94 new of 232 responses total.
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: