Is that really the most common argument? I don’t think so.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that banning affirmative action allows the majority to decide the fate of minorities, who rely on affirmative action for equal education and employment opportunities. And that, I think, is the most important reason for affirmative action.
When people say that they support affirmative action because it leads to more diversity, they in-fact also mean that having more diversity important, because it addresses past discrimination and current disadvantages.
Diversity for the sake of diversity is at the heart of a lot of this. And it’s nonsense. And that’s even before you take into the fact that by “diversity” most people simply mean skin color.
Sorry, Dr. King. But many people just didn’t get it.
Short of maintaining some genetic diversity in the event of a possible near-extinction event like nuclear war or a comet strike, and the superficial qualities we attribute to “race” aren’t even the best indicators, I don’t see the need, myself.
Of course if people would stop being racist, this would be less of a concern.
I see lack of diversity as less of a cause of problems, and more of a symptom. If a business that caters to the general public in an area with lots of group x has a much smaller representation of group x among employees than the area itself, then that might be a good indication that this business has discriminatory policies, even if these are not intentional.
So even if policies like Affirmative Action may be heavy-handed at times, I support them because I believe the good they do outweighs the bad.
Do you know any of these rich white liberals you are so worked up about.
The ones I know are tripping over themselves to get Mandarin speaking nannies, internationally focused schools, and study abroad opportunities in places like Cape Town and Rio.
Dude, if you want to ask a legitimate question, you shouldn’t poison the well with this nonsense. Given you clearly know very little about the schools you speak of, you should check how committed they are to diversity by providing scholarships and other things to increase their minority enrollment.
Second, Obama can’t just send his kids to any school because of safety concerns among other things.
Third, McAuliffe lives in McLean, which has less diversity than Potomac School does.
:dubious: Are you under the impression that people from different “races” are giant spiders or something? They aren’t extraterrestrials; they aren’t all that different at all.
Exactly, which is why diversity in schools is pointless and the argument that diversity benefits students is self evident BS.
The point of winning elections is to help your friends and supporters. This used to be done very nakedly by the political machines with the places that voted the most for the winning candidate getting roads, school books, and government jobs, while places that did not got higher taxes. Since minorities votes for Democrat candidates in overwhelming numbers Democrat politicians have sought to reward those groups with such things as increased government jobs, money for community organizations, set asides for minority businesses, and quotas for university admissions.
The last two have come under increased legal scrutiny as the plain language of the 14th amendment and civil rights laws bans discrimination based on race. So supporters have gone through various justifications to get the Supreme Court not to do its job and ban them. The only one to have stuck so far is the weird idea that it is so good for white students for have black and hispanic students around that discriminating against white and asian students in admission ultimately redounds to the benefit of the white students who do get admitted.
Thus we have all the liberal politicians singing the praises of the benefits of diversity. As the OP points out these same liberal politicians only believe in diversity for other people’s children, for their own all they care about is the academic quality of the school, the teachers, and the other students. This hypocrisy shows that these people do not actually believe what they are saying but that it is merely a pretext for handing out government goodies to their supporters.
Well, there’s certainly no negative consequence that I can think of that has ever resulted from keeping the races separate, and by force, if necessary. As a result, there must not be any benefit to diversity.
This is all fascinating in its wrongness, but you’re changing the subject. Your initial (equally wrong) claim was about culture, not societies. Whatever you think the cultural differences between white and black and other Americans are, they’re not the difference between a functioning society and a non-functioning one. Most Americans were born here, after all, and many others come from places similar to the U.S. The difference between a functioning society and a non-functioning one isn’t “speaking proper English” or “respecting authority,” whatever the Sam Hill that means.
I don’t think you understand what people are saying to you. Or maybe you don’t understand what you said. (If so, I don’t blame you.) What you said earlier is that it’s “almost impossible” to interact with people of other races if you’re not raised doing so and that it’s hard to grasp the idea that all people deserve basic respect. Now you’re off on another tangent.
And yes, of course access to better schools is going to be good for students who don’t ordinarily get that access. That’s not too hard to grasp, is it?
What I was responding to was " it is important for kids to be around kids of different races in school, as we all bring our own perspective and experiences to the classroom and a non-diverse student body would miss out on a lot."
If you google “benefits of diversity in education” the first result that is written in relatively plain english says “Students who attend schools with a diverse population can develop an understanding of the perspectives of children from different backgrounds and learn to function in a multicultural, multiethnic environment.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling allowing diversity as a reason for discrimination says "Major American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in today’s increasingly global marketplace can only be developed through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, and viewpoints. " What can this possibly mean?
It is obviously false that people can not learn math, science or any other academic subject without people of other races around since the vast majority of education done since education started has been done in non-diverse settings. It can only mean non-academic subjects like how to treat other people. Since people of all races are basically the same this is likewise untrue. Diversity benefits are clearly a pretext for discrimination.