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Grex > Agora46 > #17: affirmative action - UM - supreme court (wha-hoppin?!) | |
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| 25 new of 113 responses total. |
polygon
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response 19 of 113:
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Jun 24 17:17 UTC 2003 |
We pay physicians so extraordinarily well in this country that there is
intense competition for entrance into medical schools. Only a small
percentage of those who apply can be admitted and trained as doctors.
As a practical matter, however, most applicants to medical schools, were
they admitted, would do perfectly well as physicians. The fact that
tippity-top credentials are required to get in to med school is an
artifact of the competition for seats, not a requirement of the curriculum
or of medical practice.
African-American graduates of US medical schools are, statistically, much
more likely to choose to practice in settings, such as urban hospitals and
clinics in the rural South, where the patient population is predominantly
African-American. Probably similar correlations apply to Hispanic
graduates and practice in Hispanic areas and so on.
The typical black medical school applicant grew up in a predominantly
black or all-black neighborhood, with parents who were not college
graduates (probably about a third in single parent families), and attended
schools where academics were not the first priority, and which never
attracted very many good teachers.
On the other hand, a disproportionate number of medical school applicants
who have absolutely stellar academic backgrounds come from privileged
white upper-middle-class backgrounds, with parents who were also highly
educated, and attended excellent schools with lots of highly motivated
(and motivating) teachers.
If the assignment of seats to medical schools is made strictly on the
basis of academic credentials, there will be very few African-American
medical graduates -- just given the historical realities recited above.
As a result, medical facilities in minority areas will have much more
trouble finding physicians.
We could solve this problem by increasing the number of medical school
slots (i.e., spending billions on a dramatic expansion of medical
schools). That would increase the supply and reduce the price of
physicians.
Or, at comparatively trivial cost, medical schools could simply admit
reasonable numbers of racial minority students.
Or, we could write off health care in predominantly minority areas. If
lower-income communities get outbid in the competition for trained
physicians, isn't that just the free market at work?
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mary
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response 20 of 113:
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Jun 24 21:09 UTC 2003 |
Or you could lower the standards to what was considered necessary for
success in the medical field. Of those who meet the new standards you
select based race and gender to see a diverse and representative class.
If you still aren't attracting enough black applicants I'd suggest you do
two things - take a look at your institution and find out why blacks
aren't interested.
Two, recruit. Don't know how to recruit? As the football coach.
But the new rule, as I read it, is you can use race as a tie-breaker but
not as a means to qualification.
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mdw
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response 21 of 113:
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Jun 24 21:21 UTC 2003 |
From what I've heard of the decision, I think the main implication is
that UM will have to hire a bunch more people to do admissions, and it
will have to be much more of a hands on "person by person" activity,
rather than a relatively objective system relying heavily on computers
to do relative ranking of persons. I doubt it will actualy change by
any great degree the sorts of people UM admits, it will just make the
process harder to understand.
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rcurl
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response 22 of 113:
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Jun 24 23:49 UTC 2003 |
That's right - making it subjective will make it more legal than having
it objective. This seems to be a trend in New Law from the Supreme Court.
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senna
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response 23 of 113:
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Jun 25 02:39 UTC 2003 |
Having done no research on this, I am curious to hear exactly how Clarence
Thomas is a major product of affirmative action. I would be very interested
to hear if there are grounds for that--it is certainly not a sure bet that
his success is affirmative-action driven if that conclusion is reached merely
because he is black.
The first I heard of the result, it was a pro-affirmative action individual
declaring victory. Then I heard the anti-affirmative action spin on it, and
they declared victory too. In this case, the rulings on affirmative action
have affirmed pretty much everybody. Perhaps it will turn the economy around.
Larry did a nice job of describing a potential scenario that defends
affirmative action in medical schools, a situation roughly analogous to the
law school problem that was actually tackled. However, it presumes the
persistence of much larger problems--society's natural self-segregation, which
causes people to settle amongst other people they feel they belong to (ie,
those of the same color, though it actually has as much to do with economic
status as anything else), and the lack of qualified applicants for medical
schools from minority persuasions. All this energy spent on affirmative
action is conveniently relieving people of the necessity to solve these larger
problems.
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polygon
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response 24 of 113:
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Jun 25 04:31 UTC 2003 |
I didn't say there was a lack of qualified minority applicants for medical
schools. Indeed, there are plenty.
What I said was that, if you rank the applicants on academic
qualifications alone, only the utterly topmost would be admitted, and that
specific stratum tends to be drawn almost exclusively from the white
upper-middle-class. And they are far from the only applicants who are
"qualified" by any reasonable standard.
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lk
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response 25 of 113:
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Jun 25 07:12 UTC 2003 |
I agree with senna. I think the embarrassing problem here is the lack of
educational schools in the inner cities / black sector. Until that is
fixed, and the problems that promote that, African-Americans will continue
to be under-represented in colleges and professional schools. As Larry
points out, I think society has a compelling interest in making sure there
are qualified doctors to work in all sectors of our society.
What never ceases to amaze me is how quickly some people complain when,
for the first time, their skin color (or the skin color of someone else)
has an impact in their lives. Suddenly they scream for a color-blind
society. One can only wonder what they would think or say if they had to
face such challenges on a regular basis.
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bru
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response 26 of 113:
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Jun 25 08:31 UTC 2003 |
when you suggest that you need to have black targetted schools to educate
people in the inner city to support pople in the inner city, is that not a
racist statement?
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sj2
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response 27 of 113:
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Jun 25 09:14 UTC 2003 |
Ok. So this means that if there is a tie between a white applicant and
a coloured applicant at a medical school then the white one's told
that black one gets the seat coz he's black? And that is bcoz the
black neighbourhoods need more doctors. So far good.
But the assumption that a black graduate will serve in a black
neighbourhood is a supported by facts or is it just an assumption? Why
wouldn't he work at a place where he can make maximum money? Does the
school also stipulate that since he was given this seat over an
equally deserving white candidate so he must spend X number of years
serving a particular area?
The statement that "if you rank the applicants on academic
qualifications alone, only the utterly topmost would be admitted, and
that specific stratum tends to be drawn almost exclusively from the
white upper-middle-class." Facts? Is there a survey done on this?
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sj2
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response 28 of 113:
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Jun 25 09:23 UTC 2003 |
In India we've had affirmative action for almost five decades now. In
Government education institutions and jobs, a certain percentage is
reserved for the Scheduled castes/Scheduled Tribes and Oppressed
backward classes (SC/ST/OBC). In our case, the entry levels for these
candidates are far lower than those for general candidates. Big flaw.
Anyways, so what happens to these candidates to whom the state does a
favour. Do they end up in rural areas and communities of SC/ST/OBC?
No, the ones who end up in rural areas are people who are not so smart
irrespective of their caste. The smarter ones get into private
practise and make lots of money.
And the smart ones serving in rural areas and SC/ST/OBC communities
are people who are attached to some kind of social service
organisation or NGO. But not necessarily of any particular caste.
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gull
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response 29 of 113:
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Jun 25 13:30 UTC 2003 |
Re #16: I think it's extremely unlikely we'll see anything done about
alumni preferences. A majority of people in power in this country have
probably benefited from legacy status in one way or another. It
wouldn't be in their interest to end it.
Re #23: I'm not sure self-segregation is a solvable problem.
Re #26: They don't have to be black-targeted. Inner city white
residents (both of them) would benefit too.
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keesan
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response 30 of 113:
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Jun 25 14:28 UTC 2003 |
My black next door neighbor is now a pediatrician (who volunteers in a a
Hispanic clinic). While in medical school, she said everyone assumed she had
been admitted only because of her skin color and that she was not really
capable of doing the work. She graduated near the top of her class.
I think she would have preferred it if there were no affirmative action while
she was in school.
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lk
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response 31 of 113:
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Jun 25 15:28 UTC 2003 |
I can understand the frustration in that, but it's a small price to pay.
Larry mentioned statistics to support that minority doctors are more likely
to serve needier communities. What may also be true, but is sheer speculation
on my part, is that some of these minority doctors are more likely to require
and receive financial aid which may stipulate that they must spend some years
in such communities.
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mdw
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response 32 of 113:
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Jun 25 18:05 UTC 2003 |
It's apparently both possible and quite popular to skip out on those
"requirements". Or so I've heard.
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polygon
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response 33 of 113:
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Jun 25 18:06 UTC 2003 |
Re 27. Yes, there are reams of studies and statistics supporting all of
those conclusions. This debate has been going on for many years, and
there's a ton of data.
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flem
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response 34 of 113:
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Jun 25 21:13 UTC 2003 |
It occurs to me to wonder, if UM's admissions process is so automated and
impersonal, why I had to write that obnoxious application essay. I'll be
pissed of nobody read that.
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jep
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response 35 of 113:
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Jun 25 21:41 UTC 2003 |
re resp:31: Leeron, how would you know if it's a small price to pay?
Maybe it isn't.
re resp:29: I doubt if they'll terminate any legacy preferences
retroactively. Though it'd be amusing to consider how they'd go about
doing so.
I don't imagine they'll end legacy admissions preferences as long as
they're of benefit to the school.
I'm not sure self-segregation is a *problem*.
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lk
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response 36 of 113:
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Jun 25 21:56 UTC 2003 |
John, you are of course correct that I can't know what "price" it is
for someone else to be thought of as being the beneficiary of assistance
that in reality they didn't need. But that seems selfish to me given the
benefit it provides others.
Also, even if at first one is slighted so, just think of all the fun
and retribution they can have when they do graduate above those other
losers....
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scg
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response 37 of 113:
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Jun 26 01:06 UTC 2003 |
Self-segregation isn't so much of a problem as long as it's really
self-segregation, and that involves being mutual. The history of segregation
in Michigan started out with members of the advantaged group violently
attacking members of the disadvantaged group when they tried to move in to
the advantaged group's neighborhoods, and later when that became unacceptable,
the advantaged group moving out of neighborhoods en masse whenever members
of the disadvantaged group started to move in, taking the financial resources
of the neighborhood with them.
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keesan
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response 38 of 113:
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Jun 26 01:55 UTC 2003 |
I thought all med students needed to borrow money, like she did, because
medical school is so expensive. If university educations were free and there
were more positions open in medical school, more minority students might be
interested in becoming doctors, and there would also be more doctors which
might drive the cost down a bit.
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senna
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response 39 of 113:
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Jun 26 03:55 UTC 2003 |
Wait, so separate is equal?
Self-segregation now is, for the most part, quite voluntary. That is, people
with money go ahead and segregate themselves from the inner city, where the
people without money are stuck. Coincidently, most of those people are
minorities. (I say coincidently to indicate that those who leave the cities
don't actually dislike the minorities, just the unpleasant living situation
created by living amongst a lot of people without money). Solving this
problem is not a legislative issue, but it is an economic one.
The problem in the meantime is that the groups are evolving separately, and
the old negative attitudes are starting to creep in.
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scg
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response 40 of 113:
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Jun 26 05:18 UTC 2003 |
Have you spent much time talking to people fleeing Southfield, for example,
to move to "if you lived here you'd be home by now" land? Nobody now will
say they're doing that to get away from the black people, but they'll tell
you Southfield "isn't safe" anymore. They'll you too many people are coming
over from Detroit. And they will openly wonder why somebody they know who
was mugged didn't know to turn and run when they saw they were being
approached by black people.
It should also be noted that the early black movers into expensive white
neighborhoods are rarely "people without money." The typical white flight
pattern is that some small number of affluent black people move into an
affluent white neighborhood, followed by the affluent whites fleeing in
droves, thus causing a nosedive in the property values which brings in far
less affluent black residents.
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sj2
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response 41 of 113:
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Jun 26 05:29 UTC 2003 |
Ok. To collect reliable information on employment statistics of
students favoured by affirmative action, you would need to:
1. Make public the information of students favoured by it.
2. All employment forms which a person fills have to have a field
asking the candidate whether they were favoured by affirmative action.
3. A method of verifying that such information provided by the
candidate is true.
Right?
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senna
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response 42 of 113:
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Jun 27 02:43 UTC 2003 |
Haven't talked to those people, Steve, so you probably have a point. I have
heard quite a bit of rhetoric from Ann Arbor, though, which says
otherwise--ironically, I think that further backs up your point.
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russ
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response 43 of 113:
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Jun 29 06:07 UTC 2003 |
Y'know, it's funny.
Society at large is becoming more and more anti-intellectual.
Jerry Springer and The Osbournes have attracted huge audiences.
Innumeracy and scientific illiteracy are high and going higher.
On the other hand, books and newspapers are downright cheap. A
great many good textbooks in ageless subjects like reading are
out of copyright, and could be reprinted for next to nothing.
More recent texts which have fallen from favor could be obtained
and fixed up for the price of some bindery work.
The opportunity for some hitherto-disadvantaged group to leap to the
top of the educational achievement ladder has never been better!
If some poor, downtrodden community (such as Benton Harbor, or
even Detroit) had the will and the cohesion to insist on education
and hold it up as one of their primary values, they could vault right
over the majority culture and put themselves just below the elite.
It probably wouldn't take more than half a generation. Heck, it
could have been done at any time in the last 30-40 years.
This has not happened, and the word I hear is that bookish students
in many minority communities have to conceal their capabilities to
avoid being harassed. Even more so than in the majority culture,
these people devalue education.
Entitlements won't fix this. Change must come from within.
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