same (i.e., equally diverse), then it seems to me that we’re effectively trying to eliminate a form of diversity.
It seems to me that we want to have it both ways, here. Diversity is good, and exposure to different viewpoints is good, but that to me requires that we ought to ensure that we continue to have different experiences. Obviously, most of those differences will come before college, but why would we want all people to have similar college experiences when doing so reduces the very diversity we’ve been praising all along?
Yes. I think that some people use “diversity is good” as cover for affirmative action as a means to right past wrongs.
And my question again remains: in the absence of any conclusive evidence (agreed) should the gubbermint disallow a particular school from deciding that diversity is in their school’s best interest, so long as all students accepted are qualified for attendence? Or should they be free to use whatever markers of diversity that they choose (including none) as part of the package of choosing between students that are within an otherwise acceptable range of attributes?
Now here we tread into different territory. My own view is that a private institution should be free to set up any criteria it chooses for students. It shoudl be able to discriminate at will. A public instituion, however, should not. Any sort of racial preference is, in effect, a discrimation against the other races.
I think the U of M case stands out, even among AA supporters, because the adder for race is quite large. By giving 20 pts for race, they sort of stick out like a sore thumb. Especially since that is more than you get for a perfect SAT score. Had they given, say, 5 pts for race, they probably could’ve flown under the radar. My guess, though, is that they knew in advance how much of kicker they had to give in order to achieve a certain racial balance. That will probably be the achilles heel of this case.
That is a very interesting point. I never thought of it that way before. So, in order to maintain this wonderful diversity, perhpas we should set up mandatory ghettos and only let kids out after they have been suficiently inculcated with their particular “culture”.
But, if you were in Japan and talked about diversity they would laugh you out of the room. In Japan, uniformity is prized and they look at our “diversity” as our biggest weakness. There is a common Japanese saying" “The nail that sticks up gets hammerred down”. They will tell you how much easier and HARMONIOUS the workplace is if everyone is more or less the same.
1)How much “diversity” do middle-class blacks with college-educated parents really add to a university?. Admittedly their life-experience will be somewhat different from whites from the same background but how much? Are they much more significant than intra-white distinctions based on , say, religion. Aren’t Mormons or Christian evangelicals also likely to bring a distinctive perspective? Should colleges make an effort to give them “adequate” representation?
2)A more factual question: how on earth is “race” defined for the purposes of AA anyway? What happens to children of mixed marriages? If it is just self-identification can any white just start calling himself a black and claim the benefit?
“can any white just start calling himself a black and claim the benefit?”
I know whites who have. Back on the original U of M thread, someone called the university and asked that question. The answer was that they pretty much accept what the student says.
Then I suspect it’s only a matter of time before the system breaks down because of a lack of clear-cut criteria. And any such criteria would be hugely controvesial.
The point is that if the university doesn’t define what a black person is you can’t really call it cheating. Yes it’s been working for some time but perhaps there was more of a social stigma about self-identifying as black earlier. In any case I suspect that the incentive of easier admission to elite colleges will mean more and more non-blacks attempting to benefit from AA over time.
That’s probably true. In any case the same practical problem of defining clear-cut boundaries exists for those groups as well. It’s not that you couldn’t produce some kind of definition but it would be arbitrary and highly controversial and my guess is that universities would prefer not to do it.
Yes. I suppose if you got a large enough group together to force this issue, you could see some interesting scrambling by AA supporters to define race w/o resorting to South African like aparthied practices. I still don’t see this happening, though.
Now, one could argue this bad behavior is due to the resentment enstilled by AA. But I think it’s just plain ole racism, and unfortunately, it seems to be business as usual.
Isn’t it funny how racists use AA to justify their racism while pro-AAers use racism to justify AA? There’s some reasonable middle ground in there somewhere and we will find it. But it’s sad that so many people are getting hurt by this. I know if I were considering college, predominately black schools would be looking mighty good right about now.
Interesting article. I see 2 seperate things going on here:
Plain 'ol racism, as you say. This is going to be hard, if not impossible to eradicate. Good luck to anyone trying. Hopefully, it will diminish over time (as I think it has to some extent), but I don’t know that anyone has come up with a good way of accelerating that process.
Resentment that one group is seen to be given a special advantage.
The only way you’re going to get rid of #2, and still have some form of AA is to give AA recipients who would not qualify for admissions some sort or remedial education BEFORE college, and then only accepting those students if they can meet a color blind admissions policy. Of course, this might just force #2 type of resentment off the campus and onto some other stage.
I’m not willing to go that far, of course. I just wonder to what extent diversity and equality are compatible goals, and to what extent they are being used in incompatible ways, that’s all.
I’m not adept at adding smiling faces to my posts. I assumed it would be obvious that I was being facetious. However, one way of exposing an incorrect premise is to take it to it’s logical conclusion and see if it still makes sense.
That’s an interesting article, monstro. A few comments:
University of Michigan is considered the Harvard of the Midwest? Huh? By who? UM administrators? What about the University of Chicago - isn’t that a better school? OK, back to the topic at hand.
The are a few bizarre quotes that sort of speak to some of the emotional and irrational arguments being made here:
If AA is struck down resegregation will be a fact of life? Give me a freaking break. That’s all I’m going to say about that.
Second, this girl carries a 3.8 GPA with advanced courses and what looks like the real chance of a pretty high SAT score. And she thinks that her recruitment letters would drop by a significant amount? What the hell is wrong with her? I don’t care what race you are, those credentials get you in to most schools on merit alone. Certainly into any state school. She doesn’t need AA, she needs perspective.
Good students aren’t really affected too much by AA at most schools. You get the grades, the test scores and the decent courses and you stand a very good chance of getting in no matter what race you are. Only for borderline students does it actually really matter, or for admission in to the elite universities.
Alternatively, I don’t think that the girl filing the lawsuit has a case. She can’t point to the fact that AA was the sole instance of favored treatment cost her a spot. Plus, if she was a better student she most likely would have gotten in with or without AA. So no pity for her.
Lastly, racial seperatism works from both ends. Sure, the white students in the article were pretty insensitive, and the student newspaper cartoon about the names was beyond the pale. Ridiculous ignorance and intolerance right there. But you look at some of the quotes from the black students and it doesn’t seem like they have much desire to hang out with the white students either - like that quote about how since the school doesn’t have lots of black guys she probably wouldn’t date. What a jerk.
Neurotik, I basically agree with you, but I do understand where the girl with the 3.8 GPA is coming from. I had a 3.8 GPA in high school, plus a whole slate of AP courses and not-so-bad SAT scores. People knew this. But it still didn’t stop them for giving me hell when I told them I had been accepted to my college. To them, I was just another AA beneficiary catching an undeserved break. I’m thinking her comments make sense if you take into consideration what numbskulls may have been telling her. She may be wrong about reality, but not the perception.
The fact is that a lot of students with steller scores and grades get turned down for schools. Admissions have not been–and still are not–all about merit.
But there’s a big difference between viewing your dating options as limited if you’re a minority and setting fire to a cross (which happened last year, IIRC). Especially if you believe that no one wants to date your Affirmative-Action-gettin’ black ass in the first place. Sure, I think resentment lies on both sides but you don’t see black students doing the same things as white students. The power differential isn’t the same. The effects of their cold shoulders aren’t the same.
If I may speak for Neurotik, I think the real ridiculous part of the quote from the girl in question was:
“if affirmative action is struck down by the court, resegregation and inequality will be a fact of life.”
To equate a lack of AA with segregation is a BIG stretch. If we’ve gotten to the point where an itellegent young woman like this (based on her academic record) can’t tell the difference between those two situations, then something is wrong.