Supreme Ct Decision on Univ of Mich Affirmative Action

Great thread.

I do agree that present day Asian immigrants are generally financially more well-off than blacks/hispanics. However, it was not the case at the beginning, as k49 pointed out. The early Chinese immigrants were very poor, and akin to slaves. The more recent Vietnamese refugees were another example. But these groups managed to break the poverty cycle much faster than the blacks and hispanics, with very little political help.



My view on AA is that it is a good quick fix for racial inequality, but should never be used as a long term device to "balance" the diversity. At the beginning of desegregation, AA was a good way to quickly put blacks into white schools. But after all these years, black leaders should concentrate on (1) fighting blatant discrimination in the work place and (2) redirecting black culture into breaking the poverty cycle. Using AA as a quick fix is no longer benefitial to African-American. It may even have a negative effect.

 

Apparently not the admissions committees that favor the current AA plans..

 

Really? So even given the same schools, minority students will underachieve. All else being equal? I know we've talked about that and seen some of that in places like Shaker Heights, but I just can't believe that even white students in the same schools with similar ecnomic backgrounds still outperform the minority students. That suggests something far deeper than simply money spent on classroom instruction as the root of the underachievement.

And just on a side note, now that the DISD is almost entirely non-white, I've actually heard PTBs talk about how that's a good thing for the students in the district.

The thing is, though, that I like Top 10% as a concept irrespective of its supposed diversity benefits. If a student achieves a top ten percent ranking against his peers, he should have automatic admission to any public school in the state. A reward for the achievement.

I don't count on that to necessarily increase diversity (and outreach programs are good ideas, as well), but Texas public schools are once again allowed to consider race in admissions processing. Just because the original reason for instituting the Top 10% rule is no longer an issue doesn't mean we should do away with it, in my opinion. Especially if, as you say, it never worked to achieve the results it was supposed to anyway.

 

When will all else ever be equal? Even if the city of houston's schools became completely integrated, and you threw river oaks in with the third ward in an exact proportion to their population in one school, you've got to believe that the river oaks kids would be more likely to finish in the top 10%, not cause of any racial distinction, but because of racial correlation. Rich white kids and poor nonwhite kids don't have a level playing field even within the same school, just like they don't have it between schools.

A true meritocracy, for which we are supposed to strive, according to many AA opponents, requires a healthy bit of what they would describe as socialism, or wealth redistribution, or whatever you want ot call it, to establish the necessary level playing field for a true meritocracy. I tried to hit on this point earlier but TJ ran away and hid.

 

the top 10% rule is a great rule. If someone works their ass off for 4 years in highschool day in and day out and are able to be in the top 10% of their class, they should be automatically be accepted. I've had many friends who benifited from this. I don't care what race you are, all you have to do is work your ass off.

 

The Chinese were treated horribly and many basically enslaved, that is correct. They also faced discrimination. However, they weren't expressly forbidden from learning to read or rigt. They weren't purposely put with other Asians who didn't speak the same language, and they weren't captured in their homeland and forcibly brought here so there is a difference.

It's not that Mexican Americans were enslaved it's that parts of the U.S. were once Mexico. They were conquored. I mentioned the factors that affect it are enslaved, conquored, or colonized. Roll your eyes all you want, I'm just talking about research. How or if that research is ever used doesn't matter. Whether you want to make an effort to teach people in ways that will help all students and bridge gaps that's, or how you feel that should be done is a seperate issue.

 

But studies show that minorities from the same middle class backgrounds will still do worse if they are Hawaiian-Americans, Mexican-Americans, Native-Americans, or African-Americans.

This may be hard to follow but the site contains a lot of information about this as well as the names of other linguists for anyone interested in doing more research.

http://216.239.57.100/search?q=cach...C9tion%20Report.pdf+AEMP+LAUSD&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

 

Why do you suppose thats the case?

 

Just let it be based on economic background rather than race. All affirmative action is simply shifting discrimination from one race to another. Why should people be judged for the color of their skin?

"I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed - we hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal." Dr. Martin Luther King

 

The problem is that being top 10% dosen't always mean you worked your ass off if you are at a basic school.

 

To put it in oversimplified terms over the generations I'd say that voluntary immigrants have an interest in being in a country and participating in it. Groups that have been enslaved by a country, colonized by it, or conquored by it, and are oppressed or denied education for most of their time here, they don't have an interest in taking part in something.

I'm not saying that's the case now, but certainly in the past it has been, and the effects are lingering. Hopefully over time it will change. I think strides have already been made.

 

If they dont have an interest in taking part in education, why would you suggest that schools give these groups of people special treatment?

 

You know I get so tired of within these arguments of racial justice someone pulls up part of MLK's I have a Dream speech to really give a false impression of what he believed was needed in this country. This speech was all about hopes he had for the future and really gave no indication of how he believed our country could reach his dream. The fact is that MLK very much supported reparations and racial preference to compensate blacks for what he called the long siege of denial.


"During World War II, our fighting men were deprived of certain advantages and opportunities. To make up for this, they were given a package of veterans rights, significantly called a "Bill of Rights". The major features to this GI Bill of Rights included subsidies for trade school or college education, with living expenses provided during the period of study. Veterans were given special concessions enabling them to buy homes without cash, with lower interest rates and easier repayment terms. They could negotiate loans from banks to launch businesses, using the governement as an endorser of any losses. They received special points to place them ahead in competition for civil-service jobs. They were provided with medical care and long-term financial grants if their physical condition had been impaired by their military service. In addition to these legally granted rights, a strong social climate for many years favored the preferential employment of veterans in all walks of life.

In this way, the nation was compensating the veteran for his time lost, in school or in his career or in his business. Such compensatory treatment was approved by the majority of Americans. Certainly the Negro has been deprived. Few people consider the fact that, in addition to being enslaved for two centures, the Negro was, during all those years, robbed of the wages of his toil. No amount of gold could provide an adequate compensation for the exploitation and humiliation of the Negro in America down through the centuries. Not all the wealth of this affluent society could meet the bill. Yet a price can be placed on unpaid wages. The ancient common law has always provided a remedy for the appropriation of the labor of one human being by another. This law should be in the form of a massive program by the government of special, compensatory measures which could be regarded as a settlement in accordance with the accepted practice of common law. Such measures would certainly be less expensive than any computation based on two centuries of unpaid wages and accumulated interest.

I am proposing, therefore, that, just as we granted a GI Bill of Rights to war veterans, America launch a broad based and gigantic Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged, our veterans of the long siege of denial.

Such a bill could adapt almost every concession given to the returning soldier without imposing an undue burden on the economy. A Bill of Rights for the Disadvantaged would immediately transform the conditions of Negro life. The most profound alteration would not reside so much in the specific grants as in the basic psychological and motivational transformation of the Negro. I would challenge skeptics to give such a bold new approach a test for the next decade. I contend that the decline in school dropouts, family breakups, crime rates, illegitimacy, swollen relief rolls and other social evils would stagger the imagination. Change in human psychology is normally a slow process, but it is safe to predict that, when a people is ready for change as the Negro has shown himself today, the response is bound to be rapid and constructive.


Martin Luther King Jr. - 1963

 

Well, in that case, he was wrong, dead wrong. Why should I be taxed to pay for "reparations" when none of these folks were slaves and my ancestors never owned slaves. All reparations are is a simple bit of racist income redistribution, stealing from evil whitey to dole out yet another handout to the so-called oppressed.

There are two things wrong with set-asides or quotas:

1. What does it do for the "preferred" minority? Does it make people around campus wonder, are they here because they met the standards or to just simply fill the quota?

2. As I said early, it is just a shifting of discrimination from minorities to whites. How is that a positive solution? Why should I be punished because I'm white? I didn't lynch anyone. I didn't write the evil Jim Crowe laws. I shouldn't be made accountable for the sins of my ancestors. Put a factor in for economic means and you will not disallow anybody based on the color of their skin. All it does is continue a cycle of inferiority, that evil whitey is holding us down, that we can't do anything without a handout or a quota. Face it, until we do away with using skin color as an identifier and become one nation rather than a hodge-podge of hyphenated cliques, we will continue to see racial division in this country.

 

I never said they should receive special treatment in schools. In fact I believe that holding them to a lesser standard in the school, is horribly detrimental. The reason to have affirmitive action is to try and bridge the gap that exists. Plus if groups that have generally been denied equal education, and still don't have their educational needs met adaduately, are over diagnosed for remedial programs and special education, are going to have negative feelings toward education in generation. The reason to have affirmitive action is to help instill a positive association with education, along with making education for all levels appropriate.

As has been pointed out in this thread, the students who benefitted from the affirmative action, they've performed as well as their classmates who didn't. So the gap is being bridged.

 

If that's what you believe then stop freaking quoting Martin Luther King. If he were alive today you'd be one of the geniuses attacking him and his "racist" ideas. You freaking hypocrite. He had a dream and he sought to fulfill that dream with concrete steps while you quote his speech as a misleading punchline for why you don't want to do a damn thing to solve the problem.

BTW, your arguments are terrible. Do privileged white kids walk around campus wondering if they're there because they're white?Never knowing if they're really intelligent enough to actually be there or if their parents simply gave them all the benefits that any kid in the world could succeed with. The burden must be terrible. Only a hodge podge hyphenated clique of ignorant-ass-Americans should believe that giving a people what's been stolen from them constitutes continuing a cycle of inferiority. Furthermore, if the litmus test for federal programs was what you and I are individually responsible for then the government owes me a hell of a lot of money because I've never put anyone on unemployment, I never made anyone old to need social security, I never put anyone on welfare, I never did anything to Israel for them to get a few billion dollar hand out every year. The fact is that you and I share a larger responsibility to society that doesn't necessarily encompass what you and I are individually responsible for. What you did or didn't do doesn't matter. It is kind of funny to hear you whine about being punished for being white while you dismiss compensating those having been punished 200 years for being black. Does evil whitey wanna hug or would that contribute to a cycle of inferiority?

 

Damn. That was good.

 

Interesting thoughts but you are averting from the argument.

You claim that this "group" does not have its educational needs met adequately. Who is this "group"??

It sounds that you are implying that this group is African Americans/Hispanic Americans then we are talking in circles. As I stated previously, not all African Americans nor Hispanics are poor. Just like how not all whites and asians are rich.
Why do you continue to make these macro generalizations?

As I stated before, I agree that underpriveledged people deserve more help. But it is a MAJOR fallacy to think that just because you are African American or Hispanic, you AUTOMATICALLY fall into the underpriveledged segment.

Lastly, I enjoy discussing about these matters but PLEASE do not speak in circles otherwise there is absolutely ZERO value in discussing this with you.

Sorry if that was a bit too blunt but our discussion does not seem to be advancing...

 

Many people do feel it is fine to take into account socio-economic and personal circumstances and not just pure academic achievements. I also am fine with that. A poor minority living in the crime infested ghetto in a struggling family working part-time to support his family and all the while trying to maintain decent grades in a dilapidated school gets the edge, IMHO, over some white pampered prep school boy born to a priviledged family even if that white boy has slightly higher SAT scores and such.

OTOH, to just give an automatic significant edge to a minority for the sole reason that he is a minority is not something I can fully support.

While many minorities are disadvantaged, not all minorities are. And many of the blacks helped by affirmative action actually come from good middle class backgrounds, live in good neighborhoods and went to good schools. I don't see why blacks who comes from such backgrounds need any special consideration.

 

Sorry these groups, I meant Mexican/Americans(not Hispanice Americans at large), Hawaiian/Americans, Native Americans, and African Americans. And I don't care what socio economic class the members of that group happen to be in, they still aren't having their educational needs meant, because in order to teach standard English and communicate with students teachers need to be able to understand what is being said by the students, and how to model standard English in response.

The argument about economics and underprivelidged in that regard was yours. I don't claim that all members of those groups are automatically lower-class. I do claim that a majority of them regardless for what class they belong too, are being taught by teachers who don't know how to meet their needs, over diagnose them as not ready for AP classes despite having the same test scores as caucasions who are designated for AP classes and honors classes, or are over diagnosed as needing remedial classes. The gaps occur acorss economic boundries. And relate to these four groups in particular.

We can both agree that underprivlidged children from all demographics need extra help too, but these four groups require something different.