response 6 of 113:

Jun 24 12:08 UTC 2003

Severed arm??  What severed arm?

response 8 of 113:

Jun 24 13:12 UTC 2003

It is far nicer that the courts only specify what cannot be done, and 
leave open what remains, rather than specifying what can be done.  
Mainly, this is because the courts cannot possibly imagine all possible 
scenarios which their rulings may affect.

response 10 of 113:

Jun 24 13:40 UTC 2003

I haven't read that much about the rulings.  What's struck me most is 
Mary Sue Coleman, president of U-M, citing the new decisions as 
unqualified victory.  It seems she was willing to cite just about 
anything as a victory.  I whimsically imagine a decision like this:

Supreme Court: We rule the U-M has used racial quotas, which is 
discriminatory.  The U-M should be disbanded and it's grounds sewn with 
salt.

Coleman: We hail this ruling as an unqualified victory.  The Supreme 
Court has clearly supported U-M in it's pursuit of diversity by not 
mandating what brand of salt.

In fact, the Supreme Court has *ended* U-M's policy of giving 20 bonus 
points to racial minorities for undergraduate admissions, which is the 
means the university has used to achieve the racial balance they 
wanted.  The door has been left open to giving racial preference, but 
only on a case by case basis.  Individually!  It seems to me this will 
either cut way back on racial preference, or make it very, very 
expensive for the university.

In practice, I don't think even the U-M can do *all* of it's admissions 
on an individual case by case basis.  That's what they'd need to do to 
even approach the racial percentages they've tried to maintain.

President Coleman has managed, very quickly and efficiently, to put a 
positive spin on it for the university and to get that spin quoted 
nation-wide in headlines.  Good for her.  But I don't see how the 
Supreme Court could have ruled much more against U-M's policies.  I 
think this was a nearly complete loss for the university's racial 
preference system, and for colleges across the country which try to 
achieve or maintain racial quotas, percentages or "balances".

I mostly don't know what I think about the rulings yet.  We'll see what 
the effects are in 10 years or so.  I expect I'll have formed opinions 
about these two decisions before then.  (-:

I did see something to be optimistic about in what little I've read.  
The Supreme Court appears to believe racial preferences are a temporary 
measure which ought to be dispensed with at some point.  Justice Sandra 
Day O'Connor wrote, "We expect that 25 years from now, the use of 
racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest 
approved today."  Also from O'Conner: "We take the law school at its 
word that it would 'like nothing better than to find a race-neutral 
admissions formula' and will terminate its race-conscious admissions 
program as soon as practicable."

response 12 of 113:

Jun 24 14:11 UTC 2003

The plantiffs were absolutely hypocritical in pressing race as the main 
thrust of their suit.  Preferential treatment will still be given to 
children of alumni and athletes, and applicants from certain 
geographical areas.  This suit wasn't really about equality of 
education.

In order for there to be an equal playing field for admissions, 
students should have equal opportunitirees to meet standards.  They do 
not.

response 14 of 113:

Jun 24 15:14 UTC 2003

re resp:9: You see, there have been a couple of centuries of racial 
discrimination in America, deciding privileges and rights for people 
based on their skin color.  These have greatly harmed those who aren't 
descended from Europeans.  No ethnic group has overcome this 
discrimination, except all of them who aren't African-Americans, so the 
obstacles are clearly proven to be insurmountable.

Obviously the only thing that can be done to combat the effects of two 
centuries of racial discrimination is privileges and rights for people 
based on their skin color.  This is of course *not* racial 
discrimination.  We know that, because racial discrimination is bad, 
and this isn't bad.  It's affirmative action, you see.  It's completely 
different.  Make no mistake about *that*.

Statistics have been warped and stretched (and even made up) to show it 
works.  In some cases, it hasn't worked at all, but the answer to that 
is more rights and privileges based on skin color.  Questioning that in 
any way means you're a racist because affirmative action is good, so 
opposing it is bad.  In case you think you can oppose it without being 
branded as a maniac, saying you're opposing it because it causes more 
harm than good is "code words" for a desire to return to the days of 
slavery.  Anyone like that has to be shut up and ridiculed because we 
believe in free speech.  Free speech is good, of course.  We have a 
Constitutional right to free speech.  Since being a racist anti-
affirmative action nut would be bad, it's hate speech, which is 
something different.

response 16 of 113:

Jun 24 15:21 UTC 2003

re resp:13: resp:12 is not hidden.

re resp:12: I don't think any of the plaintiffs would have taken a case 
to the Supreme Court by themselves.  Someone (CIL, Center for 
Individual Liberties I believe) dug them up, convinced them they'd been 
wronged, and used them to bear their standard.

I don't think the case was about equality.  I think it was about giving 
special privileges based on race.  I think there's plenty of room for 
another ground-breaking suit which would be about preferences for 
alumni, athletes, and geographical areas.  I don't think there'd be as 
much attention given to any of those suits as there was for this one; 
it wouldn't be about race and therefore wouldn't be as hot a topic.

response 18 of 113:

Jun 24 16:04 UTC 2003

("does not always work" != "does not work")

response 20 of 113:

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. 

response 22 of 113:

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.

response 24 of 113:

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.

response 26 of 113:

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?

response 28 of 113:

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.

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.