# How affirmative action hurts race relations **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 17, 2001, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528 "2001-01-17T16:26:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/61 "2001-01-18T19:49:34Z")
I quoted the story because even though it argues that affirmative action is a good thing it admits that affirmative action creates a seperate standard for minorities. It also argues that Affirmative Action has created an atmosphere amoung white students that they are being discriminated against. This belief is widely held even amoung white students that have not bee discriminated against. So the story, even though it supports AA, supports my claims that AA creates seperate standards for minorities and hurts race relations. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/62 "2001-01-18T20:11:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by IzzyR \* > \*\ ***wring** > > Here’s another scenario. (After AA) Person B does not get in. Neither do most of the numerous other white people he knows who are at his level, in terms of scholastic and other achievement. Of the many minorities he knows who are at around that level, the majority get in. Person B is, as mentioned, a borderline case in terms of getting accepted, but he is not a total moron. He is therefore capable of figuring out that minorities are getting (in this regard, at least) a better deal. \*\* Once again **Izzy** you are over estimating how much information the individual students would have. Person B, residing in one town, going to one high school, applies to the University, gets rejected. he can look all day long at the other kids in his school who did or did not get in and **still** have insufficient information in order to make the giant leap that you propose. Consider: my high school had 700 students in each class. roughly half applied (or so they said) to Michigan State, roughly half applied to U of M (or so they said), while I knew who were the validictorian etc, the only info I had about other student’s grades, came from them, ditto test scores etc. I did know if they belonged to clubs etc, sometimes, but again, even if I knew and had proof of all of this information about each and every single solitary student from my school that applied to Michigan State, that would **still** only have been 350 applicants out of the several **thousand** that applied to MSU and the lesser number that got in. But, as some so nicely prove here, people will continue to believe what they wish, despite evidence to the contrary. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/63 "2001-01-18T20:52:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by puddleglum \* > \*\*I quoted the story because even though it argues that affirmative action is a good thing it admits that affirmative action creates a seperate standard for minorities. It also argues that Affirmative Action has created an atmosphere amoung white students that they are being discriminated against. This belief is widely held even amoung white students that have not bee discriminated against. > So the story, even though it supports AA, supports my claims that AA creates seperate standards for minorities and hurts race relations. \*\* So, while the link you provided shows demonstatable evidence that AA does \*\*good \*\*things, you still maintain that it hurts race relations because 'some white students feel they have been discriminated against, even when it isn’t true? Wow. WOuldn’t a more appropriate response be, to **educate** those with the erroneous information, instead of saying 'gee, it’s a bad thing ‘cause they **think** it is’ ?? ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/64 "2001-01-18T20:52:27Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by **puddleglum** _ > I quoted the story because even though it argues that affirmative action is a good thing it admits that affirmative action creates a seperate standard for minorities. Sorry, but you’ve read something into the story that’s not there. The authors suggest no such thing, and in fact examine only the _probabilities_ of admission for the average four-year student. They point out that blacks and Hispanics have a higher probability of admission, _all academic qualifications being equal._ > [@](#): > > It also argues that Affirmative Action has created an atmosphere amoung white students that they are being discriminated against. Again, you seem to have read quite selectively. The authors conclude with the following comments: “…too many students are likely to believe that they are the ones who would have been admitted if racial preferences were ended. **Rather than respond to such misperceptions** , policymakers and voters should take a sober look at the actual benefits and costs before they take the step of ending racial preference in college admissions.” This would seem to indicate an argument that the “atmosphere” among white students, while a _reaction_ to AA, is a false reaction which should not be taken seriously by policymakers and voters. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/65 "2001-01-18T21:15:45Z")
What the story says is that at highly selective universities, where a significant percentage of applicants are refused, the right skin color is the equivalent of hundreds of SAT points or one letter grade higher GPA. It goes on to say that at universities where almost everyone who applies gets in it is not much of a factor. The highly selective universities are the one we are talking about. What that means is at a highly selective university a minority with a 2.8 GPA has the same chance as a white one with a 3.8 GPA all else being equal. That is a different standard for minorities. To say otherwise is to deny the obvious. The white students who have been denied admission can not know if they would have gotten in if the playing field was level. All they know is that because of AA someone less qualified than they were got in. A big education campaign telling them “You probably were not one of the ones discriminated against, but we can’t be sure” is not going to placate them. The rest of the article tries to get around these facts with the standard liberal claptrap of “It doesn’t matter what damage we cause now because we are building a brave new world”. ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/66 "2001-01-18T21:37:57Z")
Let’s try to get out of the “the student wouldn’t know” argument. If the high school was at all competitive, like mine was, you know exactly where you place in the rankings and you know exactly where your friends place. You also know what clubs and organizations your friends have joined. Finally, senior year is just one long conversation about what colleges you applied to and where you are going and where you got rejected from, etc. Maybe some high schools aren’t like that, but some definitely are, and the students can often measure themselves against each other quite well. The bad feelings come out of students who often know with a good deal of certainty that they had better test scores, a higher GPA, and were more active in activities than someone who got admitted to the same school that they were rejected from. I’m sure you can argue that both candidates were borderline and that in any given year, either could have been rejected or accepted, but the fact is that the student doesn’t believe that schools choose randomly from borderline cases. And if that is true, then there must be some other reason that his friends are being accepted while he is not. Whatever the intentions of AA were, the way it is being implemented is to sometimes accept minorities over majorities with better qualifications. I can’t imagine that some people don’t see this happens at least some of the time, unless they were not brought up in a racially diverse environment. PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/67 "2001-01-18T21:46:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by PeeQueue \* > \*\*Let’s try to get out of the “the student wouldn’t know” argument. If the high school was at all competitive, like mine was, you know exactly where you place in the rankings and you know exactly where your friends place. You also know what clubs and organizations your friends have joined. Finally, senior year is just one long conversation about what colleges you applied to and where you are going and where you got rejected from, etc. > > Maybe some high schools aren’t like that, but some definitely are, and the students can often measure themselves against each other quite well. > \*\* Did you read the rest of my comments?? whatever you know, think you know etc. about your particular classmates, you have \*\* less thank zero\*\* knowledge about the **thousands** of other applicants. So unless your entire high school comprised the entire freshman class at some university, your observations and assumptions about your classmates and their aspirations are worthless in extrapolating to any particular school. ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/68 "2001-01-18T22:05:47Z")
wring, I don’t get it. Maybe I did miss something you said. Why would you need to know anything about the rest of the college’s freshman class? As long as you can tell that in your school, there was no person in the majority that got accepted to a particular school with less qualifications than any one minority, and at the same time there were numerous cases of minorities that got accepted over majorities with less qualifications, you have a good working basis to determine certain things about the admission policy of that particular college. Sure it’s not the full picture, but there is definitely something going on. Sorry about the run-on sentence. PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/69 "2001-01-18T22:12:58Z")
> [@](#): > > _originally posted by **puddleglum** _ > The highly selective universities are the one we are talking about. What that means is at a highly selective university a minority with a 2.8 GPA has the same chance as a white one with a 3.8 GPA all else being equal. That is a different standard for minorities. To say otherwise is to deny the obvious. I’m pretty sure the difference between 2.8 and 3.8 is more than one letter grade. I gather you’re basing your assertion on this quote from the article: > [@](#): > > _At the most selective schools, race or ethnicity “mattered” about as much as a grade point average that was one letter grade higher or twice as much as being a member of the student government, and was equivalent to several hundred points on the SAT._ Note that this does _not_, repeat _not_ mean that there is an automatic lower standard for minorities, nor does it mean there are “awards” of higher GPA’s adjusted onto minority applications, only that the probabilities are the same for a B- white male student as for a C- minority student. > [@](#): > > The rest of the article tries to get around these facts with the standard liberal claptrap of “It doesn’t matter what damage we cause now because we are building a brave new world”. The rest of the article, on the contrary, evenhandedly addresses the costs and benefits of “group-based preferences” and concludes that[list=a][_]“We might wish to pursue affirmative action in higher education to compensate for labor market discrimination.”[_]“Although there has been surprisingly little systematic effort to assess their impact, there is some evidence that racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions benefit the groups they are intended to help.”"…it still remains to be seen whether the benefits of preferences are worth the costs being imposed on the youth in nonpreferred groups. As we argued above, the public choice may be distorted by the fact that whatever costs are being born by nonminority youth, the perceived costs are probably larger…"[/list=a]If such lukewarm, noncommital comments pass for you as “standard liberal claptrap”, I begin to understand how skewed your perspective really is. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/70 "2001-01-18T22:36:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by PeeQueue \* > \*\*wring, I don’t get it. Maybe I did miss something you said. Why would you need to know anything about the rest of the college’s freshman class? As long as you can tell that in your school, there was no person in the majority that got accepted to a particular school with less qualifications than any one minority, and at the same time there were numerous cases of minorities that got accepted over majorities with less qualifications, you have a good working basis to determine certain things about the admission policy of that particular college. Sure it’s not the full picture, but there is definitely something going on. > > Sorry about the run-on sentence. > > PeeQueue > \*\* Ok, let’s assume that you **know** all of each other’s grade point averages, club affiliations, test scores etc. and that it’s accurate information. You’re assuming 'cause Fred who had a 3.2 and is white didn’t get in, but Frank who’s got a 3.1 and is black DID get in, that it was due specifically to AA preferential treatment, and that Frank, in essense, **displaced** Fred. Two problems with that (both have been illustrated in this thread). 1. As I pointed out on the first page, the **assumption** that a test score fo 1300 is always to be preferred/selected over the test score of 1298 (or GPA of 3.3 to be preferred over 3.2) is false. Generally speaking, the two are considered to be the same. They seperate the candidates into **bands** of students - for example one group of ‘yes, we definately want this person’ one set of ‘no, we definately don’t want this person’ and a large group of ‘maybes’. So, the group may include both Fred and Frank, even tho’ Fred’s GPA/test scores may be higher, they may not be significantly higher. In the “maybe” category, other criteria (see below) may come into play. 2 College admissions are based on more than simple grade point/test score analysis. Often there is a request for a written statement from the student, and letters of reference. In addition, school officials **themselves** have been known to write letters on behalf of certain students. In addition, while both may have belonged to two sports and three clubs, there may be something about the clubs/sports themselves that tipped the balance (one may have belonged to a volunteer club vs. the other being in the ‘we like Brittney Spears’ Club for example). All of this info would **not** be available to you, but would be used to determine who would be accepted. The fact that the only difference your friends are able to **observe** is that one is black, the other white, does not mean that it was the only difference. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [January 18, 2001, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/71 "2001-01-18T22:57:14Z")
To follow **wring’s** point: There really are no set standards for college admission. When I was at Duke, my friends had tons of stories about how, for example, they got accepted at Harvard and Duke but rejected at Penn, while a similarly qualified friend was accepted at Penn and Duke but rejected at Harvard, another was accepted at Harvard and Penn but rejected at Duke, and still another was accepted at all three but rejected at, say, Berkeley. When you have people with similar qualifications competing for the same spots, it comes down to a lot of intangibles and subjective evaluation on the part of each school’s admissions committee. To say that students would generally be able to pinpoint the cause of their rejection as being affirmative action, even assuming a large high school and the rest of it, seems pretty silly. ---
**Author:** ![IzzyR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/2acd7d/32.png) [@IzzyR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IzzyR)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2001, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/72 "2001-01-19T01:37:40Z")
**Affirmative Action People:** I remember once seeing an Abbot and Costello skit (or maybe I heard it on the radio) where Costello is in a verbal altercation with a cameraman. It went like this: Cameraman: “I’ll fight you.” Costello: “And I’ll fight you.” CM: “And _I’ll_ fight you!!!” CS: “And _I’ll_ fight you!!!” CM: **”And _I’ll_ fight you!!!”** CS: **”And _I’ll_ fight you!!!**. (I guess it’s a tie).” I may return however, if any new points are brought up that have not already been responded to. ---
**Author:** ![PeeQueue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/8797f3/32.png) [@PeeQueue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PeeQueue)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2001, 4:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/73 "2001-01-19T16:56:11Z")
Well, you’ve convinced me that maybe it’s possible that the schools are taking something into account that the students don’t know about. Which is why you often hear statements like, “He must have written one hell of an essay” all the time. Of course, in the back of many minds is the feeling that he didn’t write one hell of an essay, which is the problem that the OP is talking about. So maybe it would be good to talk to someone who actually works in the admissions office of a college to find out what they actually do. Official statements about their methodology would always phrase everything just right, so it won’t be that good of an indicator. I guess beyond that, or an in-depth investigation, this argument is moot. I will leave saying that my opinion is that many colleges do have different standards for different people, but I realize that I can not be completely sure of that. One last thing I just thought of: would looking at the average GPA, SATs, accomplishments of different groups that were admitted to a college add any insight? PeeQueue ---
**Author:** ![LonesomePolecat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/a88e57/32.png) [@LonesomePolecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LonesomePolecat)\ **Post date:** [January 20, 2001, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/74 "2001-01-20T18:28:44Z")
[QUOTE] \*Originally posted by pldennison \* \*\* > [@](#): > > * * * > > Duh. Since blacks represent only 12% of the population, taken in raw numbers, there are more whites of **any** category or description than there are blacks. **As a percentage of their population** , blacks are, however, disproportionately represented among the poor.\*\*\* Duh, yourself. The fact still remains that there are more poor whites than poor blacks. But then, liberals pretty much hate lower class whites, so it’s not to be expected that a liberal would care anything about white poverty. [QUOTE] \*Originally posted by pldennison \* \*\* > [@](#): > > Um, your strawman is on fire. I specifically said, just a few posts up, “Given the choice, I’d rather see a borderline poor white person admitted than a borderline wealthy black person.” In fact, I don’t think anybody on this thread has suggested what you claim here.]\*\*\* Your token attempt at fairness is appreciated, but the fact remains that liberals hate poor and working class whites. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > \*\*My mother’s boyfriend calls himself a “redneck” and calls black people “niggers.” What conclusions can you draw from that? \* \*\* I conclude that he’s probably a good deal less prejudiced than you are. Lefties are such a hoot. They pride themselves on their open-mindedness, tolerance and insight, and yet they’re as bigoted, stupid and as full of self-righteous hatred as any Bible-thumping moron in the Religious Right. ---
**Author:** ![pldennison](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9fc29f/32.png) [@pldennison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pldennison)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/75 "2001-01-21T00:30:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by LonesomePolecat \* > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > * * * > > > > > > Duh. Since blacks represent only 12% of the population, taken in raw numbers, there are more whites of **any** category or description than there are blacks. **As a percentage of their population** , blacks are, however, disproportionately represented among the poor.\*\*\* > > > > Duh, yourself. The fact still remains that there are more poor whites than poor blacks. But then, liberals pretty much hate lower class whites, so it’s not to be expected that a liberal would care anything about white poverty.\*\* > > 1. Got a cite for that “liberals hate lower class whites” thing? Or is it just your ill-informed opinion? > 2. I hope you aren’t implying I’m a liberal. It’s only going to make you look foolish. > 3. To be more concerned about raw numbers rather than proportion of population in terms of problems like this shows a staggering lack of common sense. > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > > \*\* > > > > > [@](#): > > > > > > Um, your strawman is on fire. I specifically said, just a few posts up, “Given the choice, I’d rather see a borderline poor white person admitted than a borderline wealthy black person.” In fact, I don’t think anybody on this thread has suggested what you claim here.]\*\*\* > > > > Your token attempt at fairness is appreciated, but the fact remains that liberals hate poor and working class whites.\*\* > > Cite request #2. > > \*\* > > > [@](#): > > > > \*Originally posted by pldennison \* > > \*\*My mother’s boyfriend calls himself a “redneck” and calls black people “niggers.” What conclusions can you draw from that? \* \*\* > > I conclude that he’s probably a good deal less prejudiced than you are. Lefties are such a hoot. They pride themselves on their open-mindedness, tolerance and insight, and yet they’re as bigoted, stupid and as full of self-righteous hatred as any Bible-thumping moron in the Religious Right. \*\* Hahahahahah! Are you implying that my mother’s boyfriend is a “leftie”? Oh man, oh man, oh man–you could not possibly, in a thousand years, be farther off-base. Wow, I think you actually managed, in around 100 words, to contribute an entirely fact-free post. Congratulations, I guess. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![xenophon41](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xenophon41/32/253_2.png) [@xenophon41](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xenophon41)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/76 "2001-01-21T00:46:24Z")
Aw, c’mon Phil; admit you’re a bleeding heart liberal! --Hey, wanna join me and **Gadarene** over at **wring** ’s house for a hate party? Last time we had _so_ much fun planning the next big liberal effort to oppress the poor and the working class whites! Ya shoulda been there, man… ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [January 21, 2001, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528/77 "2001-01-21T20:39:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by xenophon41 \* > \*\*Aw, c’mon Phil; admit you’re a bleeding heart liberal! --Hey, wanna join me and **Gadarene** over at **wring** ’s house for a hate party? Last time we had _so_ much fun planning the next big liberal effort to oppress the poor and the working class whites! > > Ya shoulda been there, man… \*\* Damn - the meetings’ at **my** house this time? I simply don’t have enough straw for the burning effigies. Shrug. Guess I’ll have to stop at the Farm & Fleet store… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-affirmative-action-hurts-race-relations/50528.md?page=3)