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Grex > Diversity > #12: Bush to join fight against UM's affirmative action program |  |
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| 25 new of 232 responses total. |
jep
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response 129 of 232:
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Jan 23 05:02 UTC 2003 |
re resp:127: At various points in American history, Italians, Germans,
Chinese, Irish and many other ethnic groups have been singled out as
being inferior in various ways, and denied the capability to compete on
equal terms with other Americans. They almost all overcame it, and did
so without affirmative action. Some were pretty easily distinguishable
from "white" Americans. Irish weren't considered white. Hispanics
aren't now, though I cannot figure out why. Aren't they as Caucasian
as I am? Not that anyone should care, other than census bureau folks
who want to figure out how much affirmative action to give them.
The handiest example of another group which was separated from the rest
of society and given "advantages" that mostly weren't advantages at
all, is the American Indians and the reservation system. Those who
stay on the reservations live a lot differently than other Americans.
They don't have much money, or much chance of getting any. They have
very high unemployment, alcoholism, drug usage, rates of child and
spousal abuse, and crime, and low life expectancies that remind one of
Third World countries.
I think the nation's minorities, including African Americans, would be
better off if treated like the minorities which came before them who
became "just plain Americans", than they will be if we continue to
treat them as a separate class of people.
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rcurl
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response 130 of 232:
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Jan 23 05:31 UTC 2003 |
I think you make too little of the effect of being visibly black in a nation
that has a large percentage of active or venal racists. All of the other
nationalities/ethnicities except perhaps some hispanics blend into the
general range of "white". Most hispanics can too. Some blacks of diluted
genomes can also. But that leaves a large number of people that can
be categorized simply by color. THAT is what the nation has not surmounted.
I thought Steve's explanation of his position was very eloguent. How many
hear can say the same thing. How many here WILL say the same thing. I, for
one, had similar advantages as Steve and did not suffer the disadvantages
of being black. Anything we can do to overcome to current division is still
worth considering.
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scg
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response 131 of 232:
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Jan 23 06:23 UTC 2003 |
(it's worth noting that the Indian Reservation system was not designed as an
advantage, but rather as an exile for people who were forcibly moved from the
valuable land they inhabited to worthless desert. That things don't work well
on reservations should be an anti-segregation argument, not a pro-segregation
argument)
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mcnally
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response 132 of 232:
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Jan 23 10:35 UTC 2003 |
> I think you make too little of the effect of being visibly black in a nation
> that has a large percentage of active or venal racists. All of the other
> nationalities/ethnicities except perhaps some hispanics blend into the
> general range of "white".
Wow. "All of the other nationalities/ethnicities except.. Hispanics"?
You really have to have blinders on to make a statement like that.
Look around you next time you're on North Campus, why don't you?
I have no doubt that being visibly distinguishable makes assimilation
more difficult (though I think Rane vastly underestimates the amount of
discrimination most people are capable of based on name, speech pattern,
and other non-visual distinguishing characteristics) but visual
distinctiveness alone totally fails to explain why some minorities have
had difficulty successfully assimilating while others who are also
visually distinguishable from the marjority population (e.g. Chinese and
East Indians) have had much greater success.
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mary
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response 133 of 232:
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Jan 23 13:06 UTC 2003 |
Re: #127 Nice response, Steve, as always. But I'm left
with this question. You suggest we need to compensate for
disadvantage yet the current system (at UofM) does already,
in awarding points for social and economic hardship.
And if that's what you're trying to do then selecting those
with the most social and economic hardship, while being
blind to the color of their skin, somehow seems more
genuine.
Under the current system a very bright black student from
a wealthy neighborhood with all the trimmings gets a
leg up.
Maybe we should shift the color points to the economic
hardship category?
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johnnie
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response 134 of 232:
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Jan 23 14:21 UTC 2003 |
Folks keep harping on the "20 points for being black" business, but
there's arguably a lot more points for being white, under the UM system.
Take the miscellaneous category--which is where the "black points" come
from, and under which category an applicant can get only one set of
points (can't get 20 for black PLUS 20 for athlete). There's 20 points
for being poor--presumably most of these points go to poor white kids,
since the minority kids already got their 20 (but eliminate the race
points, and this would even out to a large degreee). There's 5 points
for a male entering the nursing program--presumably mostly
middle-to-upper income white points, since the poor and minority kids
would have taken the greater 20. And of course, there's the 20 points
"at the provost's discretion", which are almost certainly exclusively
white points, for kids who don't get points under the other
classifications, but bring some sort of otherwise-unclassifiable special
quality to the table (like maybe a big donation from Daddy?).
The 4 legacy points have already been noted in other posts, but it
should be pointed out that, as the overwhelming majority of alumni are
white, legacy points will go mostly to white kids. I wonder what the
minority enrollment at UM was 20 or 40 years ago, when the current crop
of students' parents were attending college (or even further back, when
their grandparents [1 legacy point] attended)?
Then there's the geographical white points. All state of Michigan
applicants get a 10 point boost, but those from rural (aka
disproportionally white) areas get an extra 6 points on top of that.
And there's even white points under the academic classifications.
There's a total range of 22 points under "school factor" and "curriculum
factor". These points boil down to how good the school is, and how many
AP courses are offered/taken. I wouldn't be telling tales out of
school to note that kids who attend rich white private schools are going
to get a lot more of these points than the kids stuck in broken down
inner-city schools.
Perhaps the 20 black points simply attempt to even out all the extra
white points.
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jep
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response 135 of 232:
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Jan 23 14:40 UTC 2003 |
I agree that the Indian reservation system is an argument against
segregation. I am not in favor of segregation.
I agree, by the way, that white middle class Americans enjoy many
advantages in the United States, as a group.
In the past, English-Americans enjoyed advantages over those from
Eastern and Southern Europe. They don't now. Protestants enjoyed
advantages over Catholics. If they do now, it's not because of
differences over religion, it's because there are a lot of recent, some
illegal, Catholic Hispanic immigrants.
Affirmative action builds into the law a system where some people,
because of their ethnicity, are treated differently because it is the
prevailing view among policy makers that they are unable to compete
equally with other people. That's almost exactly what segregation
did. Affirmative action, in my view, is essentially a type of
segregation.
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jep
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response 136 of 232:
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Jan 23 14:40 UTC 2003 |
re resp:134: The points are additive. You can be black, rural *and* a
legacy student.
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gull
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response 137 of 232:
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Jan 23 15:17 UTC 2003 |
Re #136: Yes, but you can still only get a maximum of 20 points in the
'miscellaneous factors' category. You can't get 20 for being black, 6
for being rural, and 4 for being a legacy and end up with a total of 30.
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johnnie
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response 138 of 232:
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Jan 23 16:04 UTC 2003 |
No, jep is correct--rural and legacy are separate categories from misc.
But my point still stands: rural and legacy points (among others) are
going to go largely to white applicants.
The point chart is here:
http://www.umich.edu/~mrev/archives/1999/summer/chart.htm
A thorough explanation of the chart is here:
http://www.michiganreview.com/lsaadmissions.pdf
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klg
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response 139 of 232:
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Jan 23 17:24 UTC 2003 |
re: "#130 (rcurl): a nation that has a large percentage of active or
venal racists."
You've taken a poll or something to substantiate this, I presume.
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lowclass
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response 140 of 232:
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Jan 23 18:04 UTC 2003 |
Comes dow2n to it, the race card is ALWAYS on the table. It's
obvous to all concerned when one is facing a american black or
hispanic accross the table. What's also always on the table is the
hstory, the news reports, the lousy schools, and the inability to get
a job out of high school in the areas where those minorities live.
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lowclass
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response 141 of 232:
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Jan 23 18:06 UTC 2003 |
ANd what always on the table is the inability to move to a place
where better jobs and schools are available. It takes a job to earn
the money for a new place, and employment, as aready noted isn't there.
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lowclass
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response 142 of 232:
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Jan 23 18:12 UTC 2003 |
ANd what always on the table is the inability to move to a place
where better jobs and schools are available. It takes a job to earn
the money for a new place, and employment, as aready noted isn't there.
I don't thing those problems afre the general blame of the white
population at large. But I REALLy doubt you can blame Africans OR
Hispanics for the environment they were born in. THe real shame isn ot
that something must be done, but that somebody ELSE ought to do it.
Insight is perpective. Just maybe, most of you are looking at this
from a middle class or better perspective. Try thinking from Lower
middle class or working poor and understand not only the justification
for affirmative action, but the need
(Sorry it's in two entries. Papaya is NOT something I'm familiar
with as of yet.)
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scg
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response 143 of 232:
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Jan 23 19:12 UTC 2003 |
re 133:
I certainly won't argue that a black kid from a wealthy neighborhood
(I think I met three or four such people in the 21 years I lived in Michigan)
doesn't have advantages that black kids in poor neighborhoods don't. Their
experiences are likely to be worlds apart. Are you arguing that the black
kid from a wealthy neighborhood has all the advantages of a white kid from
a wealthy neighborhood? That sounds like a much harder case to make, given
that the white kid will be treated like they belong in the neighborhood, and
the black kid will tend to be treated with some degree of suspicion.
re 135:
There certainly has been a lot of discrimination in the US against
various European ethnic groups. My step mother's Italian grandfather, for
example, had to change his name before he was able to get a job as a lawyer
in New York. It certainly wasn't good, but a generation later his kids,
having been born in the US with American sounding names and American accents,
were mainstream white Americans.
But I think the history of discrimination in this context is mainly useful
in helping us understand why things are the way they are today, rather than
in determining who is being discriminated against today. That a group was
discriminated against heavily several decades ago but has since assimilated
is evidence that they don't need Affirmative Action today, not that it
wouldn't have been fair to give Affirmative Action to members of that group
at one point. The reason to give extra admissions points to black people
today is that for various historical and societal reasons, much of the US
black population is trapped in an environment in which it's very difficult
to succeed, and it's not getting better on its own.
John argues that Affirmative Action treats people differently because policy
makers think, becuase of their ethnicity, that they're unable to compete with
other people, and likens this treatment to segregation -- keeping the races
separate. What we have in fact is a group of people who, because of their
ethnicity, have been separated from the rest of society and placed at a
considerable disadvantage. This is segregation. Affirmative Action is a
recognition of that societally imposed disadvantage, and an attempt to
compensate for it. Affirmative Action is a recognition that the starting
points for the two groups weren't equal, and an attempt to bring the groups
back together by compensating for that.
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mary
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response 144 of 232:
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Jan 23 20:01 UTC 2003 |
Well, I guess I disagree with Steve here. I would like to see help given
to those who are deemed capable of succeeding but need a little slack in
admission criteria to compensate for real socio-economic hardship. Color
of skin isn't an accurate indicator or such need. Certainly not anymore.
Need-based help not relying on skin color will probably end up helping a
whole lot of minority kids. But it will end up helping only kids in need.
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mary
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response 145 of 232:
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Jan 23 20:09 UTC 2003 |
And to answer your question regarding advantages. Yes, I think a black
kid, raised in a wealthy environment, put through good schools and tucked
in at night by loving parents has all the same advantages and chance for
success as his or her white best friend coming from the same type of home.
I believe we've come that far. Which is not to say that's far
enough.
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slynne
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response 146 of 232:
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Jan 23 22:18 UTC 2003 |
I grew up in a wealthy neighborhood that was predominantly black.
Assuming that just because the neighborhood is nice means that it has
to white isnt necessarily correct.
I wonder if I would have been considered "needy" by UofM's criteria.
They seem to base need on the high school people attended. Since I went
to high school with a lot of poor people (Detroit Public Schools), I
might have received those 20 points. That would have been funny.
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scott
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response 147 of 232:
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Jan 23 23:10 UTC 2003 |
Re 144: Your idea about looking at individuals is certainly the best way to
figure out who is best suited for admission, but it would require a great deal
of resources and some compromises in order to scale up to UM admissions
numbers. How many people apply each year, anyway?
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aruba
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response 148 of 232:
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Jan 23 23:30 UTC 2003 |
Thanks, Steve (scg), for your responses. THey are very persuasive.
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jep
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response 149 of 232:
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Jan 24 00:14 UTC 2003 |
re resp:143: I know what affirmative action is for. I can see you have
good intentions in supporting it's use.
I'm suggesting it doesn't work and will not work. Groups which have
been treated separately have not become assimilated very well into
American society. Those who have not received special treatment have
overcome discrimination and the disadvantages of whatever group they're
in and become recognized as general Americans.
Do you know who deserves special help? I don't think it's every black
person, every Hispanic, every gay, every Italian, etc. I think it's
every person with a disadvantage who needs help. That's what Mary is
saying, too, I think. (It's weird being on the same side of an
argument with Mary, but interesting.)
Ethnic groups don't need advantages, because the members don't all have
the same problems. Also because we try to regard different treatment
due to ethnicity to be wrong.
The reason why every one of us isn't the president or a Nobel Prize
winner or a millionaire is because we're disadvantaged, compared to the
people in those positions. We're not charming, smart or connected
enough, and we're certainly not driven enough.
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klg
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response 150 of 232:
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Jan 24 01:37 UTC 2003 |
re: "#143 (scg): The reason to give extra admissions points to black
people today is that for various historical and societal reasons, much
of the US black population is trapped in an environment in which it's
very difficult to succeed, and it's not getting better on its own."
Actually, pre-Great Society much of the black population in America was
making tremendous economic strides and from a social perspective, as
well, was in many respects a lot stronger. It was only when the gov't
decided to do what it does worst that a lot of the deterioration set in.
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scott
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response 151 of 232:
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Jan 24 01:40 UTC 2003 |
Yes, those black folk do pine for the Jim Crow days when they risked lynching
if they dared to vote.
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tsty
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response 152 of 232:
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Jan 24 03:40 UTC 2003 |
re #127 ... scg, that is an excelent writeup. in addition note that
the "action" that was "affirmative" for you (and many of us) started
in teh *home* nd the early/mid school grades.
to put the ACTION into AFFIRMATIVE (a concept not unknown in ivory towers)
start early and often. by college time its' darn near too late.
dreaming abou the american dream never got anyone anywhere. ACTION toward
teh american dream works (pun intended), as you so clearly stated.
AFFIRMATIVE starts inthe home and neighborhood and early grades and (probably)
with some religious leanings tossed in for good measure.
what sections of the population hvae been suffering from id DEFORMATIVE
actions.
i do not support 'deformative action,' but that's all some kids hvae
in their world. skin-color prejudice later (or now) is a deformative action.
(havne't read past 127 yet ... sooooo much good stuff).
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jep
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response 153 of 232:
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Jan 24 03:47 UTC 2003 |
re resp:151: There is much difference between doing away with Jim Crow
laws, and affirmative action. I thought the Jim Crow laws went out in
the 50's, anyway. Those that were left from the earlier part of the
century.
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