Quote:
Originally posted by sugar and spice
Some affirmative action statistics:
A study shown concluded that if there was no affirmative action at the University of Michigan, the plaintiff's chance of being admitted to the UM would only increased by a very small fraction of a percent. They also compared data from the University of California-Berkeley before and after the California law prohibiting affirmative action. The conclusion? If you were black, your chance of getting into Berkeley plummeted, while once again, if you were white, your chance of getting in only increased by some tiny fraction of a percent. Furthermore, they studied those students who went to college because of affirmative action policies and found that they went onto grad school and professional schools at a significantly higher rate than the kids who would have replaced them had there been no affirmative action. Those who got in via AA also did far more community service and contributed to their communities far more often than those who would have replaced them without AA.
That's why I'm saying that high school grades and test scores shouldn't matter THAT much. If I had two potential students, a white kid with a 3.9 and a black kid with a 3.5, but I know that the white kid will just graduate from college and spend the rest of his life doing nothing but managing a Walmart, whereas the black kid will go to law school and do lifelong volunteer work teaching underprivileged kids to read -- of course I'm going to pick the black kid.
Grades and test scores don't tell the whole story.
|
I'm not sure if I agree with all that, but everyone is entitled to believe what they want. To say a white kid is lazy and a black kid is the savior of all is a bit over-stretching the truth. That's the point AA is suppose to make, not to say a black smart kid is a better person, but they are equally qualified to do the same thing, but because of racial or gender discrimination, one is blindly chosen over the other.
As for study after study after.... they always sound great on paper, but none of them truly make social sense. Each person thinks and decides on their own, not based on the statistical majority. I'm not sure how these studies are made, but to claim white kids that would have taken black kids places in college are not pursuing post-graduate education solely because of the color of their skin is ridiculous to me. Financial facotrs i'm sure played a role in it, and I think value of extra education is based on the greater probability of standing out. For instance, white lawyers are everywhere, but black lawyers are still a low %, so they will in a sense be considered a "hotter commodity."
If admission chances increased only slightly, it still does not change the fact that acceptance or denial is a plain decision; you're either in or out. If we had admissions based on percentages, then there might be a good argument that AA has little or no effect on reverse discrimination. However, the fact remains, one person gets in and the other doesn't.
AA is still in my opinion necessary for the time being. You just can't trust anyone these days to do the right thing. But arguments for its value to society kind of bother me. Don't tell me white kids are spoiled and undeserving, just say minorities are trying to level the playing field and reach a higher standard that they would not normally be able to get had AA not existed.
RUgreek