"If two people apply for a job, college admission, scholarship or other scrutinized entity, should one be given better treatment than the other because of their skin color?"
-Greg Chick "Time to Rethink Affirmative Action?"
This article lightly summarizes some of the topics I want to discuss in this blog with it's anti-affirmative action argument. I acknowledge that there was a time in our society when such measures of affirmative action where necessary to level the playing field and get qualified minorities the positions/education they deserved. But today? I agree with Chick that it is time to rethink the goals of Affirmative Action. If want college admissions (specifically in my experience) to be truly fair, school would look at merit instead of race.
In my last post I was trying to write a little segue into college admissions, not a life long desire to go to Harvard---although I failed. What I want my readers to think about is what they would feel like if they found out that they weren't admitted to a school they wanted to go to and were qualified to go to. And then to find out later that a student who didn't meet the same standards was admitted because of their race. It's unfair.
It's ridiculous to try to create "perfect ratio" of ethnicities in college over those who are more qualified. And I want to emphasize that it is not just the underrepresented minorities that are getting pushed into a college that they may not have the skills for, but "over-represented" minorities that are getting denied college admissions even if they are qualified--this was the case at University of California, Berkly where many qualified to over-qualified Asian students were denied admission.
And of course I can't talk about Affirmative Action in the admissions processes without mentioning the University of Michigan whose admission policies were actually found unconstitutional in 2002 and had to be changed:
Michigan's admissions was based on a 150 system with those applying needing at least 100 points to be automatically admitted. And in their system Black and Hispanic students were award and automatic 20 points.
Not too bad right?...Well it is considering that other characteristics like an “outstanding essay, leadership, or personal achievement” were each worth only 3 points.
"Diversity is a good thing. It makes us a better institution, state and country. But let's not unfairly and wrongly achieve this admirable goal. Let's have a discussion about how rightly we can ensure a diverse environment for all of us, not at the expense of qualified individuals being left out."
Chew on that.
2 comments:
Before I start arguing, I want to get an absolute position from you concerning this. Is it your argument that affirmative action itself is immoral, or that it is imposed in an immoral way? In other words, is it your argument that selectively helping others because of their race (as opposed to everyone) is immoral? Or is your argument that helping these people is immoral because the way it's implemented directly hurts others not contained within the racial requirements? I can't really tell which way you're leaning, so I just need a bit of clarification. Thanks.
Sorry, I'm trying to pace myself by only revealing a little at a time.
I do feel that Affirmative Action was started with good intentions and was probably necessary, but that now it has gotten to the point where it's unfair. I don't know if it would consider it immoral though---it depends on your definition of immoral. I think its wrong is a system which chooses people based on their race rather than their merit.
I do think there are still benefits to it for places that might actually be prosecuting against races, but I want to focus on college admissions where I feel like most college institutions don't have that problem and where merit should be especially important....
So...Did that help? I'm kind of distracted and i'm not sure what I just wrong.
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