Affirmative Action "blows" according to *another board*

Also, give them extra bonus points for being on the right side of the digital divide, wonder how that happened

Point out that affirmative action works for white people all the time, so it might as well be legislated for other races

Also, keep saying 'Condoleeza Rice' until they throw up

things are off-balance. the goal is balance. the fastest way to get there is to go off-balance in the other direction for a while.

(Too quit being suck a snarky jerk for a moment.) Race a factor: yes. The only factor: no. Economic factors much more important: yes.

The only thing dud about A.A. is the fact that it shifts the emphasis to late in the game. If all the energy that made up the affirmative action debate was used to fund elementary schools, we would probably be much closer to balance. Also, don't forget that suburbanization depletes city tax rolls, resulting in less money to fund pbulic schools and that, at least in Maryland (en masse), blacks move out to the suburbs too.

Also, some blacks get hired to good positions. Also, if an affirmative action program doesn't take economics into account, then it will favor blacks who are already wealthy, and won't result in the major demographic shift that it is supposed to create.

Do women need A.A.? I have heard that there are more women in college than men, but I can't back that up, so I am actually asking.

I really do find point (a) a reasonable one, though I don't expect anyone else to and thus wouldn't advance it too seriously: the basic argument to it is that you can't really take a great big head start on someone you're in a race with and then halfway through say "okay, I'm sorry, we'll race fair from where we're standing now." People who want to argue that we've been living in an equal system long enough to erase that disadvantage are taking a nearly insane stance: they're up against actual history (only a generation ago James Meredith needed armed men just to attend college!), the entire disciplines of sociology and economics, and pretty much just common sense and actual results.

The thing about (b) is that it speak to economics more so than race, and it does look at this point as if most people are becoming okay with the idea of gearing things like school admissions to careful consideration of that history rather than race alone. Which is fine so far as I'm concerned -- only I'd argue that thinking in this manner would need to extend in a lot of directions to really be effective, redressing a huge number of pretty subtle economic factors (e.g. all sorts of ostensibly-fair capital practices that nevertheless always result in bad news for black communities) alongside it.

The funny thing about the administration's brief in the Michigan case is that the system he proposes as an alternative is actually closer to straight quotas than the Michigan system was or will ever be -- the Texas model was that the top X students in any given school were guaranteed placement at state colleges, but the massive segregation of Texan schools almost guaranteed that the top X students in black schools would be, well, black, offering them placement without any further examination of qualification. BNW says race should be "a factor" but not "the only factor," which is a sneaky little argument to make because in what currently-operating and viewed-as-legitimate version of affirmative action is it the only factor?

All that said, I would happily trade all talk of affirmative action or economic affirmative action or whatever else for the abolition of this system where primary education is linked to local property taxes; it's the complete antithesis of everything a democratic and supposedly egalitarian society should be doing, and correcting it would do so much to solve all of these problems at the source.

I am also glad that the "race" (as in runinng) metaphor was brought up. E.J. Dionne, in his book "Why Americans Hate Politics", makes the simple argument that this metaphor is incomplete. In comparing poor blacks, who need help catching up, with rich white, who don't, poor whites were being ignored, and THAT accounts for the major reorganization that took place in Reagan's election. The loss of the lower-middle class constituency is what has hampered the democratic party since.

Let's say the dash is 100 yards. It is called the "Acknowledged Stereotype and Generalization Track and Field Competition" A rich white person is at the 90 yard line. The poor black, at the 10. Affirmative Action is a "magic" pair of shoes that doubles the speed of the black runner. In each race run, the black runner does a little better, and at some point, the black runner will be competitive in all dashes. Now add a poor white runner. He was only at 50 yards during the first race. He gets no shoes. He may, by factor of race, and the nature of prejudice (and through no fault of his own: remember, he can't change his race either), may have been ahead of the black runner in the first race, but as more races are run, he can feel the black runner catch up, and he is afraid of being passed. He KNOWS that the black runner has been given the shoes, and he wants shoes, too. If he is a benevolent and unprejudiced man, he will not begrudge the black man his shoes, even though he will still want a pair of his own, but if he submits to fear and jealousy, he will be mad. He will become more prejudiced and angry, he will start to listen to candidates talking about individual responsibility and how government has no right to try to help people. The worst of this type of man will blame the runner for getting the shoes, and not the shoes themselves...

I am NOT trying to explain away or justify racist or somewhat racist practices. Just because it is possible to understand what happened in the little story above does not mean it is the ideal in any sense.

One last thing. It has been mentioned on numerous threads that the black condition in America is always going to be related to the history of the black person. This is how it should be. Racism and injustice had a horrific effect, and it will take a long time for the wounds to heal. I tend to wonder, however, whether a historical coincidence that had little or nothing to do with racism accounted for a large part (though not all) of the problems we see today. Picture, if you will, an immigrant family at the turn of the century (again, my story relies on stereotypes, just to prove a point). The family is uneducated, but they (remember labor laws then), are all able to work at a factory. The child grows up poor, but he works hard, and so do the parents. The child grows up, and gets married. He and his wife work hard, again at the factory. They make enough money to allow for their child to go to school. The child works hard, and gets an elementary school degree. With that degree, he can do better than his parents, but not much. The cycle continues, and in a few generation, college is possible, and the family is middle class.

Now think about black history. During the 1960's blacks won enough freedom to AT LEAST start at the begginning of the process listed above if they hadn't already begun. In fact, from what I undestand, industrial jobs were some of the only jobs available to many blacks in cities and those jobs, with the help of unions, provided at least a living wage, and the process listed above could take place. However, around the time these freedoms were won, industry began to move to other countries. and other countries began competing with the US. Additionally, Unions lost their power, and the decline started at least during Reagan's presidency, so it is not difficult to imagine that any family that had hit middle class between say 1960 and 1980 is possibly doing quite well, while many who have been stuck at the bottom of the ladder since 1980 are fucked. Again, I am not discounting the influence of hundreds of years of oppression. I am simply trying to account for the fact that, with or without A.A., some people made it out of the gutter! If you can see the role the government played in the scenario above, then it is possible to see how the scenario does not work to simply reinforce the idea that "it is all about hard work, anyone can make it." Class is not fluid. It takes years of work for a family to get from the bottom to the middle class, and if that process is halted, the effects can be devastating.

Ron I acknowledged that I was making a generalization. In the realm of education, however, which is my unacknowledged concern, it is quite conceivable that inner-city schools in white cities are fucked, too.

I may be totally missing your point, nitsuh(sorry): it is late and I must sleep!

What needs to happen is better funding of schools in poor areas making the quality of education comparable to that in richer areas. I think the US suffers from the fact that suburbs of cities tend to be in different jurisdictions and there is little opportunity for richer areas to cross subsidise poorer areas. We have much the same problem in London since the demise of the ILEA, variations in school standards in London are immense largely because the funding and quality of LEA management varies so wildly across the capital.

What is far more important though is development of poor communities, economically and socially. this is the key to increasing social mobility, however it shouldn't be a case of enabling the clever and lucky to escape. It should be a case of ensuring that poor communities are livable and are not disadvantaged in terms of public services.

The problem is all is not equal at the bottom.

Pete, what did you feel you were assessed on when you were interviewed at Oxford? Talent, potential, aptitude academic prowess...

Swearing in interview, ability to piss off the tutor who would be returning from sabbatical, ability to continue an argument beyond all actual interesting bit being exhausted, academic prowess,

The first two were later confirmed to me by the tutor at the time, so actually whim had much more to do with it I think.

The problem may be not all equal at the bottom, but we admit we cannot solve that problem in the short term. AT the same time by instigating forms of affirmative action someone has to make that decision. Which leaves that person open for the charge of making the wrong decision on a decision (potential) which is actually impossible to make.

we go by marks bcz it's easier to declare accurately measured w/o argumentative comeback, not bcz it's a particularly sensible outcome in educational/social terms...

Why's it patronising to the individual? Base it on standard deviation from that school's avg. marks, with an interview process to keep the whim-factor.

Pete the shy insecure swotty kids need the networking skillZoR just like the disadvantaged kids need the knowledge!

Also "networking and career fast tracking" *surveys ex-Oxbridge mates and sighs*

they were heavily sponsored by public schools generally, who were mostly broke (as always) and (as always) trying to attract the middle classes to establishments which were at the time thought to offer little more than trad aristo subjects like fox-hunting and fag-roasting and whoring and/or sodomy, and felt that actual genuine decent academic teaching might be a sales-point (pioneer of this shtick: butler at shrewsbury, who was notorious for snooping round oxford every year, looking for clues as to how his pupils cd get a jump on rivals)

the civil service exam wz established at much the same time, to stamp out the incompetence that derives from nepotism

as an "absolute" solution, in the age of education for all, it's more a convenience than a guarantor of excellence

if you take as read the idea that a university — as per its name UNIVERSE-ITY DO YOU SEE — is a place where you encounter EVERY KIND OF PERSON as a part of yr education, then affirmative action is quite easily justifiable in education-quality terms

the anti-affirmative action argt is basically education-as-careers-future selfishness taken to the point of being actively damaging for all concerned: ie you learn as much if not more from the to-and-for with ppl unlike you (haha as in, i copied almost all my tutorial work from an implausibly hardworking greek student...)

Career fast tracking and networking amongst our peers at Oxford, next to nil. Hence we had the least potential on this score. I agree shy insecure swotty kids need the networking skillZoR just like the disadvantaged kids need the knowledge! but surely the shy insecure ones should be going to the equivalent of a poly for social skills. Why send those with least aptitude to the best place (arg behind all heirachy of education - often forgetting that best in one way is not the best in other ways).

How do you know those bright working class kids exist Ed? Would you class yourself amongst the dumb working class kids which there are too many of?

Pulling out of a hat = Universe-ity (including excellent stats bothering fluctuations).

TUTOR: What about Lennon then? (who had been shot the previous night)
MC: Quite agree.
TUTOR: You've written quite a lot on Keats and Hopkins.
MC (anticipating next question): But where does that leave Cole Porter?
TUTOR (suddenly beams with a grin a mile wide): Ah, EXACTLY!

Cue 45 minutes of blathering abt Porter vs Mercer, Sinatra vs Ella interpretations, and eventually Lorenz Hart whom I neatly linked with Keats (can't remember how I did it though).

No discussion whatsoever about educational and/or social background.

Result: verbal unconditional offer on Friday morning as I was heading back to t'railway station.

Moral: learning parrot fashion is good for pet shops, but fast, alert thinking + ability to relate to and bond with others gets you in. As it should, frankly; I lost count of the number of shy, reserved people who dropped out in years one and two and who clearly would have been happier and more fulfilled learning via the OU and having a nice, undemanding backroom job which allows them time to think and pursue whatever they want to pursue. University, sadly, isn't for everyone.

I don't think my university education has benefitted me very much. It may help me get a job but I have been disappointed that my desire to learn and be challenged has not be sated. Perhaps i am naive to expect this to be handed to me on a plate. Perhaps this is not what university is for. I was led to believe different.

University is no longer about learning, at least mine isn't, its about passing exams. Teaching and learning are dead for all but the extremely fortunate. We need to rebalance education away from standardised testing and back towards learning and the persuit of knowledge.

Had this not been the case, I doubt I would have been educated in surroundings which were quite so competitive, where everyone knew it was possible to get into a good college regardless of background because they saw it happen every year. And the grades, test scores and interview malarkey is all about potential. Why do you think alarm bells go off when a D student who 'can't' read suddenly tests 150 on an IQ test?

NB. it's hard for scholastically brilliant Midwesterners to get into Harvard whatever their colour or gender, unless they're good at hockey!

I actually used to work in the admissions office over the summers, and I got to sneak peeks at the comments made in response to interviews, which was pretty interesting. If a student were totally full of themselves, it often went remarked upon. My impression was that they were taking a mix of kids who seemed interesting and kids whose parents could pay the full tuition. Fair enough for a private school.

one of the oddest things — v.symptomtic — which occurred under thatch in the uk wz that all the polytechnics were allowed UPGRADED their name to "university of welshampton" or wherever, and (if anything) vocational and or technical training wz cut back in favour of an expansion in the humanities

At the top is a laurea (degree): 5 years study at a university followed by a 6 month research project. You get to call yourself Dottore at the end of it.

Then comes the Diploma: 3 years at a university normally the first three years of a laurea course, when you get to year three you can decide what to do and if you have a diploma you can come back at a later date for the laurea.

Then come what are called Scoule di Formazione: 2 and 3 year vocational courses in many subjects. Current trendy subjects are media, computing travel etc.

Courses offered at universities, and numbers of places availible are regulated by the state. Degree subjects are decided upon by the Italian parliament, consequently it took ages for computer science degrees to be offered.

I'm not saying its a perfect system but its definitely something to consider. My experience was that things were taken to a much higher level at university and that investigative projects were generally something quite novel, like a very small phd. Emphasis is very much on in depth learning. Perhaps the teaching is a little staid, but the examination system is interesting. It is largely oral process. I have never before had to demonstrate my understanding quite so much as I had to at university in Italy. Also there is no grading of degrees, only pass or fail so the bar is set quite high.

(the whole loans/fees dimension is a hideous further bag o'wurms of course)

As for the issue of race as acknowledged difference in regards to law, versus class, I would argue that class is acknowledged in the law of the US. Think of the penalties that are handed out in relation to, say, an armed robbery (with gun) of of a 7-11 that gains the robber $100 versus a robbery of, say, $100 million dollars by a "creative" accountant (let's say that the accountant works for a public non-profit, just to make the harm to the public all the more obvious). Assuming that the first felon did not discharge his weapon, nobody is physically hurt in both scenarios. It is easy to imagine that the first felon will get a stricter sentence, and the latter, a lighter one. Now, the weakness in the comparison above is obviously the gun. The threat of force in the first scenario if much greater. I would say, however, that the gun can be taken as a means towards power. In the case of the latter felon, that person doesn't need a gun. He already, through position, has the power. His position is distinctly related to class, I might add. It is no secret that, regardless of race, certain crimes correspond to certain classes. Even without me mentioning the class of the first felon, I would imagine that many reading this assume that the felon was not rich. The lighter sentence for the white collar felon combined with the heavier penalty for the blue collar one demonstrates a weird scenario in which those who have less power suffer more for an equivalent or even less consequential act. In general, blue collar crimes carry larger sentences than white collar ones. Also, I am not trying to argue that the violent act should be penalized more, but rather that "creative accounting" and other similar acts should be penalized more. Perhaps the justice system should be set up so that there is a division between the issue of violence and the issue of the act regardless of violence. For example, going back to the two crimes above, maybe the violent act (with no injuries) could carry a minimum sentence of, say, 5 years, and then, because only $100 was stolen, another 6 months is tacked on. In the latter case, the law could require that all thefts of $100 million or more carry a minimum of 10 years but the lack of violence in the crime means that there is no additional sentence. (Of course manditory sentences leave the judge little discretion and are problematic as well!)

Sorry about more ramblings...
to sum up... affirmative action deals with the consequences of oppressive laws, and can't make up for the fact of the laws themselves. class, just like race, has been and still is written into our laws.
also, though i am not accusing anyone of doing so, i really try to avoid seeing the black community as being more homogenous than it is. there is a black middle class. the members of that community can compete. racism, though it still exists, is not so prevalent that a well-educated and wealthy black kid can't get into a good college without help. When it is argued that ALL blacks need affirmative action without consideration of economic situation, then there is a danger of coming to the implicit conclusion that blacks can never be as smart as whites.

Isn't the Texas solution dependant on segregation?

http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/faqs/comply.html

http://www.umich.edu/~urel/admissions/faqs/uapolicy.html

Minority or disadvantaged students get what amounts to a 13% advantage. So they could have a 13% lower GPA or test score I guess. Big whoop, they still need to be good students. People who have a problem with this policy really need to look themselves in the mirror.

AA can help to even the playing field some, but as others have said, the real problem that needs to be addressed is public education funding.

Start there. Removing the ILEA (Inner London Education
Authority) and replacing it with borough based LEAs caused wide discrepancies to open up between schools in rich boroughs and schools in poor boroughs. I'm not saying it was perfect but in some boroughs the LEAs have collapsed (cf. Hackney)

Of course, the problem with a meritocracy is that unless you start everyone from the same footing, you're going to end up rewarding the people who had an advantaged start to begin with. Which goes right back to why affirmative action is necessary.

I am sneaky! I tend to swing back and forth on AA, and can't help but cling to the "go by the economics" as a nice way out. If we bent GPA and test score requirements in regard to income level, black communities would still get a lot of help. As would other minorities and non-minorities who've had some sort of adverse factors posed against them. That way we'd get around having to untangle all the social factors involved, and instead just help 'em all out. (Alongside this, I'd propose jacking up the penalties on discrimination to obscene levels but that's not entirely what AA is about.)

Racism just used as an example there: I would use the same argument in the fuss about women-only shortlists for candidates for parliament.

this annoys me as well. like bnw i tend to cling to "go by the economics" as my most consistent standard in terms of increasing people's opportunities. affirmative action is valid more from the "creating a diverse student body" standpoint. but it drives me crazy when people are like "i didn't get into harvard, maybe it was because of affirmative action" - no, it was because you weren't good enough, or there were lots of people more qualified than you, or you just had the bad luck to not strike the whim of your application reader. considering the amount of people who get rejected from competitive schools, blaming it on some minority kid is just escapism and it's pathetic.

The problem with saying "it should all be based on merit" is that there are different kinds of merit. Test-taking merit, overcoming obstacles merit, creativity, people skills, good memory, being hard-working - which do you say is the kind you want and which is the kind you don't? A lot of schools get so many applications from people with merit (the same kind, or different kinds) that they have to reject some people even if they are as qualified as someone else. We will NEVER have a world based solely on merit (at least in college admissions) because no one will be able to say what exactly merit IS. (ha, can you tell i'm expecting a bunch of rejections, and rationalizing to myself why it's okay?)