If you actually look at the percentage blacks get in at a lower percent at UT then whites just saying circa. 2009
I remember when Texas A&M decided to change its legacy policy It was about 20 years after blacks were first allowed into the university basically. . . . about the time that black kids could get into it . . based on being a legacy. Then it conviently became 'unfair'ish Amazing when you have 90% of everything then b**** about not getting 90% of the other 10% Greed is a MFer Rocket River
If this happens, would Berkley be 90% Asian It's 40% right now.... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/30393117/ns/us_news-life/t/asian-americans-blast-uc-admissions-policy/ http://www.collegeview.com/admit/?p=751
A flippant response Donny, sorry. Point is I think there is something to be said about exploring economic situations instead of race as having more of an impact on those who receive a bit of help in regards to opportunities in college admissions. I certainly don't have the answers, but am willing to look at options.
There is no fine line, it is a trade off. If there is a finite number of spots at the university, you must dismiss some wealthy kids to help the underprivileged. The assumption is that the wealthy kids have the support system in place to be successful while the poor kids have no such luxury.
yet somehow they still kept the yellow man down . That was mostly tongue in cheek. Just for the record, I'm Asian, I support AA right now even though it works against Asians. I can support having it abolish it and make it trully more experience based. I would give advantage to people having low average parent's wealth of the 12 years they were in grade school(because income is not a good measure of "Need"), high numbers hours worked while in school (with actual W-2 reported income), low number of immediate relatives graduating from a U.S. college and etc, and potentially home environment (were you from a broken home, do you have family members in hardship, incarceration, and etc.). Things that truly showed that the person had to overcome adversity, and that with a more equal playing field, are more likely to excel.
social and economic mobility Before we launch into any discussion of a change from race based affirmative action to income based affirmative action, or a hybrid system of the two we need to ask and answer a couple of initial questions. Why would we change to an affirmative action system based on socio-economic status, would it solve the problem we are trying to address in the current system, and is a system based on socio-economic status workable. It is very clear that socio-economic status is used as a proxy for something. So what is it? Is it we believe that socio-economic status is a proxy for lack of opportunity? I think so, for example I think that that goal held be Go_Korea and Sweet Lou 4 You. If so, then it is an very imperfect measure as so many other factors influence opportunity. We can easily imagine a rich kid who has endured and exceeded expectations despite a lack of opportunity as well as the counterfactual of a poor kid who was given all the opportunities in the world. While such hypotheticals are not necessarily fatal, I think they illustrate a large problem with a system based on socio-economic status if the goal is indeed to correct for opportunity. I'm not sure what other goals such an system would address, possibly economic diversity, but I'm not sure economic diversity on its own absent other factors adds anything to education. A similar charge, that the policy does not address the goal, also appears in the race based affirmative action context. One frequently alluded to example is that of the well off African-American whose parents are first generation college educated Kenyans. This much like the set of examples above is somewhat of a fringe case; however, I would say it is likely even more fringe than poor kid who had opportunity in spite of his/er poverty or rich kid who had none due to a fubared family situation. Additionally, this case is possibly less defeating of the overall goals of race based affirmative action because race based affirmative action plan has a myriad of goals: racial diversity, disrupting the negative historical legacy of discrimination by creating more African American professionals, and correcting for past injustice (this is not intended to be exhaustive). Accepting a first or second generation African with college educated parents over an equally qualified white student serves the goals of increasing diversity, and it even satisfies the goal of disrupting the negative historical legacy by creating more African-american leaders (ex. Barack Obama). It does not however satisfy the goal of correcting past injustice. Socio-economic status is also a poor rule because socio-economic status is difficult to quantify or qualify. Unlike the current regime of using race which is truly can be boiled down to checking a box, any rule based on socio-economic status might be unworkable in practice as it would require extensive and invasive background checks of any and all applicants. What would we look at? Income? But if our goal is to address an imbalance of opportunity, then income shouldn't be the only factor. For example, should we give preference to the kid who is one of 5 children and whose 2 parents are PHDs working at HCC part-time and living off of a combined check of 50k in a paid off house in West-U over the kid who has the same number of siblings and parents who make 60k total, are helping pay for grandma's cancer treatment, and paying off a house in Fondren? Any rule based solely on income would presumably let the 50k in first given equal qualifications. An additional problem of using income to check socio economic status is that, income, unlike race is not a static property. How would such a system deal with a family who was below the poverty line for most of the applicant's formative years but is now awash in cash. How would we deal with applicant from the family who has no income now, but used to be rich? How about the applicant whose family was high-income for a year, then poor for 10 years, and then rich again? I don't think such a system is workable even if we could adequately identify family income at the time of the application and apply some sort of equitable sliding scale to the numbers. There are simply too many other factors that would go into assessing socio-economic status. So, if we view socio-economic status as a proxy for lack of opportunity, then the question is is it any better than using race? I'm not sure it is on a whole. According to the Hertz Mobility Analysis, the main channels which intergenerational mobility flows are education, race, health, and state of residence. If we care about lack of opportunity, then socio-economic status would have to take into account all these factors and not limit the inquiry simply to income. I don't think it is possible to assess all these factors together and I don't think proponents of a socio-economic scheme think that it should. According to the Hertz study "African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile. The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance." If our goal is to address the largest sum of lack of opportunity for a class, shouldn't any affirmative action policy include race as the predominant factor however imperfect it might be?
huh? As much as I would love to respond to you, in either agreement or disagreement, from your post I have no idea what you are saying. I searched the thread for some added context, but came up empty-handed. Usually when expressing a vague thought people add on a couple of extra sentences to actually expound on their intended meaning. With that in mind, what are you trying to say?
It's not rocket science either. I mean, how hard is it to look at someone's background, see they come from a poor family and have done pretty darn well despite that? I think it's easy enough to create a standard for kids who come from underprivileged backgrounds. Not only their income tax returns, but looking at what high school and grade school they attended, and through the interview process. I went to school. we were graded on a curve - relative to our peers. This was to take out the quality of the instructor in determining students grades. Not all grade & high schools are created equally either. Some high schools are going to result in far better environments for learning - with better teachers, books, resources, and classroom environment than others. Why shouldn't there also be a curve to help identify potential stars and diamonds in the ruff who just need a better system to succeed? I went to a middle class high school and breezed through without ever working hard. Does that mean I was better qualified than a kid who went to a crappy high school, got a crappy education, and managed to get decent grades through a lot more hard work? Who is more likely going to succeed in life? Can you really tell? Who deserves it more? Is it clear cut? That's all I am saying.
What I wanted to say is pretty much all there. I always chuckle when in an AA debate the first thing that comes to people's minds is race when AA was designed to and provides more protection than simply race discrimination. Not too surprising.....the medias knows what buttons to press to get views/webpage hits.
Pointing out the greatest beneficiaries of Afirmative Action . . .are white women . . .would just be pointless. [even if it is true] Rocket River
That is certainly a part of it.......but I'm saying that AA offers more than protection against racial discriminatory actions. I wonder if some ppl here even know how AA works? I bet they think we check a box and ask for it LOL :grin:
Paper Tigers: What Happens to All the Asian-American Overachievers When the Test-Taking Ends? The author discusses the situation faced by Asian-Americans from high school to university, and to the work force. He describes anti-affirmative action against Asians as a corrective mechanism to off-set the high achievement of Asians in the top-tier high schools. There are a couple of ways of looking at this. You could even view it as affirmative action for white kids. Berkeley has done away with affirmative action for white kids and now the school is mainly Asian, but as the author points out, given that this country is run by white men, it behooves most prestigious universities to limit the percentage of Asians in each entering class so as to ensure that they groom the most future leaders. Even for those Asian-American kids who get into elite schools... This glass-ceiling for Asian-Americans is one reason why elite schools exclude Asians to the benefit of white kids. If the Asian-American community really wanted to attack the systems that keep it down, it shouldn't look to affirmative action programs, it should look to the group that holds the power in this country. It's not Hispanics, and it is not African Americans who are keeping Asians from success. It's a culture created by white people, of white people, and for white people that prizes and elevates certain characteristics of white America.
I'm curious - we all know that the leaders and bosses/employers are usually the "B" Students (or in the case of the last few presidents and candidates , on BOTH sides of the aisle, the "C" Students). I think that the Asian Culture grooms their children to be more like the "A" Students, and therefore to be intelligent, productive members of society..but without the "boss/leader" mentality. I hope this doesn't sound racist, because I truly wish more people valued society/education/life like many Asian families do.
Yeah, the fact that businesses prize social skills and connections above hard work is a big problem for Asians. The article actually goes through the trials and tribulations of Asians who seek to increase social skills, through such things as practice classes for increasing facial expressions, for body language, and for laughing, etc. All with the goal of increasing their job prospects.
Couldnt some people start to pile on the "hardships" they had in their life for dramatic effect? Kinda like some "American Idol" where the sappiest story of overcoming adversity wins people's hearts.
you mean just like people pile on their extracurricular achievements? It's a subjective process anyways. I don't think adding this dimension really makes it all that more complex.
