Grex Agora46 Conference Item 17

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5-29

30-54

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105-113

Author

Message

25 new of 113 responses total.

keesan

response 30 of 113:

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.

response 31 of 113:

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.

mdw

response 32 of 113:

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.

polygon

response 33 of 113:

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.

flem

response 34 of 113:

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.

jep

response 35 of 113:

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*.

response 36 of 113:

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....

scg

response 37 of 113:

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.

keesan

response 38 of 113:

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.

senna

response 39 of 113:

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.

scg

response 40 of 113:

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.

sj2

response 41 of 113:

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?

senna

response 42 of 113:

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.

russ

response 43 of 113:

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.

scott

response 44 of 113:

Jun 29 06:47 UTC 2003

"Change must come from within."

Er, so we should just fence them in and hope for the best?  A lot of
anti-intellectual messages are coming in, from TV and other sources - what's
needed is not pretending that it's their own fault, but instead figuring out
some way to push an "education is cool" message in via the same channels.

jaklumen

response 45 of 113:

Jun 29 08:18 UTC 2003

resp:43 there is much more to this, I'm sure, than meets the eye.  Is 
there any sort of class distinction or snobbery to intellectualism?  
I'm assuming the myth that is being perpetrated here 
is 'intellectualism is establishment, old money, traditionalist, 
stuffy'... etc.  The rudeness and cheap thrill that seems to be pushed 
today in society seemed to be packaged in the whole 'be a rebel' 
albeit 'be a rebel and get with the program' deal.

I don't think it helps too much that disappointing voices about 
education come from the press, at least, the mainstream press.  You'd 
think it would come from the youth, Hollywood, or someone 
anointed 'cool.'  Ergo, Scott, although there are anti-intellectual 
messages from the media, at times, part of it wonders at times about 
it, at least as far as schooling is concerned.  I 
think 'entertainment' should maybe be a little bit more interested.

But strangely enough, it should be noted that the media *does* have 
more intellectual offerings in some areas.  We have A&E, the Discovery 
Channel, the History Channel, et al for a start.  Documentaries are 
effective at presenting certain types of information, for example.

You'd find intellectualism in the weirdest sorts of places, albeit, 
again, in small niches.  I'm a gamer by one hobby, and one group of 
games I play draws on a wealth of folklore, pop culture, history, and 
many real references for material in its game material.  Some of the 
game books are almost mini-novels in their complexity.

janc

response 46 of 113:

Jun 29 12:07 UTC 2003

I had the impression that part of the split on the decision was also based
on the fact that law schools play a bit of a different role than, say,
engineering schools.  Law school is one of the key routes into politics.
As such it is important for the survival of democracy in America that
people of all ethnicities feel that the routes to power are open to them.

Something like 25% of all senators are graduates of elite law schools.
The percentage in the judicial branch is even higher.  All of the current
supreme court justices are graduates of elite law schools.  Admissions to
those law schools are highly competitive.  Many more qualified applicants
apply than can be admitted.

So the argument works much the same way as the one Larry gave for medical
school.
  (1) There is a compelling social interest in diversity.
  (2) There is a glut of applicants.

I think that under such circumstances, affirmative action works very well
and serves an important need.

jmsaul

response 47 of 113:

Jun 29 15:05 UTC 2003

However, to get into an elite law school, you need to have gone to a very good
undergraduate school...

slynne

response 48 of 113:

Jun 29 15:44 UTC 2003

I can think of one or two people who have gone to elite graduate 
schools (even UofM law school) after completing their undergrad at a 
second tier state university (such as EMU).

rcurl

response 49 of 113:

Jun 29 18:33 UTC 2003

Since public education is a State function, there should be a much greater
effort to ensure that all public schools have the facilities they need and
the well trained (and paid) teachers. Education (and diversity) would be well
served by eliminating the disparity of quality among public schools.
That said...I recognize that it will still be more difficult to maintain the
level of operation of such schools in areas of poverty than in areas of
plenty, which would call for some more resources and effort (and inducements)
in the more difficult to manage school districts. But I think this would go
further to attain the desired equality of education, and hence access to to
later higher education, than just treating higher-education access alone.

klg

response 50 of 113:

Jun 29 19:47 UTC 2003

Does Mr. rcurl have in mind the model where the public schools in the D. 
of C. ought to consume the highest level of resources in the nation as 
compared to the level of resources expended in some of the obscure 
western states -  the result being the elimination of the disparity in 
educational performance among the two areas - or is he once again 
displaying his droll sense of humor?

russ

response 51 of 113:

Jun 29 23:51 UTC 2003

Re #44:  Nice straw-man, but no.  We have to insist that any demand
for help to compensate for past discrimination has to come in return
for effort.  It's the difference between having a chance to get to
the top of the mountain, and the chance to be a mountain climber;
the person who demands a ride up in a Jeep because they were once
forbidden to climb still won't be a climber.

Re #46:  If you were looking for a way that disaster could strike
the USA, groupthink caused by the narrow experience pool of those
few elite schools is a scary possibility.  It's also one way that
a self-perpetuating aristocracy could be set up - the basis for it
exists right now.

jmsaul

response 52 of 113:

Jun 30 00:52 UTC 2003

Re #48:  There are exceptions to every rule, but you have to admit that
         going to a really good undergrad school helps a lot.

slynne

response 53 of 113:

Jun 30 01:22 UTC 2003

sure, I'll admit that.

response 54 of 113:

Jun 30 03:17 UTC 2003