On affirmative action
Oct. 1st, 2007 10:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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enegim.
In my ideal world, affirmative action would not exist. The whole point of equality is that you don't treat different groups differently; everybody is judged by their merits. Giving preference to black/female/disabled/etc applicants wouldn't just be discrimination against people who don't share those traits; it would be insulting to those who do, and are good enouh to earn their positions without special consideration.
That said, we don't live in my ideal world. We live in this one:
Five years ago, two researchers working for the Educational Testing Service, Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose, took the academic profiles of students admitted into 146 colleges in the top two tiers of Barron's college guide and matched them up against the institutions' advertised requirements in terms of high school grade point average, SAT or ACT scores, letters of recommendation, and records of involvement in extracurricular activities. White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race.
Who are these mediocre white students getting into institutions such as Harvard, Wellesley, Notre Dame, Duke, and the University of Virginia? A sizable number are recruited athletes who, research has shown, will perform worse on average than other students with similar academic profiles, mainly as a result of the demands their coaches will place on them.
A larger share, however, are students who gained admission through their ties to people the institution wanted to keep happy, with alumni, donors, faculty members, administrators, and politicians topping the list.
(BTW, it bears noting that there are quite a few white males out there who also suffer through lack of connections. Affirmative action is only a partial solution to this problem, and I'll be delighted to ditch it the moment somebody implements a more complete answer.)
enegim.In my ideal world, affirmative action would not exist. The whole point of equality is that you don't treat different groups differently; everybody is judged by their merits. Giving preference to black/female/disabled/etc applicants wouldn't just be discrimination against people who don't share those traits; it would be insulting to those who do, and are good enouh to earn their positions without special consideration.
That said, we don't live in my ideal world. We live in this one:
Five years ago, two researchers working for the Educational Testing Service, Anthony Carnevale and Stephen Rose, took the academic profiles of students admitted into 146 colleges in the top two tiers of Barron's college guide and matched them up against the institutions' advertised requirements in terms of high school grade point average, SAT or ACT scores, letters of recommendation, and records of involvement in extracurricular activities. White students who failed to make the grade on all counts were nearly twice as prevalent on such campuses as black and Hispanic students who received an admissions break based on their ethnicity or race.
Who are these mediocre white students getting into institutions such as Harvard, Wellesley, Notre Dame, Duke, and the University of Virginia? A sizable number are recruited athletes who, research has shown, will perform worse on average than other students with similar academic profiles, mainly as a result of the demands their coaches will place on them.
A larger share, however, are students who gained admission through their ties to people the institution wanted to keep happy, with alumni, donors, faculty members, administrators, and politicians topping the list.
(BTW, it bears noting that there are quite a few white males out there who also suffer through lack of connections. Affirmative action is only a partial solution to this problem, and I'll be delighted to ditch it the moment somebody implements a more complete answer.)
