Affirmative Action

[enlightenment06]

Actually one of my friends from Texas said the 10% plan doesn't work, the details of which I'm not qualified to get into, just passing along what I was told.

To focus a bit more around the orginial question, was the decision Constitutional? Or were the justices catering to what seemed to be popular opinion? And what effect do you think the decisions will have on our society within the next twenty-five years?

[sigtau305]

Originally posted by enlightenment06


To focus a bit more around the orginial question, was the decision Constitutional? Or were the justices catering to what seemed to be popular opinion? And what effect do you think the decisions will have on our society within the twenty-five years?

I feel the decision was Constitutional. The Supreme Court knew what was at stake. Now, all the Colleges and Universities will have to evaluate their undergrad admissions policies and figure out how to make it work. The Effect is not going to hurt both Colleges and the work world too much, but I'll take an wait and see attitiude towards it. Overall, Affrimative Action is Still Standing and I'm Glad.

[sigmagrrl]

Originally posted by sugar and spice




They can make a reasonable guess at what race you are if you have a first name like "Aisha" . . . or a last name like "Chang" or "Gonzalez." Or for that matter, a last name like "Dimitroyovskaya." Of course you can't guess the color of everyone's skin by the name they have, but you can make a reasonable guess and be right on in most cases. The little box isn't the only clue to someone's race.

What if you were identified solely by your SSN? The adcoms wouldn't even see your address (so they wouldn't know if you were from Little Italy, Harlem, or the Upper East Side), just your numbers?

Just a thought, addressed to everyone, not just sugar and spice. I only picked up on what she wrote and started thinking....

[RUgreek]

Originally posted by PM_Mama00
You say it's necessary... well are those little squares in the box of "Race" necessary? What if they just eliminated that from applications? Then how does the university tell if someone is of a different race? Of course if they don't have an ethnic name that is.

Those questions on applications are always marked optional, or not required - just for statistical purposes. You may not like the questions, but they help develop the so-called reports on how well AA is or is not working.

[RUgreek]

Originally posted by OUlioness01
i really like all these arguments. when i look at people arguing abuot the public school thing though it makes me think. this case was decided about graduate school, not undergrad. to get to graduate school you need at least 4 years of college (on average). shouldn't most of the inequalities have evened out at this point? aside from the GRE i think that it really should have. the point system makes a lot of sense looking at these arguments when your'e jsut considering undergrad, but i'm still not convinced when it comes down to grad school.

Actually there were two cases, both decided with this supreme court that day, one was for the lawsuit against a law school (graduate) and one for u. of michigan (undergrad). It's the undergrad institution that was found wrong in making there admission standards with the extra 20 points or something like that.

[enlightenment06]

Originally posted by sigmagrrl
What if you were identified solely by your SSN? The adcoms wouldn't even see your address (so they wouldn't know if you were from Little Italy, Harlem, or the Upper East Side), just your numbers?

Just a thought, addressed to everyone, not just sugar and spice. I only picked up on what she wrote and started thinking....

I think that wouldn't really solve the problem. Far too many students of color face a disadvantage just based on the cultural structure of our country. We have made great strides as a nation in the past few decades, but you can't erase centuries of a system of mental genocide with 40 years of progressive legislation (see Spike Lee's "Bamboolzed". I don't feel I can fully express my point here, to do so would be far too long a post. However I hope you can kind of see where I'm coming from.

[PM_Mama00]

Ok... no offense but did you read her post?

Using social security numbers.

Every legal American has one.

For more answers on racism and prejudism, do a search. You'll find about 100 threads that ended in a race war. We've discussed this topic like 100000000 times.

No offense to those out there. But it's like reading 50 threads on American Idol.

[MattUMASSD]

I dont know if this is an urban legen or what not.

My manager told me that the government use to give blacks a middle even number in their SSN. For example

010-24-9652

I guess they did this so people would know if you were white or black. Has anyone heard of this?

[MattUMASSD]

Also working in an admissions office I see a tons of SSN and I thought it was interesting that where you were born you get a certain prefix. Like in Mass a lot of people ssn's start with 010. In DC a lot of people's sn start with 578 or 577

[OUlioness01]

Originally posted by MattUMASSD
I dont know if this is an urban legen or what not.

My manager told me that the government use to give blacks a middle even number in their SSN. For example

010-24-9652

I guess they did this so people would know if you were white or black. Has anyone heard of this?

i don't know if this is true, i've never heard of it. i'm caucasian and got my SS number almost 20 years ago and i have an even middle number.

[sugar and spice]

It's an urban legend, fortunately:

http://www.snopes.com/business/taxes/blackssn.htm

As for the social security number being used instead of names in college admissions, it wouldn't be enough to "delete" the idea of race. People would still be able to list race-related clubs and extracurricular activities (Asian-American Student Organization, etc., and there are more subtle ones too -- we had a step team at my high school that was, as would probably be assumed, entirely African-American). Recommendations from teachers might mention race. And as Munchkin03 said, people who wanted to could always mention their "background" in the essay portion.

We can't make the process colorblind, and honestly I don't think that trying to is the right answer anyway.

[Eirene_DGP]

if you want something bad enough, you are going to work your ass off for it. period. you're gonna do whatever it takes, and NOT rely on something as unimportant to your skills as a human being as your gender or your race.

AlphaGam, who is to say that these Afr. Ams are not from racist schools since racism DOES exist? Who is to say their teachers did not give them lower scores than they actually deserved because they were black? Who is to say those students did not participate in extracurricular activities and were made to feel uncomfortable by their over opinionated white peers and decided not to participate? AA was installed to level the playing ground because racism and sexism was a factor in college/employment etc. Like someone else mentioned, maybe the race question should be left out of the admissions process entirely and maybe even names too if the student's ethnicity could easily be identified.

For all of those who b*tch and moan about AA not being necessary, scholarships are given to non-minorities who decide to go to HBCUs (Historically Black Colleges and Universities). So if non-minorities who are under represented at these schools are given the opportunity to compete with the advantage of race taken in as a factor, why can't Afr. Ams be given the same opportunity at predominately white schools? My personal opinion is that white students do not want to be the minority and in a setting without their peers.

[LeslieAGD]

Originally posted by Eirene_DGP
AlphaGam, who is to say that these Afr. Ams are not from racist schools since racism DOES exist? Who is to say their teachers did not give them lower scores than they actually deserved because they were black? Who is to say those students did not participate in extracurricular activities and were made to feel uncomfortable by their over opinionated white peers and decided not to participate?

These kinds of statements make me so angry!
(counting to ten...trying to control myself)

I'm not saying racism doesn't exist, but making these kind of assumptions and a person assuming he/she is always getting the short end of the stick is what really keeping that person down.

[damasa]

Originally posted by Eirene_DGP
AlphaGam, who is to say that these Afr. Ams are not from racist schools since racism DOES exist? Who is to say their teachers did not give them lower scores than they actually deserved because they were black? Who is to say those students did not participate in extracurricular activities and were made to feel uncomfortable by their over opinionated white peers and decided not to participate? AA was installed to level the playing ground because racism and sexism was a factor in college/employment etc. Like someone else mentioned, maybe the race question should be left out of the admissions process entirely and maybe even names too if the student's ethnicity could easily be identified.

I'm not trying to pick apart your post and this is the only post I'm leaving on this topic. But who is to say the reverse? Who is to say these African-American students ARE from racist schools? Who is to say their teachers did give them lower scores?

And over-opinionated white peers? I don't think we need to generalize like this....

This has been a great discussion so far. I don't want to see it turn into another flame war simply because of a few generalizations.

For the record, I support the intensions of AA, but I think most of us can agree that it doesn't always work the way it was intended?

[DeltAlum]

Originally posted by damasa
For the record, I support the intensions of AA, but I think most of us can agree that it doesn't always work the way it was intended?

Yep.