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Grex > Diversity > #12: Bush to join fight against UM's affirmative action program |  |
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| 24 new of 232 responses total. |
rcurl
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response 209 of 232:
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Jan 29 17:22 UTC 2003 |
UM is undertaking a study of the factors related to graduation rates for
different demographics. They have lots of data, but are going over them
to determine which data are statistically significant.
Re #207: the objective is to provide an environment in which all admitted
students have the potential to graduate without compromising standards.
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klg
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response 210 of 232:
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Jan 29 17:47 UTC 2003 |
Who's doing the analysis may be more significant than the significance
of the data.
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rcurl
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response 211 of 232:
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Jan 29 18:04 UTC 2003 |
I doubt that, but there is an inescapable subjective element in the choice
of significance levels.
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scott
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response 212 of 232:
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Jan 29 18:27 UTC 2003 |
#210 can be rephrased as "I want a real analysis, but if I don't agree with
the findings I'll just claim it is hopelessly biased".
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russ
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response 213 of 232:
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Jan 29 23:06 UTC 2003 |
Re #206: If the actual result of AA is to give minorities about
half the proportion of degrees that the rest of the student body
gets, meanwhile convincing many non-minorities that minorities are
academically unprepared or even inferior, is that good?
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gelinas
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response 214 of 232:
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Jan 29 23:20 UTC 2003 |
Well, if that degreed half wouldn't have gotten a chance at all, then yes,
it's a net good.
I suspect some fraction *would* have gotten the degree anyway.
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klg
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response 215 of 232:
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Jan 30 02:05 UTC 2003 |
Just about anyone who wants to earn a college degree can probably get
one, but he has to select a college that matches his level of
competence. You are solving the problem as Solomon suggested (cut the
baby in half). Do you really believe that the student who drops out
because he is inappropriately placed is a sacrifice worth making?
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rcurl
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response 216 of 232:
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Jan 30 03:23 UTC 2003 |
Although I would not put it that way, my answer is still yes. The students
have been given an opportunity to rise to the challenge. Many do, and get
better jobs for which they are qualified. It is better than relegating
more minority students to lower ranking schools and thereby keeping the
higher ranking schools more white.
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russ
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response 217 of 232:
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Jan 30 04:47 UTC 2003 |
Re #214: Let's play a little bit with numbers, just for curiosity's sake.
Suppose that the current AA system graduates 34% of AA-qualified
minorities and 59% of others. This is a dropout rate of 66% for
the AA group and 41% for others.
Change this so that AA-qualified minorities no longer get admitted
to institutions for which they would not otherwise qualify. They
go to less-rigorous institutions instead, and are replaced with
non-AA students who would have made the cutoff otherwise. Suppose
that this broader group would have a 57% graduation rate.
If the AA-qualified are otherwise no different from the rest of
the population, their graduation rate would rise from 34% to 57%
(23% increase). That is a 2/3 improvement. Meanwhile, the broader
population's graduation rate falls from 59% to 57% (a 3.4% drop).
If AA students make up 10% of the population, the total graduation
rate with AA is .34 * .1 + .59 * .9 = 56.5%, while afterwards the
total graduation rate is 57%. This is slightly better as a whole,
while being far better for the AA group.
It appears that the race-sensitive admissions program could easily
be *worse* for minorities (in terms of degrees awarded), and worse
for the non-minorities - the exact opposite of the intended result!
Of course, this analysis is highly sensitive to the guesstimate of
the graduation rate of the broader population. If the aggregate
graduation rate of a student body selected without AA is 55%, the
effect of AA is to *increase* majority graduation numbers while
hurting minorities. This is exactly the sort of discrimination AA
was intended to solve.... wasn't it?
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scg
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response 218 of 232:
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Jan 30 05:19 UTC 2003 |
Do you actually have numbers showing that, or is it just a guess?
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rcurl
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response 219 of 232:
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Jan 30 07:01 UTC 2003 |
Realize also that no one is forcing admitted students to attend UM
(most don't), and it is sure to be common knowledge among all demographics,
what are the "chances" at any school they consider. Only an *opportunity* is
being offered. So all that numerology about % graduating is largely
beside the point in regard to AA. It *is* of importance in making the
best use of resources avalable to the University, but that is a different
issue.
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jep
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response 220 of 232:
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Jan 30 15:46 UTC 2003 |
re resp:208: I am not sure that a degree from Ferris is worse than
being a drop-out from U-M.
re resp:209: I am all for making sure everyone who's accepted can
graduate. If they can do that and have an affirmative action program
which gives an equal chance to graduate to all entering students, then
I would find that very attractive.
re resp:210: Surely the university can be considered qualified to
obtain and study data. In my opinion, even if there's a chance of
bias, there's no more competent researcher in the state than the
University of Michigan.
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klg
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response 221 of 232:
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Jan 30 17:27 UTC 2003 |
re: "#219 (rcurl): Realize also that no one is forcing admitted
students to attend UM (most don't), and it is sure to be common
knowledge among all demographics, what are the "chances" at any school
they consider."
I'm not sure what you mean by "chances," but I attended one of the
better schools in the Detroit area, where I studied hard, and was
shocked at the level of work I needed to do @ UM. If a minority
student attends a poor, inner city school where he does comparatively
well and is given a chance to attend UM, I wonder how well he
understands what's going to be required of him at a highly selective
university.
re: "#220 (jep): re resp:210: Surely the university can be considered
qualified to obtain and study data. In my opinion, even if there's a
chance of bias, there's no more competent researcher in the state than
the University of Michigan"
You aren't suspect of an organization researching itself on a highly-
charged issue like this? If you were the university employee
conducting the study, might you think your conclusions would have an
effect on your continued employment? What do you think of the
scientific studies on tobacco smoking put out by the cigarette
companies?
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rcurl
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response 222 of 232:
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Jan 30 18:29 UTC 2003 |
By "the "chances" at any school they consider" I meant information about
experiences, successes, difficulties, failures, etc, at different schools,
from students that attended those schools. If you were "shocked" at the
level of work required at UM, it could only have been because of
inadequate counseling, since you would not have been the first person that
attended UM from Detroit high schools.
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russ
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response 223 of 232:
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Jan 30 23:46 UTC 2003 |
Re #218: My suppositions are labelled as exactly that, but the
current figures are drawn from jep's numbers earlier in this item.
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klg
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response 224 of 232:
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May 14 16:28 UTC 2003 |
Fill in the blank:
"REDEFINING DIVERSITY
"In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution op-ed, Benjamin Jones, a
sophomore . . ., explains that a racially uniform student body can
be "diverse":
"'Even though 97 percent of the . . . student body is ____________, we
are a diverse and eclectic group of people who come from different
parts of the country and the world. We all hold unique and
extraordinary experiences.'"
(from yesterday s Opinionjournal.com)
If you guessed "African-American," you are correct. The writer is
referring to Morehouse College, a southern Black school. On the other
hand, if you guessed "White," then you are obviously wrong.
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scott
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response 225 of 232:
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May 14 17:08 UTC 2003 |
Golly, and after all we did for those poor niggers, rescuing them from Africa,
giving them free transportation to America, teaching them a proper religion,
teaching them trades, and even allowing their women to have sex with our men.
And that's the kind of shit they're giving us back?
</extreme sarcasm>
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klg
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response 226 of 232:
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May 15 01:38 UTC 2003 |
Mr. scott seems not to have understood the irony of the prior post.
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rcurl
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response 227 of 232:
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May 15 02:41 UTC 2003 |
Re #224: there was no need to guess: any answer is correct (apart from
perhaps the newspaper and the particular student cited). You could put
Chinese in the blank, and it would apply somewhere. In fact, try putting
in Human.
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gull
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response 228 of 232:
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May 15 14:26 UTC 2003 |
I'd be worried about a college where only 97% of the student body was human.
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rcurl
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response 229 of 232:
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May 15 14:48 UTC 2003 |
Ask any teacher....
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klg
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response 230 of 232:
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May 30 16:46 UTC 2003 |
What are they afraid of???
Thursday, May 29, 2003
U-M Hurts its Credibility by Hiding Research
Denial of Freedom of Information Act request for diversity study data
violates the spirit of disclosure law
By The Detroit News
The University of Michigan is hiding behind an obscure legal exception
to avoid complying with the Freedom of Information Act. It is an
unseemly position for a public institution of U-M's stature.
The university is refusing a FOIA request from an Ann Arbor-based free-
lance investigator to turn over the first few years of data used in a
report U-M contends proves diversity on campus produces important
educational benefits.
That contention is at the heart of U-M's defense of its affirmative
action admissions policies, now before the U.S. Supreme Court, which is
expected to hand down a ruling shortly.
To prove its point, U-M submitted as evidence a 10-year survey
conducted by Patricia Gurin, a psychology professor, showing that
racial diversity improved the educational experience for all U-M
students -- majority and minority alike.
But researcher Chetly Zarko contends that a recently discovered
executive summary prepared by the university contradicts the study's
final findings. He has asked for the data to prove his point.
The university defends its refusal on grounds that original data
gathered by researchers in the course of their scholarly work
constitutes intellectual property and is therefore exempt from FOIA
disclosures because of something called the Confidential Research
Information Act (CRIA).
The university's rationale, while technically correct, is nevertheless
dishonest and violates the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act,
which is designed to ensure public institutions operate in an open
manner report .
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gelinas
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response 231 of 232:
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May 30 22:49 UTC 2003 |
It's up to the researcher to publish her data, not the University.
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cyklone
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response 232 of 232:
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May 31 00:34 UTC 2003 |
While I agree the FOIA exemption asserted by UM smacks of BS, it should be
noted that the material *was* turned over to the plaintiffs' attorneys in the
affirmative action case, and they have apologized for previously claiming it
wasn't.
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