On November 02 2012 07:01 whatevername wrote: Because its treating people based on peripheral and irrelevant physical characteristics? Because its discriminatory?
The principle of affirmative action is to overcome an existing discriminatory / unfair disadvantage based on irrelevant characteristics, often the only way to do that is to offer advantages to the least advantaged. The degree and implementation is up to debate but the principle isn't wrong at all, people only cry about it when they feel that they themselves are being inconvenienced. No body is up in arms about charities helping those in poverty by giving them money or housing for free.
This principle is wrong. Any form of admission (university, work etc.) should be based on merit alone and not being tarnished by some dumb arbitrary thing like meeting a certain quota of people with specific complexion, disabilities and so on.
"Offering advantage to the disadvantaged"? What are you even talking here about? Are you telling me that a black person can't study just as hard as white person, or vice versa, and one of them needs some special advantage over the other? Please...
Let's take a quick look at how it's around here:
Automatic admission: you get that only if you're one of the finalists of a 3rd stage (state-wide) science olympics in a given subject. That's right, only when you went beyond what was required of you in highschool and proven that you're actually good at it. Highschool scores have 0 impact on your admission, so does being good at sports, legacy and other bullshit like that.
Giving advantages to the disadvantaged: you come from a poor family? No problem, the university is actually paying you to study if you got admitted. Students who come out of town and from poorer families get first dibs on the dorm rooms.
It seems like you got some things backwards in the land of the free...
It varies a lot between states, universities, and countries. His statement was that automatic admission should only be offered if you go above and beyond the minimum requirements by X amount -- in this case, a fairly prominent competition.
In the US, in the smaller western states / midwestern states, if you have a pulse, you more or less get into the one or two public university offerings within the state. A pulse being defined as passing highschool with a 2.5 gpa (aka you show up to class, lol).
I know this school is growing by about 500 people a semester, we now have double-wide trailers on an asphalt pad on what used to be a nice green field as "temporary classrooms". Dorms are now offering triple-occupancy options, etc.
Back home, school costs about 5k per year (not including living), and if you get mediocre scores (2.5 GPA, 25+ on ACT), the state more or less gives you 8-1600 dollars per semester or year (forgot) in scholarships. Just south of the border, school costs 20k+ per year, so home gets a lot of out of state students because 15k (5k * 3 for out of state tuition) is still less than their in-state rates and the schools are similarly ranked in many ways.
On November 04 2012 10:59 guN-viCe wrote: In response to the OP, I think Affirmative Action should end, and they should focus more on income level. Children who are poor are at a big disadvantage compared to their wealthier peers(and this will still help minorities).
I agree mostly, but it fails to take into account the culture importance that some ethnic groups place on their children to succeed in school versus the amount that other ethnic groups place on it.
If they don't then let them suffer for it.
When doing these sorts of social programs we should only be showing participants the door; they have to be the ones with the incentive to walk through it.
The University has a right to admit who it wishes in order to create what it determines as the best community for itself and its goals as an institution. As far as I know, aside from rules like the 10% cutoff, nobody has the legal right to be admitted into any school anywhere.
Even if the SCOTUS overturns the Grutter case, I still don't see a future student with her exact credentials getting automatically admitted.
On November 04 2012 10:54 Judicator wrote: ??? This actually happens you know? I am not saying AA is the answer, but to say that everyone has an equal opportunity for success in the education system is a fucking joke.
at some point old rich white guys figured out that you could make the discussions of racism go away if you simply screamed that such discussions were in themselves racist.
I don't know about old rich white guys but Morgan Freeman has been pretty vocal on stopping racism by not talking about it.
Yeah, this has to be one of the wisest things I've ever heard. If anything, affirmative action is just a form of reverse-racism.
Affirmative Action is reverse-racism, pure and simple. It had a place in our society in unintegrated 1950. It is no longer neccessary. Racism may still exists in the hearts and minds of some ignorant people, but institutional racism is actually near extinct. We should eliminate the racism affirming laws of affirmative action and now deal with the few rare claims of institutional discrimination on a case by case basis. People should be judged on ability alone, and there should never exist a situation where one man is preferred over another because of the color of their skin or their family history or their culture. It is so wrong in so many ways.
As an engineering student, I see affirmative action everywhere and it's really really depressing. It may be by coincidence, but it seems like all the research and assistant teaching positions are occupied by minorities or women. In fact, flyers for a assistant reaching position even read "Minorities and women strongly encouraged to apply." As a 6'2" white male with blonde hair and blue eyes I stand no chance in getting these positions, even though I'm more qualified than almost all of the people who got these positions.
On November 05 2012 02:31 StarStrider wrote: Affirmative Action is reverse-racism, pure and simple. It had a place in our society in unintegrated 1950. It is no longer neccessary. Racism may still exists in the hearts and minds of some ignorant people, but institutional racism is actually near extinct. We should eliminate the racism affirming laws of affirmative action and now deal with the few rare claims of institutional discrimination on a case by case basis. People should be judged on ability alone, and there should never exist a situation where one man is preferred over another because of the color of their skin or their family history or their culture. It is so wrong in so many ways.
Saying that institutional racism is extinct is just ignorant. Institutional racism and sexism are very much alive in many parts of this country. It doesn't necessarily warrant AA like this, but it's most definitely there.
On November 05 2012 02:43 Papulatus wrote: As an engineering student, I see affirmative action everywhere and it's really really depressing. It may be by coincidence, but it seems like all the research and assistant teaching positions are occupied by minorities or women. In fact, flyers for a assistant reaching position even read "Minorities and women strongly encouraged to apply." As a 6'2" white male with blonde hair and blue eyes I stand no chance in getting these positions, even though I'm more qualified than almost all of the people who got these positions.
Damn those minorities and women and all their power in the teacher's assistants field!!! Seriously though can you be more specific, you're making a lot of assumptions. First of all have you applied and been rejected? What school do you go to? How many positions are there, filled and unfilled? How do you know you're more qualified, have you had discussions with the other students about their backgrounds? Have you done work in the engineering field, are you an undergrad or masters student? Are there any other factors in hiring teacher's assistants at your school, like is it a form of financial aid? Also, who posted the flyers, you should ask them why they are are looking for minorities and women to apply. Or ask the department how they choose applicants. Obviously knowing how many positions there are and who fills them is a bit unreasonable, I'm not asking for a research paper, I'm just looking for more information, and if the school is choosing under qualified candidates no matter what race or gender then that definitely isn't a good thing and you should say something to somebody.
Thomas Sowell quite possibly one of my favorite men today and he makes a valid argument in these quick 2 and 3 minute video. I think its degrading to someone because they simply got hired or into a school because of their ethnicity/color. Why? because they didn't actually meet the requirements to get such job and or school but were allowed to enter because of affirmative action.
On November 05 2012 02:43 Papulatus wrote: As an engineering student, I see affirmative action everywhere and it's really really depressing. It may be by coincidence, but it seems like all the research and assistant teaching positions are occupied by minorities or women. In fact, flyers for a assistant reaching position even read "Minorities and women strongly encouraged to apply." As a 6'2" white male with blonde hair and blue eyes I stand no chance in getting these positions, even though I'm more qualified than almost all of the people who got these positions.
Hmm. Interesting. For me, it was during my first two years of undergrad that the affirmative action was at its greatest in engineering. When I was in higher level engineering courses, the teachers really never mentioned that stuff.
As to TA's and RA's, the teachers hired the best at the university I attended (whether they were guys or girls). You do see a lot of women and minorities there though. I am not sure why this is.
Asians don't get shafted in admissions at top top universities (Harvard, MIT, Princeton, then maybe Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Columbia) not because of their race but because not many of them are exceptional and they're all trying to squeeze into a few narrow fields. Those universities want to maintain diversity in fields pursued. If they accepted all those Asian kids with "good stats," they'd be overflowing with biology, computer science, and engineering majors. Instead, they also want students with interests in literature, history, social sciences, mathematics, literally everything else, etc. Unfortunately, Asian students don't really pursue those fields.
Honestly Asians are already grossly over-represented at every top university relative to their low population in the US, and as a lot of them (certainly not all) end up being careerist, passionless drones, admitting less Asian students would benefit the reputation of these institutions as they would end up educating more students more likely to impact the world in significant ways and less likely to educate the next great family doctor or software engineer.
None of these things should be anywhere on the applications. Admissions and scholarships should be awarded without these factors coming into play, pro or con.
On November 05 2012 04:07 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Not reverse racism. No such thing as reverse racism. Just racism.
Anyways, that would make sense on behalf of the colleges but they would have to specify and maybe prove they're searching for well-rounded students.
Yeah, it's understood that there's no such thing as reverse racism. It's just a term that best communicates the issue. It's politically incorrect but I think everyone knows what is meant by it.
On November 05 2012 04:07 [UoN]Sentinel wrote: Not reverse racism. No such thing as reverse racism. Just racism.
Anyways, that would make sense on behalf of the colleges but they would have to specify and maybe prove they're searching for well-rounded students.
Yeah, it's understood that there's no such thing as reverse racism. It's just a term that best communicates the issue. It's politically incorrect but I think everyone knows what is meant by it.
I guess I'd be a hypocrite if I argued about being politically correct. I get your point though.
On November 05 2012 03:57 chenchen wrote: Asians don't get shafted in admissions at top top universities (Harvard, MIT, Princeton, then maybe Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Columbia) not because of their race but because not many of them are exceptional and they're all trying to squeeze into a few narrow fields. Those universities want to maintain diversity in fields pursued. If they accepted all those Asian kids with "good stats," they'd be overflowing with biology, computer science, and engineering majors. Instead, they also want students with interests in literature, history, social sciences, mathematics, literally everything else, etc. Unfortunately, Asian students don't really pursue those fields.
Honestly Asians are already grossly over-represented at every top university relative to their low population in the US, and as a lot of them (certainly not all) end up being careerist, passionless drones, admitting less Asian students would benefit the reputation of these institutions as they would end up educating more students more likely to impact the world in significant ways and less likely to educate the next great family doctor or software engineer.
For almost all people, being a doctor or software engineer is the most significant way they can contribute to the world (if they can even do that). So...I don't know if you really have an argument. Someone is more likely to impact the world from a scientific discipline than from literature, arts, history, or social sciences anyway.
On November 05 2012 03:57 chenchen wrote: Asians don't get shafted in admissions at top top universities (Harvard, MIT, Princeton, then maybe Stanford, Yale, Chicago, Columbia) not because of their race but because not many of them are exceptional and they're all trying to squeeze into a few narrow fields. Those universities want to maintain diversity in fields pursued. If they accepted all those Asian kids with "good stats," they'd be overflowing with biology, computer science, and engineering majors. Instead, they also want students with interests in literature, history, social sciences, mathematics, literally everything else, etc. Unfortunately, Asian students don't really pursue those fields.
Honestly Asians are already grossly over-represented at every top university relative to their low population in the US, and as a lot of them (certainly not all) end up being careerist, passionless drones, admitting less Asian students would benefit the reputation of these institutions as they would end up educating more students more likely to impact the world in significant ways and less likely to educate the next great family doctor or software engineer.
For almost all people, being a doctor or software engineer is the most significant way they can contribute to the world (if they can even do that). So...I don't know if you really have an argument. Someone is more likely to impact the world from a scientific discipline than from literature, arts, history, or social sciences anyway.
Top universities don't want to admit ordinary people. They want to educate people to become leaders in their fields. A lot of Asian students don't have the drive to reach that level. They just want ordinary careers and ordinary lives. There are millions of doctors and software engineers in the world. Your impact as a doctor is limited by how many patients you can serve. Educating a doctor who will go on to perform the same service as millions of other doctors who came from less rigorous educational backgrounds is "almost" a waste of a space.
Educating an exceptional doctor on the other hand . . . . that can change the world.
EPT
