California Colleges Mull Return of Affirmative Action

It depends on how fair the entrance exam is.

 

Agreed. I am against race-based policies, but it does make sense to take into account economic status. A poor student who does well despite the odds should not be discounted because he/she happens to be white.

 

Not only that, the "Asian" classification system is so incredibly stupid.

You're telling me that:

Arabs
Indians
Oriental
Some Slavic,


people should be grouped under one category...and also according to the largest continent on the globe?

It sounds like an excuse to spit out numbers that portray asians as being over represented, the article did a great job of pointing out that many of these individuals are actually underrepresented.

 

Everybody takes the same test. It's not like they're asking questions that would be specific to a person's race.

 

Trust me, I know perfectly well how AA works and how some groups are more "diverse" than others under its twisted logic. This is like that time that someone argued that the NBA is the most diverse professional sports league in the world despite being over 80% black.

Also, you do realize that white people are "underrepresented" in the UC system in relation to their population percentage, right? Do you support AA for them?

 

You need to prove this point rather than just try to gloss over it. You haven't proven that point.

 

prepare yourself -- you're about to be called a racist pig

 

Actually, the UC system already has a de facto system of AA based on economic status. After prop 209 was passed, UC administrators had to find another way to keep hispanic and black enrollment at a respectable level, so they began to use economic factors as a proxy, stopped legacy programs, and set up outreach programs that targeted underprivileged communities.

Another plus side to this method was that black and hispanic graduation numbers remained steady or even increased at certain schools. In other words, the black and hispanic students that were getting in could actually carry through with the coursework.

 

Actually some tests are culturally biased. I don't specifically know about GRE, ACT, SAT, etc. But I do know that some tests are indeed unintentionally biased.

 

You're asking about white representation for AA and also claiming you understand how AA works?

I don't get it. AA is never mandatory unless there is a history of proven discrimination. It can be voluntary. So if they are allowing qualified whites to have more representation then wouldn't be strict AA.

According to you blacks get all the breaks in society? Is that what you're claiming?

 

Yes, that's what AA is designed to fix. AA isn't for any particular racial or ethnic group, it's for underrepresented groups.

 

I'm very curious about how long this has been the ethnic makeup and how it affects the corporate/professional workforce. Probably also need to check out the Cal State and private demos to get full perspective.

 

Sorry, need to shoot this in the back of the head before it gets any legs. The very best thing blacks and immigrants can hope for is college admissions based on standardized testing. All other avenues to the professional workforce depend on social criteria that whites will always demonstrate more effectively than others.

 

What? Where did I claim that black people get breaks in society? I was simply going off your under-representation argument; no more and no less. At least CometsWin is consistent in that regard.

Look, I've already had this argument on this board; I don't remember if it was you, but I'll just cut out the rehashing and get to the ultimate point. If you look at demographic numbers, SCA-5 is not a black-white issue; it's an asian-latino issue and, to a lesser extent, an asian-black issue. There is no way that California whites will be willing to let white enrollment fall even lower than it is now in order to preserve Asian seats (if SCA-5 passes). Given that college admissions are a zero-sum game, in order to justify SCA-5 (with regard to Asians) and remain logically consistent, you either have to believe that:

A. Asians have never suffered or no longer suffer a "sufficient" level of discrimination to benefit from AA (or at least be spared carrying the burden of its policies).

or

B. Once a group achieves a population size in colleges sufficient to create a "diverse" environment, they should be freely subjected to the needs of other racial groups even if they are or have been subject to discrimination. I'm not really sure what that size is, but given your use of "underrepresented" rhetoric, I'll assume that critical mass is reached when a group's college percentage closely reflects their percentage in the general population.

So, which is it? If your answer is A, I'd be curious to know what your metric is. If your answer is B, then I'd like to know how you feel about the UC schools where hispanics are overrepresented (of which there are several).

 

I wasn't sure that's what you were thinking. Because you brought up about whites getting representation in the AA. So I was asking if that's what you meant. I didn't mean to accuse you without first double checking if that's what you were saying.

I'm not advocating A or B. I'm advocating that students at the schools would be better served in a more diverse environment. They learn from in part from having educational input of a wide variety of backgrounds etc.

I agree that Asian is far too broad of a category, and that it's difficult to have a discussion when that's listed as the predominant ethnicity because of how diverse it is.

 

Well I do. I've taken both the SAT and ACT multiple times, as well as the GRE and LSAT, and with the exception of perhaps the essay portions, I don't think you say that the tests are biased toward any race, culture, creed, and so on, whatsoever.

And even in the essay portions, your argument would be a stretch. You'd have to be claiming that the societal themes in those sections are biased, which doesn't really make any sense because it seems that the smallest minority group nationwide is getting admitted at the highest rates in the article the opening post references.

 

screw affirmative action. it's basically discrimination. the day that NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL etc. enforce affirmative action to allow more Asian players is the day I will support it in academics. my wife was offered a job at an university but they took it back later citing affirmative action. basically, the school said "f*** off, you are Chinese. we don't want you. there are too many of you.". the department wanted her because she qualifies but the school system wouldn't. like I said, I would only support it if it's fair in all fields.

 

Diverse would really mean you would have equal numbers of students from around the globe, not use any racial bias. A student from Texas, New York, London, and China would all be very different.

 

LOL.. ridiculous.. grasping at straws.

 

My university is one of the most diverse ones in the UK. Only half the students are white, 37% are asian and 5% black. And do you know what happens? The ethnicities tend to stick together in their societies and groups.