132 new of 232 responses total.
(B) is a statement without foundation. In fact, it is wrong: Affirmative Action is NOT a lack of equal protection.
I don't agree that affirmative action is unconstitutional. The Constitution is a set of guidelines, not exact laws closely covering varieties of circumstances. Every "right" is moderated. Affirmative action laws are clearly not intended to evade or contradict the Constitution, not at least as a general rule. But I don't think they're intended to correct any past or present wrongs, either. What they're intended to do is buy votes by segmenting society and giving parts of it favors. I don't think there's been much reduction in discrimination or racism because of affirmative action, any more than there was from desegregation busing. There's less racism and much less discrimination, but it's come because of laws prohibiting it, and changes in society's view, not because of affirmative action. No minorities are going to be hurt by losing the chance to be given positions in colleges they could not earn. Instead, I think society's resources would be better used in finding a way to correct the lack of respect for, and accomplishment in, education among minorities. Inner city black kids don't *want* to be educated. Their parents aren't that interested. They don't think they can get a better life that way. Why aren't they? Because the schools are bad, the schools are full of drugs and rife with violence, the teachers are intimidated or disillusioned? Or because U-M doesn't drop admissions standards low enough to let those people get in (and fail out) if they want to?
Affirmative action is, by practice (if not by definition), preference. Equality is the opposite of preference. Affirmative action is the opposite of equality. Equality is guaranteed by the Constitution. Affirmative action is contrary to the Constitution. jep: The Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, not the guidelines of the land. Is it a "suggestion" that the presidential term is 4 years or a just a "good idea" to abolish slavery??
re resp:91: If you want to carry the medical care and affirmative action analogy even further, then I'm willing to counter it. Immunization *work*. You get a shot for, say, German measles, as almost everyone entering school does, and you don't get measles. If you had to keep getting measles shots continuously for 40 years and then still almost always got the disease, some people might start scratching their heads and wondering just why they still got the shots. With affirmative action, though, we just keep doing it, and never mind that it doesn't help anything. "At least we're doing something."
I think if Affirmative Action opponents were conecntrating on fixing the
problems John mentions in the second sentence of his last paragraph, they'd
be getting a lot less opposition from Affirmative Action supporters. That
they generally aren't shows their claims to be supporting racial equality to
be pretty hollow.
However, having spent some time tutoring kids in a middle school in a rather
rough neighborhood of Detroit, I will take issue with John's second to last
paragraph. I don't think I encountered any cases of kids not wanting to
learn. I did encounter lots of cases of kids thinking they couldn't learn
various things, and being very excited to find that they could. There's a
huge difference.
re 97, 99, and 100:
The Equal Protection Clause is in the 14th Ammendment, which was added
to the Constitution during the post-Civil War Reconstruction. It doesn't have
to be reconciled with slavery, because slavery had ready been eliminated.
It did take another 80 or so years before the courts started striking down
other forms of discrimination based on that ammendment.
Still, it would be nice if klg would stay on top of his own argument enough
that I wouldn't have to make it for him. He's been handed an easy to rebut
argument, based on a part of the Constitution that he had either just looked
up or had memorized, and yet he completely missed it.
I take it resp:105 refers to resp:102. I've never had any contact with inner city kids. However, I've read about inner city kids not getting an education, not attending classes, not graduating, and about their parents not really caring or at least not knowing what they could do. That was the basis of my comment. These things aren't a problem? Steve, I think you're both highly intelligent and highly thoughtful. I also think your heart's in the right place. I very much enjoy reading almost all of your comments. But in this case, it seems like you're talking past me. I perceive that affirmative action is not accomplishing much. There are some good effects, and I've conceded those. There are also some bad ones. I don't recall if you've conceded that, but others on your side of the discussion have, and I'd hope we can agree to stipulate that there are some bad effects. It all adds up, to me, in there not being much improvement coming from affirmative action. I don't know what to do about the problems of inner city high schools. I wish I did. If I did, if I thought anyone did, I would be willing to vote more tax money to address the problem. I might be willing to do other things, too. Volunteer, for example, if I thought I could make a difference. I don't know how to correct the problems of racism, racial discrimination, prejudice and inequity in society. I wish I knew how to at least lessen these problems. If affirmative action for admissions at U-M was really effective, I wouldn't be against it. I'm not harmed by it personally. I don't think my kids will be borderline U-M applicants who are likely to be affected. (One will probably make it easily if he wants to, the other likely will not make it, unless he makes it an important goal and works hard for it. I don't expect that to happen.) I don't have anything to gain or lose. I'm just trying to look at it from the perspective of fairness and effectiveness. I think affirmative action is generally unfair, and I think it doesn't work. In order for something unfair to be acceptable, it's got to work in the way that's intended. The more unfair, the better it's got to work. I don't think affirmative action makes the cut. I think having a competitive school like Michigan giving bonus admissions points by race, specifically, is a bad idea. No, I don't have another affirmative action plan to replace it. You've won that point. Now, tell me why you support it, even though it doesn't work, or supply some persuasion that shows it *does* work.
If I understand what klg is saying, he thinks the constitution
supersedes the SC and common law.
Interestingly, a google search on
constitution "common law"
finds a whole bunch of documents that claim the constitution was never
properly ratified and therefore isn't actually enforceable.
Re #96" c'mon Steve, I never said that affirmative action applies "only to minors". I was developing the thesis that it applies more naturally to minors, because of the established law that makes minors, in a sense, wards of their parents and the State. Having spent most of my career in academia, I disagree strongly with jep that it's positive effects are not very evident. They are VERY evident when one looks at who it assisted in more detail. There is an increased corp of well educated minorities in all disciplines who got some boost from affirmative action. What you see as reduced discrimination and more access of minorities to all walks of life is due to BOTH laws (the stick) and affirmative action (the carrot). What those that oppose affirmative action should do is work to further eliminate discrimination againsty minorities. As that progresses, the need for affirmative action will fade, and eventually they will attain their objective of the elimination of affirmative action, because it will no longer be needed. As matters stand now, I always get the strong sense that those that argue against affirmative action are actually trying to slow or cut back the progress that has been made by minorities in our society. There is a certain sense of rationality in the "inequality" argument against affirmative action, which those that would prefer to discriminate find useful as an argument.
re #107: The Supreme Court is the ultimate arbiter of its meaning in our system, but the Constitution *does* supercede common law.
Re #104: We now have far more minorities in positions of power and influence than we did 20 years ago. I'm not sure we can come to the conclusion that affirmative action isn't "working". Colin Powell has been pretty frank in saying he benefited from it. Re #106: Kids who learn things and don't get into trouble don't make very good media copy, do they? The media gives a really skewed view of what inner city life is like, I suspect. There was a great political cartoon in the Free Press yesterday. It had a series of students, labelled 'Soccer player', 'Son of graduate', 'Son of major donor', 'Raised out of state', and 'Minority'. At the end was a student, marked 'Didn't get in', pointing at the minority student and saying 'It's his fault!'
re resp:108: Any time anyone says they oppose any sort of program regarding race, for any reason at all other than that they favor a bigger and more expensive program, they're accused of being a racist. If you're going to assume I am a racist, there's nothing whatsoever I can do to counter your assumption, other than to fall into line and agree with you. There's no need for you to look any further than that in order to answer anything I say that you disagree with. I think there are other reasons, not requiring bigotry, for disliking affirmative action. If you are unable to perceive that someone can have another position on this matter but still want to see reductions in racism, there's nothing for you and I to discuss in this item.
Are you suggesting that no one is motivated by racism in opposing affirmative action? The arguments against affirmative action, trying to assert that equality demands its end, although we don't hear from the same people that equality demands the end of discrimination, seem disingenuous. Those attacking affirmative action do not put the same effort into seeking solutions to the problem of discrimination.
I am a currently a student at EMU even though I could easily have gotten into UofM. One nice thing I have noticed about EMU is that it has a very diverse student body. I dont know if this is because of affirmative action or what but having people from different backgrounds participating in class discussions has improved the experience for me. It is possible that UofM's decision to try to have a more diverse student body isnt to make up for past discrimination or to make things more fair but to provide a more enriching experience for everyone. That they give points to children of alumni is all the evidence I need that they arent really interested in making up for past discrimination. I wish I lived in a society where diversity at a place like UofM would just occur naturally but I dont. I'll bet there are a lot of people in the admissions office at UofM who wish the same thing.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. It is impossible to discriminate based on information that one does not possess. Deny the decision makers any and all knowledge of what color any applicant is! Applicant race is properly irrelevant to deciding who gets into the University; keep this information scrupulously and painstakingly *OUT* of the input. Same goes for deciding who gets hired by a company.
I hate to break it to you, drew, but it doesnt take a genius to figure out a person's race during a job interview. Or are you seriuosly suggesting that people should hire folks without interviews? That might be fine for jobs where charisma isnt important but for other jobs it would be a disaster.
re resp:12: Rane, in resp:108 you said you *always* get the sense that anyone who's against affirmative action is in favor of slowing or reversing the progress that's been made. I think, from that, that you mean it as an accusation of racism. *You're* suggesting that *every person* opposing affirmative action is a racist. I'm suggesting maybe some of us are not.
Sometimes people are racist (or sexist or classist or whatever) in subtle ways that they dont really notice in themselves. I am sure this is true about me. It might be true about you, John. Think hard about why you think the legacy points are ok but points based on race are not.
Before you all start dropping the "R" word on John, consider whether he isn't just as entitled to argue that it applies to those who *support* affirmative action..
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I definitely do have some racist tendencies. Does this make me a racist? Does it mean that any evaluation I make that has racial implications is done because I want to repress minorities? Does it make me unqualified to hold a position on subjects related to race, and invalidate the arguments I make against affirmative action? I'd say any American who claims not to have racist tendencies is lying or delusional. I don't think I'm any more racist than most Grexers. Also, I don't think it matters. I'm entitled to an opinion, and to express it. Further, I'm not on trial here. Even if I were a member of the KKK and openly proclaimed I hate all minorities -- which is not the case -- it furthers no one's arguments to call me a racist. I very much resent the veiled accusations that I am a racist. I don't think I deserve that. I really don't.
Re #120: Regardless of whether or not anyone thinks you're a racist (and I don't think we have enough information to claim you are or aren't) I *am* curious about your answer to the question posed in #117. Why is it that legacy points are considered okay by pretty much everyone, but affirmative action is strongly opposed by conservatives?
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Re #116: that's right, "I always get the strong sense that those that argue against affirmative action......etc". But that's how they come across: I don't know nor did I assert that they are racist. I did not suggest what you suggested I suggested (this sort of thing happens a lot here - people jumping to unwarranted conclusions). But read all the pronouncements from the anit-affirmative crowd: do you get any sense that they have a *better* idea, or that they even recognize that there is even a problem with prejudice and discrimination? No.
re resp:121: I don't know, specifically, why legacy points are given by the college. I don't have any strong feelings about that practice, one way or the other. It seems relevant to me that U-M gives 4 points for legacy status and 20 for race.
re resp:123: Rane, when you strongly suggest, as you did, that someone is a racist, people are going to notice. When you then deny you meant any such thing, it makes you seem like you're being deceptive and trying to hide from the direct implications of your comments. If you don't want to stand behind what you said, then apologize and correct what you said. Don't blame me for drawing the obvious conclusion about what you *did* say. I have strongly advocated, in this item, against the U-M's racially unbalanced admissions policy. You have called me, solely because of my position, a racist. I am offended.
The "direct implications" of my comments are exactly what I say and no more or less. Please read them again, and you will see that I did NOT specifically accuse you or anyone else of racism. What the anti-affirmative crowd does say, however, *conveys* racism, and I believe that there are a lot of racists hiding behind their "equality" arguments. If they don't want to come across as racists, they should be more careful of their speech.
jep asked yesterday why I support Affirmative Action...
For me, it's a basic issue of fairness. I'm still pretty young compared to
many of the people in this discussion, but I've done pretty well so far. I've
got a pretty big apartment in a nice safe neighborhood, a few miles away from
the neighborhoods where people who don't look like me have to worry about
being shot, or get told not to go outside because the local refinery just blew
up, again. I don't have a job that pays at the moment, but that's ok because
I can afford to go several months before it becomes an issue. I worked hard
to get this far, and I'll do a lot more hard work if I want to keep up this
lifestyle. But I had a lot of help getting here.
I grew up in nice neighborhoods where it was always safe to go out and
explore. I went to good schools, some just by virtue of the neighborhoods,
some by virtue of my parents' ability to pay, and one by virtue of my parents'
ability to wait in line. I always had prestigous universities nearby,
available to help with whatever I was interested in that wasn't being fully
covered in school. I had a house full of computers. I had well educated
parents who could help me with stuff I was studying and having trouble with,
and could teach me about lots of other stuff. I had lots of very well
connected friends and aquaintences. That didn't mean I did well in school.
I pursued the stuff I was interested in, ignored the rest, and ended up with
an impressive mix of As and Ds ("don't you ever do anything average?" I was
asked at one point) that wouldn't have gotten me into any college I would have
wanted to go to, but that was ok. Job offers for stuff that I was interested
in doing appeared without me even having to look for them, and the job I took
led to contacts that led to another job, which led to experience that led to
another job, and now here I am.
So, how did my family get from poor immigrant farmers and storekeepers to this
in a few generations? A lot of hard work, the classic "American Dream" of
upward mobility, and taking the opportunities that presented themselves.
So then we've got this other class of people, who were enslaved, tortured,
and not getting any of the benefits of their labor, while my ancestors were
working their way up. As slavery ended, segregation ensued, isolating those
people from the resources that tend to present the opportunities that my
ancestors and I were able to use so well to our advantage. As segregation
has in some ways gotten more absolute, going from black people and white
people not sharing the same drinking fountains to in many cases not sharing
the same cities, the gap between poor black people and the resources that tend
to make success just a matter of hard work has gotten more extreme as well.
When people do get out of that environment, even when they've been out of that
environment for generations, or even if they're recent immigrants whose
families were never in that environment, they still report being treated
differently, by white people who see black people and don't know what to say,
or worse wonder if they're about to get robbed. My step step grandmother
tells the story of how when she was working for the NAACP in New York in the
1940s, her friend Thurgood, already the most influential civil rights lawyer
in the US and a future US Supreme Court justice, defiantly refused to be
intimidated by the doorman in her apartment building, something her other
black friends didn't manage. Even now, even in a part of the US known for
its liberalism, a friend who had recently arrived in the US was complaining
a few years ago that of the several countries he had lived in, the US was the
only one where he'd ever felt like his race was an issue, and he wasn't
talking about being treated better here.
And as for the poor black kids who never get out of their neighborhoods, who
go to schools where getting shot is a bigger worry than failing a class,
schools without computers, or up to date text books, or frequent field trips
to major universities, or doors that will open to let them out if there's a
fire, and whose lucrative connections tend to be drug dealers and gang members
rather then professors and computer geeks, many of them don't even get the
chance to be treated as suspects in the neighborhoods where real opportunities
are.
So, I'm not sure if this makes any sense to anybody but me, but this is why
I support Affirmative Action. To reward people who have had to struggle a
lot harder than I have for their hard work, to provide people who wouldn't
otherwise have access to them the kinds of connections and opportunities I
had, to hopefully boost the number of well off black people who are members
of integrated communities to the point where black people in privlidged
neighborhoods are no longer automatically treated as suspects, and to expose
people from more privileged backgrounds to people and stories they would
otherwise be unaware of. I support Affirmative Action with some reservations,
however, because I worry that it's too little, too late. I would be much
happier to see this integration happen long before we get to the point of
college admissions, but that doesn't seem to be the direction the US is going
at the moment.
re resp:126: You're still accusing me of racism, but lightly veiling it. It's called being "mealy mouthed". I think you'd better consider what you mean to convey by your comments, and if they're not conveying what you mean, write more carefully. The implications of something you say aren't what you later decide to say they are, they're what others will infer when they read them. If you say that my arguments imply racism, you're accusing me of racism.
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.
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.
(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)
> 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.
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?
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.
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.
re resp:134: The points are additive. You can be black, rural *and* a legacy student.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
Thanks, Steve (scg), for your responses. THey are very persuasive.
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.
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.
Yes, those black folk do pine for the Jim Crow days when they risked lynching if they dared to vote.
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).
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.
A lot of the laws around carrying of firearms came about as part of Jim Crow-style legislative packages, including Michigan's former statutes.
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Who you calling white, cracker?
I prefer the term 'honky'. ;)
I don't see how jep can claim affirmative action "doesn't work and will not work" when there is plenty of evidence that it _does_, _is_ and _has_ worked. Not completely, not perfectly, but progressing. Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc, have been discriminated at various times in our history. HOWEVER, _none_ of them have been enslaved more recently than the late 1700s. (If I remember my American history correctly, chattle slavery on our shores rose out of indentured servitude: an employer paid the servant's transportation costs and then the servant worked off the debt. Some employers charged for room and board, adding it to the debt. Fairly quickly, this abuse was outlawed, at least for Europeans.) Without slavery, the dynamic was different for those groups. Eventually, others supplanted them at the bottom. It's worth remembering, though, that the immigration quotas for southern Europeans were lower than those for northern Europeans.
re #158: > Irish, Italians, Chinese, Japanese, etc, have been discriminated at various > times in our history. HOWEVER, _none_ of them have been enslaved more > recently than the late 1700s. ... Without slavery, the dynamic was different > for those groups. Eventually, others supplanted them at the bottom. The overwhelming majority of Irish, Italian, Chinese, and Japanese immigration to this country occurred *after* the Civil War. Even were that not the case, based on what you have written above I don't see how your point concerning slavery amounts to much more than a logical non sequitur. The statement is true but has no demonstrated relevance to your argument.
You know. I disagree with mcnally on the issue of affirmative action but I have to say that I agree with his resp:159.
I'll grant the point on Chinese and Japanese. Maybe Italian. Not so sure about Irish: my own Scots-Irish anscestors were in Virginia in the late 1700s. There was a spurt in Irish immigration during the Potato Famine, which, if I recall correctly was in 1848. Still. I hadn't realised that others hadn't made the same connection I had some time ago. So: Many slaveholders knew that owning people was wrong. And yet, they couldn't afford to not own slaves. So they had to rationalise their behaviour, convincing themselves that their slaves were not "people" but were, in fact, an inferior sub-species. That rationalisation continues, even though it is no longer needed. Except, of course, to justify current behaviour. I argue that had other groups been enslaved, a similar rationalisation would continue about them. They weren't, so it hasn't. The anger against them has always been relatively short-lived, twenty to fifty years in most cases. (It's probably significant that, in some cases, members of these groups were landowners when more of them were seeking passage to the New World.) (I just did a quick search; I'd thought the quota system was installed in the 1800s, but Sacks & Kolken, Immigration Lawyers, say it was in the 1920s.)
Another rationalization was that that slaves were unable to take care of themselves, and needed the firm guidance of an owner. "White Man's Burden" was to civilize (Christianize) them.
re #161: As recently as sixty years ago citizens of this country were subjected to government-produced propaganda designed to convince us that the Japanese were a race of sallow-skinned, buck-toothed, conniving subhuman monkey-men. Public sentiment against them was whipped up into such a frenzy that most of the people of Japanese ancestry on the west coast (who were virtually all of the Japanese-Americans in this country) were rounded up and put into camps. Only a little more than sixty years later there's almost no sign of the anti-Japanese fervor of those times. Why were those attitudes eradicable when the ones you cite that affect African-Americans have proved so intractable? I'm willing to agree that the long-term effects of racism can be pernicious and unpredictable. I'm just not convinced that you're demonstrating causation, not correlation, when you cite slavery as the unique factor here.
Slavery caused the *owners* to develop their *own*, *internal* rationalisations, and pass them on. The anti-Japanese sentiment was largely *ex*ternal.
One of the reasons that American anti-Japanese sentiment was so short
lived is that most Americans had no day-to-day contact with Japanese. The
dynamics of racism as it applies to groups that are in day-to-day contact and
clash regularly, and groups that don't, is quite different.
By that argument would whites in Fargo, ND, who presumably have comparatively little day-to-day contact with blacks, be less likely to hold racist attitudes towards blacks than whites in Atlanta? It certainly sounds like a reasonable theory, but one of the paramount characteristics of the most severe racism is its irrationality / unreasonableness..
If neither they nor their parents ever lived any where else, probably.
re resp:158: I can claim affirmative action doesn't work because I believe it's had *very* little effect for such a widespread system.
Nonsense. Interview those that have been helped by affirmative action. Just in the news recently was affirmation for affirmative action from Colin Powell. I CAN'T not help helping. Any leg up out of the swamp gets some people to dry land.
Re #166: It's hard to say. There's also the fact that people tend to be suspicious of people who are "not like them", and to someone from Fargo a black person would be very conspicuously "not like them".
There's an easy answer to the Japanese vs. African question: The Japanese folks were held in detention for a few years. The African folks were held for a few GENERATIONS. Next? :)
Re #166: Very much so, if there was no cultural overlap whatsoever;
however I'd be willing to bet the average inhabitant of Fargo sees quite a
bit of biased information on television and hears a lot of black American
culture on the radio.
re resp:169: By interviewing just those who have been helped, I'm sure we'd get results that agree with your perception. Some people would be helped by *any* system. That does not mean every possible system is good.
That is true. However it was not just those that were helped that were interviewed. Only some of those interviewed were helped by AA. In any case, I am glad that you agree that SOME system of help is desirable. Do you have a suggestion for a better one than AA to increase diversity in the public college system?
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re resp:174: I'd agree a system was desirable if it met three criteria: 1) Has a likelihood of providing results which justify the effort put into the program. (Affirmative action doesn't satisfy this.) 2) Does not too intrusively discriminate against those who are not it's targets. (Quotas and other current affirmative action efforts are too intrusive in my opinion.) 3) Does not cost too much. (Mandatory bussing was expensive, didn't work *and* was too intrusive. Payouts to "families of former slaves" would be too expensive.) No, I do not know of anything that would fit all of my criteria. This does not justify bad systems that are being used now. It's better to do nothing than to do something ineffective and/or harmful.
UM's AA program meets all of your criteria: it provides results with very little effort; it is not a quota system and, in fact, affects very few applicants; costs practically nothing.
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re resp:177: Perhaps you'd care to read resp:176, my requirement #2 again? Also, if it doesn't affect much of anyone, then it's not helping many people, and the pain of losing it would be very minimal.
That is actually true, for the majority, like you. But it matters to the discriminated against minorities. Re #178: you make the fundamental mistake in not realizing that admission to Public universtities NEED NOT be based entirely on "academic merit". In addition to factors like parental alumni, and location (e.g., UP), there are other factors such as leadership, demographic status, character, etc, which are important to provide educational opportunities to a cross section of the public.
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Re #176: I can see already that #2 is your escape clause. You'd probably consider any program that had any effect at all to be "too intrusive." Re #181: I'll point out once again that the points awarded based on race are *not* "higher than the rest", and that won't be true no matter how many times people repeat it. Athletes, for example, also get 20 points. I think people on the right are hoping that if they repeat this bit of misinformation enough times it will attain "Big Lie" status and be assumed to be true.
rght, athletes (color blind) may be given 20 points for EARNING a high-MERIT position through WORK as a younger teenager toward a COMPETITION-based position against ALL (color-blind) others. hey, tht's like real life! oh-wow. granted, those points are not higher than skin-color points but they sure as hell are WORTH points. of what 'worth' is skin color?
re resp:182: Any program which takes away 3 whatevers from general Americans to give 2 whatevers to minorities is going to be too intrusive for me. In this discussion it's college degrees, and that's just about what the U-M does do. The university gives 3 general population degrees to minorities in order to get 2 degrees for the minorities. (Affirmative action minorities drop out that much more than students admitted without the bonus.) I think that's not good. In fact, I think it's awful. Are you having trouble countering what I say? You appear to have decided, since I disagree with you, to just assume it's got to be bad faith on my part no matter what I say unless I change my position to match yours. I think I've supported what I've said well enough, and I think my position is pretty reasonable. I don't think I've given you any cause to attack my character or good will. I'm disappointed that you've dropped away from your generally good statements and gone in that direction.
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re resp:183: It's worth 20 points.
Have you done an ananalysis to show whether the dropout rates are higher for minority enrollees who wouldn't have been admitted without the bonus points than for minority enrollees who would have been admitted anyway, or is that just an assumption?
Re #183: Of what use is athletic ability in an academic setting? None. It's really hypocritical to dismiss the idea of minority preferences because they interfere with having a true meritocracy, then on the other hand award points to people who have a completely irrelevent skill. Especially when the graduation rate for athletes is quite low, probably lower than for minorities. Apparently a lot athletes don't even bother to attend classes. Re #184: I just feel you've crafted your position carefully so you can rule out anything that would benefit minorities without actually coming out and *saying* it. If that's your position you should have the courage to say so instead of trying to weasel around it.
Re #184: in addition...you say "Any program which takes away 3 whatevers from general Americans to give 2 whatevers to minorities is going to be too intrusive for me." You appear to see no NEED in our society to assist members of deeply discriminated against minorities. Have you no concern at all for their status in society, and their opportunities for educational opportunities that might be denied them because of the discrimination against their group?
Hold on a minute here. I read John's comments as saying that a program that takes away more from one group than it gives to another isn't ok, while not inlcuding anything about programs that transfer equal amounts of benefit, or provide more benefit to minorities than they take away from "general Americans." We can certainly disagree about which category Affirmative Action falls into, but it's a leap to go from that to having no concern at all about the damage done by discrimination.
2.5 times as many black students as whites flunk or drop out of U of M.
So what conclusion might one draw from #192, then?
I'm guessing that the conclusion we're supposed to draw is that those students had no business getting into college.
"or drop out" could be read as "can't afford tuition".
"or drop out" could also be read as "got tired of living in a sea of white faces" or any number of other things.
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I see your point, but you know it's tougher to get along in a group
of people of a different culture than you. Race doesn't really seem to
matter, though a lot of people deliniate their culture based on their race.
re resp:189: If that were my position, I would say so. Do you often make such assumptions about people? You do realize you're just categorizing me like this: "He disagrees with me, and I *know* I'm right, so there must be something wrong with, not just his arguments, but the man himself." I wish you were comparing arguments instead of doing that. This isn't supposed to be about defending *me*. I think you usually do a better job defending your position than you've done recently in this item. I think you need to examine why it is you don't respect me or what I say. It's clear that you don't.
Re#197 I would have no problem with it if you had dropped out of college because there were too many black people at the school for your comfort level.
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Spend more time in Ann Arbor. The people wearing patchouli are really
quarterbacks - they fake left and go right.
re resp:188, resp:190-192: I am assuming that equally prepared students of different ethnic backgrounds succeed on about the same level. I recognize this may not be completely valid, but I have reasons for it. I'm interested in collegiate sports, and am aware that athletic scholarship students don't succeed on the same level as other students. That's true at U-M; it's true almost universally among scholarship athletes in revenue-producing programs (football, men's basketball and ice hockey). Among Big Ten schools, the difference in graduation rates is in the ballpark of 20%. There are a lot of reasons why scholarship athletes don't do well in school. The guys who transfer, leave school to go pro, fail out of school or just quit are counted as "not graduating". Those who remain for 4 or 5 years have lengthy amounts of time for practice, they travel a lot for their sport, and they concentrate more on athletics than academics. And, they don't have to meet the same academic requirements as other students. They may very well have been passed through their classes in high school because they're star athletes. It happens. I don't want to start another argument about the value of an athletic education. I want to establish that I'm aware of, and interested in, some students who haven't got the same academic background as the general student body. NCAA statistics for 6 year graduation rates for all 1995 freshmen: all student athletes: 60% all students: 58% black male student athletes: 43% black male students: 34% white male student athletes: 59% white male students: 59% Source: http://www.ncaa.org/news/2002/20020930/active/3920n01.html One might conclude that black male athletes come from a more similar background to white male athletes, than black students in general compared to white students, and so they have more similar performance. It's still not as good as white male students or white male student athletes. I guess there are lots of explanations possible for these numbers. Keep in mind they count all athletes, not just revenue athletes, but here are some numbers from football and basketball: Revenue athletes graduation rates from 1994: white football: 62% (better than white students in general) black football: 35% (better than black students in general) white basketball: 51% (worse than white students in general) black basketball: 28% (worse than black students in general) I'm not sure if any of this supports my contention that academic success is probably more proportional to background and preparation than race, but it was fun looking it up.
Re #190: If the minorities didn't get admission to the more-exclusive institution (than their skills justify), they'd instead be admitted to less-exclusive institutions and have similar graduation rates to the rest of the population going there. Being admitted to EMU or Ferris instead of Michigan is not evidence of a lack of concern. If the reason is because the student does not have the academic qualifications to succeed at Michigan, it is quite the opposite.
I don't have a cite for this, but I remember hearing a few years ago about a study showing that UM minority students tended not to do as well as white students with identical high school records, SAT scores, and other qualifying information.
Re #204: don't forget that an objective of AA is to have diversity for the good of everyone's education.
re resp:206: Should "diversity" be just for admissions, or should granting of degrees be for people of different ethnic backgrounds as well? I think any university should be giving primary consideration to who can graduate. There's no point in admitting anyone who can't.
Re #204: True. I guess to settle the argument you'd have to compare the graduation rate of students who got in because of a preference to students of the same race who didn't need the preference. Besides affirmative action candidates, it'd be interesting to see this for white legacies vs. white non-legacies. I'm sure you'll admit that a degree from Ferris is unlikely to result in the same kind of career options as a degree from UofM, though.
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.
Who's doing the analysis may be more significant than the significance of the data.
I doubt that, but there is an inescapable subjective element in the choice of significance levels.
#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".
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?
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.
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?
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.
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?
Do you actually have numbers showing that, or is it just a guess?
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.
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.
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?
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.
Re #218: My suppositions are labelled as exactly that, but the current figures are drawn from jep's numbers earlier in this item.
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.
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>
Mr. scott seems not to have understood the irony of the prior post.
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.
I'd be worried about a college where only 97% of the student body was human.
Ask any teacher....
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 .
It's up to the researcher to publish her data, not the University.
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.
You have several choices: