Affirmative Action good or bad?

[KidViciou$]

dont you mean, Affirmative Access? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Spoooon]

Affirmative action isn't the best solution, but it's the only solution that works right now. People can't be trusted to hire people based on performance rather than race, gender, or sexual preference. Until that day comes, employers are going to have to learn to enjoy Big Brother looking over their shoulder.

 

[jmcoreymv]

IMO AA is complete BS. Im not racist in anyway, but if I was an entrepreneur and I had to meet a quota for a certain ethnicity for my business, and the applicants of another ethnicity were far more qualified, but I couldnt hire them, Id be pretty pissed. I dont want morons running my business.

 

[Moonbeam]

jmcoreymv, You'll be safe as long as you don't run your business. Hehe. I think yuou mean, you don't want morons working for your business. Most people run their businesses themselves.

Engineer, no whiter bunch in existence that the Republicans. They were whom I meant.

The people who don't like affermative action are the same ones who vote against all the other remedial solutions, head start, pay for mothers to stay home, day care, and on and on. When you hear the privilaged scream about class warfare, you can pretty much figure that what they fear is that somebody is going to turn around and do to then what they have been doing all along.

 

[AvesPKS]

kidviciou$, I didn't just apply to one school. Obviously, I go to college; I said in my statement I live in Chicago, and Temple is in Pennsylvania. I applied at a total of 6 colleges, 3 of which were private technical universities. I got accepted and even got scholarships to all of them based on my own merit...as it should be.

 

[Tetsuo316]

OK, for those of you who read my earlier post and wanted more concrete numbers, here's what I found. This is taken from US News and Word Reports and you can double check the information here. The current breakdown of UC Berkeley is this:

Race/Ethnicity
African-American: 5%
Asian-American: 39%
Hispanic: 10%
Native American: 1%
White: 41%
International: 4%

Out of state admissions is around 10%, so theoretically, the percentages should be somewhat representative of California, right? Well, last time I checked, Hispanics and African Americans made up a much larger percentage than 15%.

I couldn't find any records of admissions prior to 1998, but with a little effort, I'm sure someone else could. The point is, the percentages of minority students were much higher before the ban on AA, and I agree that AA is not the answer, but it helped.

 

[Zucchini]

It totally sucks that asians aren't considered minorities anymore

 

[Tetsuo316]

Not at Cal anyway.

 

[da loser]

Just so you guys know what's actually written instead of basing arguments on personal experiences

californian laws
US laws

look up the Civil Rights Act of 1964

summary-based upon QUALIFIED applicants->who cares if you're overqualified as long as you can get the job done? QUOTAS-ILLEGAL; implementation not right, as explained above

FACT: culture,ethnicity, social standing makes a difference in the SAT-in fact are a better predicter in general of how what score you will get

FACT: a study based on UC berkeley students-women scoring ~10pts lower on the SAT than men ended up with the same GPA or something to that effect; guess who scores the best??

i think applied to minority groups as well

lots colleges and scholarships base acceptance on SAT=unfair to those advertently or inadvertently targeted for lower scores, how do you overcome this?? you look at other stuff; go see if you can find figures on a race basis of who got the scholarship, instead of saying i'm a poor green person, that purple person got one; i'm better than that purple person, therefore all purple people that got it are stupid->racism, inadvertent or not its still there.

Also, I don't give a rat's ass how much you had to work for whatever you got because most people did. America has always been about the little guy achieving. This is about giving people a chance on equal footing.

Race classification=BS, its about culture, ethnicity, social standing; its etched into peoples mind too deep, just look at the census what about black/white??

Talking about poor whites-go see what it is for other races

Discimation is basing upon race->qualification, AA-qualification, then adding race to part of the equation. If it was just race, then WTF are you doing in college?? How come reversing it leads to such high disparities??

do something about it or shut your mouth

 

[AvesPKS]

When you say about putting people on equal footing, why should I be penalized for their inadaquacies?

 

[Zucchini]

Tetso,

But we are minorities...look at our political power.. we have almost nothing

 

[Mday]

it's imperfect.

it can be insulting to the minorities, as well as disappointing for the majority (whites in general, more specifically, white males).

 

[Ferocious]

Unfortunately affirmative action is still necessary. Human beings will be human beings.

The last place I worked had ZERO black employees working their the first 5 years it was in existance. The next 3 years saw two black employees hired (about 225 employees overall worked their at this time).

Then they struck a deal with one of the big 3 automakers and had to show proof of fair hiring. Now their are about 25 black employees (total of about 300 employees)....and the company is doing just great.

Plant manager is a bigot.

 

[StageLeft]

Affirmative Action is an offensive patch to the greater problem. Many minorities have less chances, many have equal. How can we decide? If I am slightly more capable at a position than somnebody of a minority who has had just as many chances as me in life and he gets the position how is that fair? THe problem needs to be dealt with where it starts, society as a whole needs to give minorities greater chances and dealing with it at the end point (admittance to university) instead of at the beginning (in elementary) doesn't help anything.

Affirmative action has a place in hiring of police. Although in some cases I support this in that if you are dealing with a minority they may be able to deal better with a minority cop certainly the general public may come upon a minority cop and think "Well did he get that job because he is good or just because he is of a minority?"

Essentially it is racism - well of course it is, you get a job or you don't because of your race. How can officially endorsed racism ever help the matter?

When used to counter racist hirers who only hire whites then this can have a benefit, but when used to help a minority because of some lack of advantage they may or may not have had it becomes arbitrary, non-objective, and racist.

 

[chess9]

I strongly support affirmative action. Look what Title IX, which has an objective similar to AA, has done for women's sports. In 1972 only a few hundred girls participated in collegiate sports. Today, the number is in the thousands.

400 years of discrimination against blacks, and thousands of years of mistreatment of women cannot be eradicated without strong medicine given over a long period of time.

Some of you tekkies have an under-developed sense of fairness.

In 400 years, ask me again.

 

[dan-o]

My 2 cents on affirmative action? If you are not smart enough to get into a university, then you should not be granted special privileges because of the color of your skin, period.

On the flip side however, I can give and example of why affirmative action is even considered a solution to low minority enrollment. I will give an example from Nashville, TN close to where I live. Nashville is in Davidson county. Being a metro area it has its "projects" and the notoriously bad public school system. 20 minutes down the interstate is Wilson county. A very wealthy white-collar jobs area (the large majority of the population is white). Do you think the public schools in Wilson county are bad like the ones in Nashville? Of course not. There is a larger tax base in Wilson county so they are able to attract better teachers, build nicer schools, and offer more programs. The average student leaving the Wilson county school will have a much better chance of going on to college than the average Metro Nasvhille student.

This same situation occurs all over the Unites States. It is not even a black and white issue. Other counties bordering Wilson county here in Tennessee are largely white, but very rural without the large tax base, so the schools suffer.

So I think we should end all affirmative action. No one should be given special treatment or denied anything because of race. The solution is to give every one a level playing field to being with. Then if your are a lazy dumb a$$, you fail. If you give it some effort you can succeed and only have one person to blame if you do fail. How to fix the cause of the affirmative action problem... better start anopther thread on that one.

 

[tgillitzr]

Ok guys... say a college is 80% black students instead of 80% white students... do the white students in that college get an "extra edge"?

 

[tgillitzr]

<< The people who don't like affermative action are the same ones who vote against all the other remedial solutions, head start, pay for mothers to stay home, day care, and on and on. >>



Why should my tax dollars that I earn for working MY ass off, &quot;pay for mothers to stay home&quot;??????????

I have no problem helping someone in need out, but if I'm working my ass off to help someone who is sitting on their ass all day, something is WRONG.

 

[BoberFett]

<< Some of you tekkies have an under-developed sense of fairness. >>

Thank god chess9 and Moonbeam are here to make up for this entire board full of tekkies and their greed.

 

[chess9]

BobberFett:

I said &quot;some&quot;. Did you find yours?

 

[BoberFett]

Find what? My under-developed sense of fairness? Hell, I never let that out of my sight, in fact I usually wear it on a chain around my neck.

 

[chess9]

BobberFett:

Nah, you're a reasonable guy.

 

[JoeBaD]

Age old argument - equality of opportunity vs equality of results.

my vote's for opportunity

 

[Tetsuo316]

zucchini, at cal, asian americans have a lot of political power in the student body. this year, there are more asian american students than any other ethnic group. because of that fact, i made the statement &quot;not at cal anyway.&quot; i may have misunderstood your last comment directed at me, but i thought i made myself clear that i was referring only to cal. if you were simply making another statement about the national position of asian americans as a separate matter i agree that on a national level asian americans do not enjoy a political majority and have a very small voice. like i said before, i was referring only to the political realities at cal.

 

[vi edit]

&quot;The people who don't like affermative action are the same ones who vote against all the other remedial solutions, head start, pay for mothers to stay home, day care, and on and on&quot;

Well, I guess that I'm a minority when it comes to that.

I'm against AA, but I'm for headstart and pre-school funding.