Justice Dept. to Take On Affirmative Action in College Admissions

Wait, he's posting in a thread about college admissions? That is awesome.

 

Immigrants taking our jerbs learning differential equations, organic chem, quantum mechanics, field theory, fluid dynamics, etc. How will ambitious white people get admitted to these courses with all these brown and black people busting their ass learning hard fields of science? Perhaps, they too should work hard and quit whining. But nah, 3.0 white female student is upset a Pakistani, Ismael, with 4.0 GPA, internships at engi companies and letters of recommendation from teachers and bosses is taking her higher education. Bannon MUST.STEP.UP!

 

Wow. There's just no excuse for that.

So in your mind, without racist policies disadvantaging other people, black people won't be able to go to college? Do you seriously believe that if black people were judged merely on their own merits when it comes to college admissions instead of by the color of their skin that they couldn't make it? That's honestly a big problem if you seriously think that way.

Even worse, you seem to think that EVERYONE who isn't white, Indian, or Asian would almost universally fail if judged on their merit instead of being given advantages over those groups.....and that's pretty disgusting.

 

Well yeah, for the metrics that colleges care about (GPA, SAT), there is a difference between races. By that definition, without AA, prestigious colleges will only skew towards the groups that score high on these metrics even more (they are pretty skewed already though, especially California).

It has been well documented the many negative impacts of segregation, one of which was how it devalued education among black families. After all, why care about education when you're not allowed to get into university and/or won't get hired anyway just due to the color of your skin. Considering 90% of your values are passed down from generation to generation, African Americans have had to dig out of a much bigger hole than any other group in America. Affirmative action in a very small way, tries to make the playing field more equal. Imagine you are in a race and at the very start your opponent trips you so he can get a head start on you. In order to catch up to him, you can't just run at his speed, you have to run faster than him. That would be impossible if both of you are equally as fast. Well that's exactly what happened to African Americans in the USA. They got tripped at the beginning of the race and can't catch up because their opponents are still running, not stopping to wait for them. Affirmative action is a minor speedboost to make up for them being cheated.

 

Yes, without AA colleges would be forced to admit people based on their individual merit as opposed to admitting people based on the color of their skin.....and you think that's a bad thing because, reasons.

Also I disagree that there is fundamentally a difference between races when it comes to GPA or SAT scores. There is nothing preventing people of any race or ethnicity from doing well on the SAT's or having a high GPA.

People can make all they excuses they want to support racist policies and it won't change a thing. If racism is fundamentally wrong, the racist policy that they are pushing is fundamentally wrong no matter what their excuse for it is. On the other hand, if racism isn't fundamentally wrong.....well do we really want to go down that road?

 

Well, not when admissions are allowed to be based on things such as the color of one's skin or your ethnicity. I personally think that we should move away from such practices and force universities to admit based on individual merit rather than those other factors. I mean, we either allow discrimination or we don't. I vote that we don't and for whatever reason that doesn't seem to be a unanimous opinion here.

 

What about a system built on 70% class rank and 30% on SAT/ACT scores only.

Fairest system. Class rank normalizes for economic status for the school some what and SAT will separate the rest.

No special privilege/admission allowed for donations, athletic ability or anything else.

 

I'm not sure what you think you are making an argument for, but it's not an argument FOR racial and ethnic discrimination.

 

I'm making an argument for a quantitative based admission system.

 

Well you aren't making that argument either, you are just asking for specific results from a discrimination based system. I'd like to hear your argument for quantitative admission standards over qualitative standards.

 

You're either have ability to rise above your peers in academics or you don't. Those that can proceed, those that can't don't.

 

Class rank weighted by time spent at schools.

 

Okay, then it sounds like we are calling what is essentially the same thing by different names. You are saying that if you are the best, you should be picked over those who aren't. Race and ethnicity should play no part.

 

No one is suggesting that the university not be paid, you shouldn't apply if you can't afford to pay tuition either via just having the money, getting loans, or financial aid.

I think as usual, people have more of a problem with the messenger than the actual policy....which says that people are basing their opinions on WHO says something than what they are actually saying, which is a bad thing.

 

I don't think I was ever arguing with you......I just proposed a system. Was actually confused by you quoting me Lol.

 

Basically I misunderstood what you were saying because to me a quantitative system would be one where you go based on a certain number of people from different groups rather than going based on their quality or their merits.