47 new of 232 responses total.
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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: