Racist Scholarships

[Spoke]

Kimstu-
I understand that the desire for diversity is at work here. My problem comes with defining “diversity” on the basis of skin color.

My two friends grew up in the same town and shared the same cultural background. You can’t truly say that the black kid was any more disadvantaged than the white kid. Both came from rough circumstances. Both attended the same sub-par public school. As I said, the only real difference between them was the color of their skins. Both of them were as different from white, private-school-educated children-of-privilege as they could possibly be.

Was it right to distinguish between these two solely on the basis of their skin color?

If someone has been financially disadvantaged as a youth (whether due to race, or other factors) then fine, give them a leg up. But don’t assume that someone is disadvantaged just because of the color of their skin. Look at each individual’s circumstances.

(Oh, and there is no bitterness in the white guy, to address your concern in that area. Our group formed some pretty close bonds over the years. We are all still good friends.)

[GLWasteful]

MrZ: A thousand pardons, I posted in haste.

I guess what I meant was that when you say,

When I can’t fire a female hispanic worker who is doing a horrible job, but I can fire a white male for no reason whatsoever, I would say that we have a discrimination problem.

I think that you are lying. And to spread such nonsense around is reprehensible.

I apologize for the confusion.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[PeeQueue]

Just to second spoke’s story, since it so closely resembled mine:
I was from a middle class white-collar family, and he was from an upper middle class white collar family. My test scores were far above his, my grades only very slightly so. But he got a free ride to MIT, and I got into a decent public school and struggled to pay my tuition. I’m white; he was black.

We were pretty good friends, although we’ve lost touch since. I cannot see what good was done. It still seems like an injustice, even with all the rationalization.

If he were poor, I would not mind the scholarship, but he was not. If he was a higher achiever than me, I would not mind the scholarship. He was neither. In either case, it would still be unjust that he was accepted to MIT and I was not.

As someone else mentioned, if you want to “level the playing field” give scholarships to all poor people, and if one group is more likely to be poor, a higher percentage of them will receive the scholarships.

I was very happy for him that he made it to that fine school, but intellectually I can see that it was not “just”. Life is not always just, but you can’t hate me for wanting it to be so.

As a side note: I actually do not have a problem with private institutions handing out scholarships to whomever they want, but the fact that society would have a problem with white-only scholarships says to me that private institutions cannot hand out scholarships to whomever the want. School admission policies are already regulated so as to stop them from not admitting blacks, they should also be regulated to stop them from not admitting whites.

I see the disparity between the two groups in society, I just don’t agree that individual injustices should be carried out to solve the societal one.

PeeQueue

[Mr.Zambezi]

To be honest, I can fire her, but it require a massive amount of documentation (phone logs, recording arrival and departure times for three months, detailed review of all work product for three months, etc.) and numerous write ups, etc. Whereas for the white guy, it is one write up and out the door. He can’t sue in this state.

Perhaps I overstated while caught in a rhetorical frenzy. Appologies

[Mr.Zambezi]

Just to clarify, Waste: I can indeed fire a white guy in this state for any damn reason I please. I can’t fire any member of a protected class unless I can show a long pattern of pretty horrendous performance and document it ad nauseum. The laws do discrimate. IMHO, that is very, very wrong.

I am a member of the one unprotected class, and therefore have no safeguards while others do. This is not in the interests of society nor business. It forces businesses to keep on sub par workers merely because they are in a protected class.

[GLWasteful]

To be honest, I can fire her, but it require a massive amount of documentation (phone logs, recording arrival and departure times for three months, detailed review of all work product for three months, etc.) and numerous write ups, etc. Whereas for the white guy, it is one write up and out the door. He can’t sue in this state.

That sounds like a less-than-ideal situation. You should work toward rectifying it. As should he.

It forces businesses to keep on sub par workers merely because they are in a protected class.

Yet you just said that you could fire the young lady in question. Therefore, you are not forced to keep a sub-par worker on your payroll. You most assuredly can get rid of her. It may require more effort (which I think should be directed toward everyone who you’re thinking of canning), but it can be done. Be careful with that rhetorical frenzy.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[LonesomePolecat]

“Society in general does not feel the sense of moral indignation at scholarships reserved for minorities that it might for scholarships aimed at “whites” because one group has been historically oppressed and disadvantaged, the other has not.”

Are you saying that no whites are or have been “historically” disadavantaged?

[LonesomePolecat]

“Society in general does not feel the sense of moral indignation at scholarships reserved for minorities that it might for scholarships aimed at “whites” because one group has been historically oppressed and disadvantaged, the other has not.”

Are you saying that no whites are or ever have been “historically” disadavantaged?

[Mr.Zambezi]

Yes, Waste, I can fire her…eventually. In the mean time I have months of mistakes, an eroded reputation of the department and after all is said and done, she can still sue. I would call this…no pun intended, a waste. There is a cost to alll of the effort. Multiply this out nationwide and you have a pretty hefty sum.

I an NOT going to argue about whether or not the price is worth it to level the playing field. But it is discriminatory law.

[btw, I am working with if for no other reason, she is a single mom with two kids and has enough problems.I use her more as an example. And she is turning around.]

[Garfield226]

Sorry about my response time to most of these. I go to school (partially why this topic interests me), so it isn’t possible for me to check the boards all through the day. Anyway:

Spankboy said:

What about athletic scholarships? Not only are they giving good money to many SAT-substandard former criminals that can dunk a basket (I’m looking at you, Latrell Sprewell) or catch a pass, but they are robbing universities of much needed funds for kids that could really use it. I’d love to see minority kids that could put that money to use actually get it. The world needs more minority doctors, accountants, and scientists-role models for their communities that show obtainable goals (what’s the percentage of college hoops players that make it to the NBA? Not very high, IIRC).

Well, not that I feel that these players SHOULD get all the scholarships they do, basketball (and most any other sport) is something I can practice and get good at. You aren’t BORN with a basketball in your hand or ice skates on your feet (barring some freak medical accident in which you were conceived at a Lakers game or at the Stanley Cup Finals), you ARE born with your race.

GL said:

As has been pointed out, there are scholarships that are, for all intents and purposes, for white students.

Did you read my post? The one where I said I don’t know what country I’m from and that I bet a lot of people are in the same situation? What am I and all those other people in the same situation supposed to do? A black person is not required to know the country of their descent (as has already been pointed out, they probably couldn’t know. . .but neither can I).

Kimstu said:

**(By the way, I think it’s kind of cool that your family has such a high level of assimilation that you really don’t have a more specific ethnic self-image than “Euro-American.” Do you have local or regional loyalties that sort of fill the gap? that is, do you identify very strongly as a Kansan or Nebraskan or Midwesterner or Badgers fan or whatever? I wonder if there are scholarships for Badgers fans and how one proves oneself qualified for them…whoops, there goes the off-topic alarm again.) **

I really don’t. I’ve lived in the same place (midwest) all my life. My parents grew up here and their parents grew up here and so on and so on. Not all from one state, either, just all over the midwest.

[GLWasteful]

MrZ:

Yes, Waste, I can fire her…eventually. In the mean time I have months of mistakes, an eroded reputation of the department and after all is said and done, she can still sue.

Months? Just where in hell do you run your business? I cannot imagine that there’s a state wherein someone can’t sue for wrongful dismissal (If he’s white, that is), and you are forced to slog through months of mistakes to fire an incompetent employee.

I would call this…no pun intended, a waste.

'Salright, you can intend it if you want. Actually, it’ll be one of the nicer things that I’ve been called. Today.

There is a cost to alll of the effort. Multiply this out nationwide and you have a pretty hefty sum.

And I think there should be a cost to all of the effort. Otherwise, we have happy assholes firing people for whatever reason they want. But c’mon, months?

I an NOT going to argue about whether or not the price is worth it to level the playing field. But it is discriminatory law.

Well, if you’re really so put upon, then work to change it. I’m still having a hard time imagining what sort of system you must labor under, though.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[Spoke]

GLWAsteful-

Maybe I can help MrZ explain. It sounds like he is in a state where employment is considered to be “at will.” (That is, at the will of the employer.) In such states, an employee can be fired for any reason, or for no reason at all. (There are no such things as suits for “wrongful discharge” in these states.)

The exceptions to this general rule would be:

[list][li]Protections created by Federal anti-discrimination statutes; and[/li][li]Situations where the employee has a contract which allows for termination only under certain circumstances.[/li]
Thus, in such a state, Mr.Z could indeed fire an under-40, non-disabled white male worker without fear of consequences (assuming the worker does not have a contract which provides otherwise, and assuming he is not firing the worker because he is white).

On the other hand, if he wants to fire a worker who is female, or disabled, or over 40, or a protected minority, then Mr.Z has to consider the possibility that he may face a lawsuit alleging that the worker was terminated for a discriminatory reason. With such workers, it would therefore be prudent, before termination, to compile a careful record of the reasons for termination. Unless there is truly blatant incompetence, it can indeed take months to compile such a record.

Note: I am not arguing against anti-discrimination laws. I am just clarifying how they play out in real-life situations.

[Kimstu]

spoke said:

Kimstu-
I understand that the desire for diversity is at work here. My problem comes with defining “diversity” on the basis of skin color.

My two friends grew up in the same town and shared the same cultural background. You can’t truly say that the black kid was any more disadvantaged than the white kid. Both came from rough circumstances. Both attended the same sub-par public school. As I said, the only real difference between them was the color of their skins. Both of them were as different from white, private-school-educated children-of-privilege as they could possibly be.

Was it right to distinguish between these two solely on the basis of their skin color?

Well, is it right to accept a student from Oklahoma in place of a student from New Jersey with higher grades and scores, in order to increase “geographical diversity” on campus? Selective colleges do that all the time too: they try to make the student-body population represent as many states as possible, rather than getting all the students from the urban clumps in the Northeast and West Coast. Is it right to accept a higher proportion of male applicants than female applicants just to maintain an approximately 50-50 gender balance? (This started happening at my university about six years ago: the proportion of female to male applicants just keeps climbing towards 60% year by year and the proportion of female to male freshmen remains the same—affirmative action for boys, basically.) Come to think of it, is it right to accept poor applicants in place of richer ones with higher grades and scores? Why is it okay to infringe strict “meritocratic” principles on the basis of socioeconomic class but not on the basis of race?

I don’t think you quite got the main point of my post, which is that selective college admissions policies are designed to appeal to their customer base. A large proportion of highly-qualified college applicants show, by their comments and their choices, that they want their campus environment to be socioeconomically, culturally, geographically, and racially diverse; call it utopian fantasizing or whatever you want, but that’s the reality that admissions officials must face.

Now, if you’re going to make the argument that colleges have no right to use anything but strictly quantitative academic assessments in making admissions decisions, fine. But I don’t see how you can logically argue that it’s okay for them to pick and choose from the applicant pool to get the geographical balance they want, and the gender balance they want, and the cultural/linguistic balance they want, and the socioeconomic balance they want, and the “legacy” (i.e., alumni brat) balance they want, etc. etc.—but not to get the racial balance they want. Applicants to colleges are assessed according to a huge number of criteria, many of which have to do with things they were born with or otherwise have no control over, and admissions offices aim for a certain student-body mix with respect to all those criteria; race is just part of that big diversity package. And they consider all those criteria because they’ve seen that their customers are attracted to a campus environment that’s diverse in all those ways.

Now that I think about it, I’m rather struck by the way some people on this thread seem to view college admission and/or scholarships as some kind of gift or accolade that’s a reward for merit and so ought to be distributed without regard for anything else. Folks, y’all have been believing too much of what you read in the college recruitment literature!! All you high-schoolers and parents of high-schoolers out there pay special attention to this: educational institutions are not primarily trying to reward you for your hard work or to give you opportunities for your future. They are trying to make something off of you, whether it be just four years’ tuition, alumni largesse, good publicity, or bragging rights. For selective colleges in particular, there are maybe dozens or scores of applicants for every (and I mean every) one admitted who were just as qualified overall. They pick to optimize the mix that they think will be most profitable (financially or otherwise) for them. They are trying to sell any number of things about themselves, to prospective applicants, to parents, to alumni, to funding organizations, to governments, to employers, to other schools—and you (or your kids) are the ones they expect to do that selling for them, by the combination of characteristics and credentials that you can offer. And one of the things they’re selling is campus diversity, in all its forms; and if they wanna sell it, they’ve gotta buy it, and they’ve gotta buy it from the people what got it.

Gee, I hope the administrators don’t see this one! Maybe I better disguise my identity…

SingleDad

[Mr.Zambezi]

Spoke, you hit the nail on the head about my “at will” state.

OK, how it takes months:

days 0-30 work declines, ask employee to fix monitor
days 31-60 progressive documentation of work product, and a documented discussion at the end
61-90 Re-evaluation of work. If the employee still lags, contact HR
91-120 HR meets with employee, second write up, with a 60 day probationary period
Term at 120-150.

And if the employee keeps improving a little, then declining again, this could take a lot longer.

I don’t know if you have ever been through one of these suits. Your ass better be covered in 3 feet of documentation, because many feel that us mean old white businessmen bastard are all out to stick it the minority man. Who would you be more likely to believe, a white businessman or a poor hispanic mother of 5?

Dad said

They are trying to make something off of you, whether it be just four years’ tuition, alumni largesse, good publicity, or bragging rights

Amen to that brother! The are a BUSINESS.

[mikan]

In response to some of the anecdotes above about how “unfair” race/ethnicity-based scholarships are, including this one from divemaster:

**
From personal experience: … I came out of HS with a 31 ACT… GPA right at 4.0, etc… I did not get an offer of financial aid from the school based on my academic acheivement. I later found out that blacks could get a full-paid scholarship based on an ACT of 22.

… I found this to be unfair… And I’m sure, based on some of the posts I have read, that someone will pop up to tell me that this actually was a fair policy based on societal justice, evening the playing field, or rectifying past discrimination.
**

(Apologies, btw, for butchering your sentences with my excisions.)

For starters, let’s not forget that even need-based financial aid is clearly designed with concerns of “societal justice” in mind – about giving poorer people a helping hand so that they can have a fighting chance of getting a higher education. This might mean that you get a $3000 Pell grant whereas I get nothing, even though I’m a better student than you. Is that “fair” to me, as an individual? Hey, it’s not MY fault that my family happens to be richer than yours.

Same thing for scholarships that are gender-specific. Isn’t it “unfair” that you get awarded a special scholarship given only to women, when I’m not even eligible to apply because I’m a man? Don’t we have a problem with sexual discrimination here?

And what about scholarships that are stictly merit-based? On the surface, they certainly seem fair, since all individual applicants are treated without regard to race, gender, religion, family background, whatever. But is it fair that you, who came from an upper middle-class family which had the wherewithal to send you to the very best private schools grades 1-12, get a full-tuition scholarship to an Ivy League university, whereas I, who had no choice but to attend crappy public schools in rural Oklahoma, get nothing? Isn’t that just a backhanded way of rewarding you because of your privileged upbringing and penalizing me because of my less fortunate circumstances? What’s “fair” about that?

The whole system of scholarships is premised on the idea that they are to be distributed un-equally, based upon a complex mishmash of societal valuations about what is good, morally responsible, desirable, and so on. (Kimstu has cast this in terms of appealing to a “customer base”, but the foundations and organizations that provide scholarships do not necessarily see it this way, of course.) Race/ethnicity-based scholarships are a part of this system, but they are hardly a unique part insofar as fairness/unfairness to individuals is concerned. If you’re really committed to all-out “fairness” and “equality,” I can’t see any good reason for bitching about these scholarships in particular instead of attacking the system as a whole.

[spankboy]

I have to agree with Mr.Zambezi on the work performance situation. I have several friends that were former line supervisors at a local large airplane plant, and they all agreed that the documentation has to be tight as a drum and over the course of months for a minority worker, whereas a white guy could get canned with a minimum of fuss. This was echoed by an old high school buddy who works in the high-tech industry. There was an individual of color that made his day of trying to pick up on fellow employees and cruising porn on the internet. It took over six months to get him canned.

When I was managing a call center, there were people that were ‘untouchable’ because of their minority status.

So, I’d say there was suitable evidence that this is actually happening, and that we are not robe-wearing Klansmen that want to get all the ‘darkies’ out of our companies.

I’d love to be able to chart out stats and be able to make staff decisions based on performance, but I can’t. Who is benefitting from that? The company makes less money, and morale goes in the toilet. Wouldn’t I want to keep the best people, regardless of skin color? Some of my best workers have been from the Middle East, and I didn’t want to keep them to fill out some minority protection thing–I wanted them because they worked hard and kicked ass.

If you don’t mind me asking, GLWasteful, what industry do you work in?

-sb

[GLWasteful]

MrZ:

days 0-30 work declines, ask employee to fix monitor
days 31-60 progressive documentation of work product, and a documented discussion at the end
61-90 Re-evaluation of work. If the employee still lags, contact HR
91-120 HR meets with employee, second write up, with a 60 day probationary period
Term at 120-150.

Okay, fair enough. It sounds like it’s much more difficult than I originally thought.

spankboy:

If you don’t mind me asking, GLWasteful, what industry do you work in?

Well, I’m in telecommunications right now. My background, though, is in theatre.

Waste
Flick Lives!

[PeeQueue]

I hear and understand all of you who are saying that universities are a business and want to get an adequate mix of students from all environments and of all types. I would be the last one to want to use the government to take away power from a private industry.

But, that doesn’t mean I have to think it is fair. And anytime I’m asked, I will say it is unfair and unjust. If I was given the opportunity, I would change the policies. I know schools, jobs, and life are not meritocracies, but I think they should be. Do you really disagree with that?

PeeQueue

[Kimstu]

PeeQueue, see my 05-19-2000 11:44 AM post above (titled “Good question”) for a discussion of the dangers of trying to use strict meritocratic policies in education and employment as they currently exist.

Should school, jobs, and life be meritocracies? I think we all agree that as racism and discrimination die out (inshallah), we should all step up our efforts to make most selection processes more strictly meritocratic. Affirmative action for women, for example, will be redundant and even harmful in a society where women truly have equal access with men to the schools and jobs of their choice.

But I think you need to think more carefully about what you mean by “meritocracy”, especially in the rather silly context of “life” as meritocratic. Do you really intend to claim that all or even most life decisions should be made on the basis of the quantifiable achievements of the candidates? If you propose marriage to your chosen partner and s/he has another prospect with better scores and salary, would your meritocratic principles really require you to urge her/him to accept your rival instead? I doubt it.

More realistically, do you think that even in a truly egalitarian society there would be no place for “non-meritocratic” diversity-style goals? Should a college choose a high-scoring applicant from New Jersey over a lower-scoring applicant from Oklahoma even though it would genuinely like to have more states represented on its campus, because it thinks that would provide a more interesting experience for everybody? Isn’t there something to be said for diversity, even in the absence of discrimination and oppression?

I expect that what we all really mean by “meritocracy,” if we look closely at it, is “the principle of selecting the best candidate available at this time for this position.” But the whole flap about “affirmative action” and “quotas” and “lowering the bar” can make us forget that in most decisions, there’s a whole range of selection criteria involved in identifying one candidate as “better” than another or as the “best” of them all, and some of those criteria can be pretty intangible and unquantifiable. You can’t just say in any situation that you’re in favor of strict meritocracy: you have to be willing to specify exactly what you think the selection criteria ought to be. So, PeeQueue, if “schools, jobs, and life” all ought to be meritocracies, then what should the selection criteria for them be?

Kimstu

[PeeQueue]

Kimstu, I read your previous post about colleges wanting diversity to better sell themselves. I understand why they have their admisions policies, I just don’t think they are right.

I’ll try to answer some of your questions:

“Do you really intend to claim that all or even most life decisions should be made on the basis of the quantifiable achievements of the candidates?”

If by this you mean, when deciding between several candidates, should you pick the most qualified, then yes.

“If you propose marriage to your chosen partner and s/he has another prospect with better scores and salary, would your meritocratic principles really require you to urge her/him to accept your rival instead?”

I would assume that in marriage, the most qualified would be the one that loves you the most, and the one that you love the most. Of course, other matters should be weighed in, such as if one is a crack-addict or a wife beater.

“More realistically, do you think that even in a truly egalitarian society there would be no place for “non-meritocratic” diversity-style goals?” Also followed by two more similar questions.

I assume college is there to teach people. If you have standards to get into a college, I assume it is because you want your college to gain a reputation for producing excellent students. MIT, for example, has that reputation. It does not have a reputation for diversity. If you want to create a school that has a reputation for diversity, fine, but don’t expect people to think of it as highly as they would MIT, since the main function of college is to produce well taught students, not many different types of students. If you want to claim that diversity produces better students, fine, but I would think admitting better students in the first place would be, uh, better.

“So, PeeQueue, if “schools, jobs, and life” all ought to be meritocracies, then what should the selection criteria for them be?”

I obviously cannot give you a list of the criteria for every position possible. In a non-physical position, it should not include physical attributes.

I would probably write more, but I’m a little worried about hijacking this thread with our discussion of meritocracies. Kimstu, do you want to start another thread?

PeeQueue