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ReasonableDoubt
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 655
| Posted 1/24/2003 6:20 AM (GMT -6) |   | What do people think of the current affirmative action issue?
My two cents is that race should be able to be considered in admission, in the way it is at the Univ . of Michigan. UNLESS we are willing to have all schools restrict admission solely to grades and test scores, there is always some modicum of "unfairness" about who gets admitted.
For example, would GW Bush have been admitted to Yale and Harvard based solely on grades and test scores? I do not know, but I do know that legacy was considered in his admission. Is that fair?
How about athletes getting "points" that others do not?
Another factor is that the minorities that gained admission to the Michigan Law School over the other, more "qualified" whites, were very qualified in and of themselves. Their LSAT scores were extremely high, higher than the average for most law school admissions. The Univ. of Michigan is a Top 5 Law School, which means admission standards are extremely tight, and those minorities were more than qualified based on their scores alone to do well in law school.
How about those whites and/or Asians who were admitted who had lower scores/grades than those whites who were not admitted?
Anyway, I'm interested in seeing others' viewpoints.
"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a philosopher."
- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914) | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 1/24/2003 8:18 AM (GMT -6) | | AA sends a message to those who get in by it that they cannot compete with others without help. As Stephen Carter said, "would it be so wrong to be thought of as the race that has to try harder?"
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BBBCanada
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Date Joined Jun 2001
Total Posts : 2763
| Posted 1/25/2003 5:00 AM (GMT -6) | | | | |
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Newcomb
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 116
| Posted 2/11/2003 7:00 AM (GMT -6) | | Talk about a complex issue. Ouch.
As a “white” Christian Conservative, and very much both, I also wrestle with this. Both sides have rhetoric that needs to be eliminated for clarity.
I have black friends who use the system quite unfairly and rarely work because they are eternally in school at our expense, but abuse is not the issue.
It seems to me the issues brought forward are:
1) Is our system biased towards whites by its educational system?
2) Are people who are non-white entitled to help by tax dollars?
3) Are people who are economically disadvantaged entitled to help via tax dollars?
4) How is the world helped by the injection of standards other than performance?
To 1) I would say this is a false argument. It assumes that because they are black (or other) that they have a different way of thinking that cannot compete as well as whites in the learning environments currently established. If I, as a white claimed this, it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. I would be violently attacked as a racist. But it is OK for them to claim it if it helps them gain an advantage? This is a double standard. The black friends I have that are educated at any level seem as good if not better that their counterparts who are white. This is a junk argument that should not be believed.
As to 2) and 3) these are philosophical questions about government. If we are constitutionalists (we should be, we pledge allegiance to it), then we must exclude this as beyond the scope of federal powers and revert it to the state, but, as constitutionalists, we must then see what each state constitution says about it. Should government act like Robin Hood?
The last issue, 4), is pertinent and I would have to say that our society and the world is benefited by looking at the race issue. People selected for learning at state institutions should not be held strictly to a performance standard. The question becomes, why is this performance standard the de facto standard? Should it be? Possibly not. Perhaps it is valid for the state to support the education of disadvantaged people and let those who can afford it pay their own way. It can help to break the dependency cycle as well as benefit us by receiving different viewpoints about issues that are important.
I am economically right in the middle. We will not be able to afford Stanford for our kids, but I can afford, with great effort, to put my kids through the UC system, so this is where we are headed after two years at a JC, hopefully. Should I be allowed to take more tax dollars? I think not, the UC system is already supported by them. Struggle hurts no one.
I would like to see a monitoring system that monitors the progress of those who are helped with my tax dollars. My own friends who abuse the system should be excluded from further help. After paying $0 for a JD, he goes back and takes teaching classes, then premed, then accounting, then what? How long should I support him? There is always abuse and stopping abuse would help clarify the issues for many people.
“Fairness” is always a smoke argument.
"Neuk'em" | | Back to Top | | |
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 2/11/2003 1:02 PM (GMT -6) | | Our system of government is biased towards those who don't want to work their butts off in order to succeed...
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apo64
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 3
| Posted 2/14/2003 12:51 PM (GMT -6) | | The argument for AA goes like this:
A) Diversity is good (I never challenged the morality of this)
B) Educational facilities need Diversity
C) We must legislate rules that make diversity at educational facilities.
Do you think whether or not diversity has enough merit to justify discriminating against whomever to make a collection of students diverse. I like diversity. I think it is a good thing to have. I just don't see AA as help to achieving this. Here's a quote I got from CNN of the people suing U of M:
The first case involves Barbara Grutter's 1995 application to the law school. It was rejected, despite what she said was "very strong" expertise in a variety of fields. "I have a lot of experience I could have brought to that class," she told CNN three years ago, when the case was being appealed.
Along with two other applicants, she sued, accusing the university of rejecting white applicants because of their race, and using unfair standards to admit lesser-qualified minorities. They want race taken out of the admission process.
Now the U's response in the same article is this:
The laws school says it has the right to use race in recruiting students, as well as the responsibility. "We take race into account as a factor among many in order to pursue the educational benefit of diversity,"
Do you see the contradiction? It is using a racist means to combat racism.
It is silly.
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honorman
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1137
| Posted 2/17/2003 7:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Exactly, but when you are doing things for the good of a society who is (in your eyes, too clueless to understand), then contradiction such as this are beside the point.
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."
C S Lewis
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Iconoclast
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2001
Total Posts : 1227
| Posted 5/17/2003 5:25 PM (GMT -6) | | Great quote by C.S. Lewis honorman.
thanks,
Iconoclast
"The benefit overran the merit the first day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, I reckon part of the receiving." - Ralph Waldo Emerson | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 5/28/2003 9:06 AM (GMT -6) | | AA in education is a different topic than AA in employment outcomes...
Whether or not AA can be justified typically revolves around whether or not employers are in fact using race as a factor in their decisions to hire or promote employees. This can be due to their racist views, or what is called statistical discrimination. If as a taxi-driver, you see a black youth and a middle-aged white woman standing at a corner, you pick up the woman since she is statistically less likely to hold you up or what-not.
Whether or not race is taken into account as a factor is best measured empirically
I highly recommend the study by Marianne Bertrand
http://gsbwww.uchicago.edu/news/capideas/spring03/racialbias.html
They actually mailed out job-application forms that were identical in every respect except the names. Some had "white" names, others had "black" names and found that the "white" named applicants were more likely to get an interview than otherwise.
So I would say the need for AA is, ultimately, an empirical question.
dlw
Prayer from Kenya
From the Cowardice that dare not face new truth,
From the Laziness that is contented with half-truth,
From the Arrogance that thinks it knows all truth,
Lord Deliver Me.
Edited by - DLW on 05/28/2003 2:14:02 PM | | Back to Top | | |
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DLW
Registered Member
Date Joined Apr 2003
Total Posts : 2457
| Posted 8/2/2003 7:19 AM (GMT -6) | | "Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? A
Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination"
BY: MARIANNE BERTRAND
University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)
SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Document: Available from the SSRN Electronic Paper Collection:
http://papers.ssrn.com/paper.taf?abstract_id=428367
Paper ID: NBER Working Paper No. W9873
Date: July 2003
Contact: MARIANNE BERTRAND
Email: Mailto:marianne.bertrand@gsb.uchicago.edu
Postal: University of Chicago
Graduate School of Business
Rosenwald 229D
1101 East 58th Street
Chicago, IL 60637 UNITED STATES
Phone: 609-258-0815
Fax: 609-258-2907
Co-Auth: SENDHIL MULLAINATHAN
Email: Mailto:MULLAIN@MIT.EDU
Postal: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Room E51-251c
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142 UNITED STATES
ABSTRACT:
We perform a field experiment to measure racial discrimination
in the labor market. We respond with fictitious resumes to
help-wanted ads in Boston and Chicago newspapers. To manipulate
perception of race, each resume is assigned either a very
African American sounding name or a very White sounding name.
The results show significant discrimination against
African-American names: White names receive 50 percent more
callbacks for interviews. We also find that race affects the
benefits of a better resume. For White names, a higher quality
resume elicits 30 percent more callbacks whereas for African
Americans, it elicits a far smaller increase. Applicants living
in better neighborhoods receive more callbacks but,
interestingly, this effect does not differ by race. The amount
of discrimination is uniform across occupations and industries.
Federal contractors and employers who list 'Equal Opportunity
Employer' in their ad discriminate as much as other employers.
We find little evidence that our results are driven by employers
inferring something other than race, such as social class, from
the names. These results suggest that racial discrimination is
still a prominent feature of the labor market.
JEL Classification: J7, J71, J23, J24, J63, J82, C93
Niebuhr thought that sustained moral energy in politics depended on religion's power to mobilize reason along with self-transcending love. The prophetic tradition, meanwhile, gave Jews and Christians some protection against the temptation to identify their social causes with God's will. Lincoln's second inaugural address expressed the prophetic insight, "The almighty has His own purposes." | | Back to Top | | |
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Tigress
Registered Member
Date Joined Feb 2003
Total Posts : 1252
| Posted 8/14/2003 11:57 AM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by DLW
We still have laws against theft, right? Laws aren't s'posed to change hearts, they are s'posed to change behavior.
The empirical question is whether there persists behavior that we would like to change.
dlw
Well, yes, I agree. That's what I'm saying. But, just because the laws are there, the behavior isn't going to change for some people. There's still the human factor of trying to weasel out of obeying the law. And even if the white employers do hire minorities in order to obey the law, the law can't cause them to be happy about it, or treat their minority employees as positively as they might treat white ones. There will be resentment and a feeling of, "The only reason you're here is because I was forced to hire you." This doesn't help anyone. It's good that the minorities obtained the job but it's not under the most preferable of circumstances. This is why Christians need to work on getting people saved so that in addition to changing behaviors, hearts will be changed so people will do these things willingly and joyfully.
Tigress 
"Name a shrub after me. Preferably one that's prickly and difficult to eradicate."
-Captain Jack Aubrey
"Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World" | | Back to Top | | |
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