Reading the thread about “giving minority students extra points for their grades in college” made me think about this whole subject. And rather than hijack that thread, I thought I would throw this idea on the table.
Why is Affirmative Action needed in grad school? (The famous U of M case began because of Law School AA.) Most, if not all, undergrad schools have AA to help out “disadvantaged minorites”. Let’s assume that we accept that as OK. Should the recipients of undergrad AA then ALSO be eligible for graduate school AA? What’s going on? And I don’t buy the “we need AA in grad school to ensure diversity which benefits everyone”. There is no scientific evidence that I am aware of that this is true.
If minority undergrads don’t want to apply [to a particular grad school or grad program] or can’t get in on their own merit, then it seems that undergrad AA is a failure. You hear all the time that the AA recipients are every bit as capable as non AA recipients-- once admitted, they do just as well as the rest of their class. If so, why can’t they then compete for grad school on an equal basis? If the goal is to get “disadvantaged minorities” into grad school, then the only other logical course of action would be to offer (require?) remedial classes for AA recipients at the undergrad level. But in that case, you might want to offer these classes PRIOR to undergrad acceptance and get rid of undergrad AA.
It would be pretty easy to carry this argument into other areas, but for simplicity sake here, I’ll limit my proposal to the grad school issue.