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The Importance Of Affirmative Action
College admission affirmative action
College admission affirmative action
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The system of Affirmative Action’s role in college admissions needs to change, because although it has assisted many minorities in their pursuit of higher education, it has also put others, non-minorities, at a disadvantage. College admissions should focus on the merit, academics, and character of a potential student rather than the specific attribute they can’t change – their race. One problem that exists with Affirmative Action is that it can actually be hard on minorities, whom the system was set up to assist. “Minorities don’t want to be there for the benefit of the majority population, nor do they want to be called upon as the representatives of their race every time the topic comes up in class discussion.” (Swenson) It is understood that colleges are striving for greater diversity amidst their …show more content…
“The larger the preference, the more likely that a student will underperform, or even fail.” (Kahlenberg) The thing is, when minorities are accepted ahead of other students, even though they may be less qualified, there is a greater chance they will struggle. Colleges have reasons for the academic standards they have set, and students with higher grades are more likely to succeed in college. This way of looking at preferences, though, can also be applied to legacies. If we are truly trying to make the playing field even, we must get rid of the legacy advantage in the application process. Students who are benefitting from the legacies may be set up to fail. Supporters of Affirmative Action make the point that legacies give certain potential students a leg up, so Affirmative Action must be in place to balance things out, make a fair playing field. But if both legacies and affirmative action were taken away, wouldn’t the playing field be leveled? Every student would have an equal shot, and it would be up the colleges to admit students based on
Discrimination is still a chronic global issue, and drastic inequalities still exist at the present time. Thus, the Affirmative Action Law is an important tool to many minorities most especially to women, and people of color, for the reason that this program provides an equality on educational, and professional opportunities for every qualified individual living in the United States. Without this program, a higher education would have been impossible for a “minority students” to attain. Additionally, without the Affirmative Action, a fair opportunity to have a higher-level career...
The institution of public education has been one of the most controversial establishments in the United States since its inception. More specifically, equality in the conditions and the opportunities it provides has been sought as one of its major goals. There is little doubt that minority ethnic groups have struggled to achieve educational equality, just as they have struggled for equality in other aspects of life. One way that minorities have tried to achieve equality in education is through lobbying for help in college admissions for their respective groups. This social practice has been debated on many grounds, including necessity and ethical permissibility.
Affirmative action, while a great idea in the beginning, is no longer needed to make up for the past discrimination of women and minorities. It does not get rid of discrimination, but rather creates it towards whites and men. Any form of discrimination is wrong, whether intentional or unintentional. Businesses and universities will set aside a separate pool for minorities and women so they don’t have to originally compete against the whole pool of applicants. A person’s qualifications and how they got to where they are should not be questioned because of affirmative action. The only reason some people are still questioned or considered undeserving is because affirmative action still takes place. Getting rid of affirmative action in universities and businesses will eliminate reverse discrimination and ensure that their qualifications, along with achievements, will not be questioned based on the skin color or gender of a
Affirmative action, the act of giving preference to an individual for hiring or academic admission based on the race and/or gender of the individual has remained a controversial issue since its inception decades ago. Realizing its past mistake of discriminating against African Americans, women, and other minority groups; the state has legalized and demanded institutions to practice what many has now consider as reverse discrimination. “Victims” of reverse discrimination in college admissions have commonly complained that they were unfairly rejected admission due to their race. They claimed that because colleges wanted to promote diversity, the colleges will often prefer to accept applicants of another race who had significantly lower test scores and merit than the “victims”. In “Discrimination and Disidentification: The Fair-Start Defense of Affirmative Action”, Kenneth Himma responded to these criticisms by proposing to limit affirmative action to actions that negate unfair competitive advantages of white males established by institutions (Himma 277 L. Col.). Himma’s views were quickly challenged by his peers as Lisa Newton stated in “A Fair Defense of a False Start: A Reply to Kenneth Himma” that among other rationales, the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action (Newton 146 L. Col.). This paper will also argue that the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action because it cannot be fairly applied in the United States of America today. However, affirmative action should still be allowed and reserved for individuals whom the state unfairly discriminates today.
Charles, Camille Z., et al. "Affirmative-Action Programs for Minority Students: Right in Theory, Wrong in Practice." The Chronicle of Higher Education 55.29 (2009). Academic OneFile. Web. 9 Aug. 2011.
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.
Racial preference has indisputably favored Caucasian males in society. Recently this dynamic has been debated in all aspects of life, including college admission. Racial bias has intruded on the students’ rights to being treated fairly. Admitting students on merit puts the best individuals into the professional environment. A university’s unprejudiced attitude towards race in applicants eliminates biases, empowers universities to harness the full potential of students’ intellect, and gives students an equal chance at admission.
Today there is considerable disagreement in the country over Affirmative Action with the American people. MSNBC reported a record low in support for Affirmative Action with 45% in support and 45% opposing (Muller, 2013). The affirmative action programs have afforded all genders and races, exempting white males, a sense of optimism and an avenue to get the opportunities they normally would not be eligible for. This advantage includes admission in colleges or hiring preferences with public and private jobs; although Affirmative Action has never required quotas the government has initiated a benefits program for the schools and companies that elect to be diversified. The advantages that are received by the minorities’ only take into account skin color, gender, disability, etc., are what is recognized as discriminatory factors. What is viewed as racism to the majority is that there ar...
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
...s a higher chance of dropping out of college. Even though affirmative action in schools may not be fully removed from university systems, if admissions counselors and university faculties start thinking of the disadvantages of affirmative action they will realise that it is in the benefit of the university that better educated non-minority students are getting a better chance of getting into a university of their choice. If you wish to change the way universities help minority students you can propose laws to your local senator, or congressman that be made to further prevent universities from further giving minority students an advantage; the results of these actions might be that, children planning on going to a certain university will know that everyone in the university was given the chance of being there because of their academic strength, and not on their race.
Affirmative action policies were created to help level the playing field in American society. Supporters claim that these plans eliminate economic and social disparities to minorities, yet in doing so, they’ve only created more inequalities. Whites and Asians in poverty receive little to none of the opportunities provided to minorities of the same economic background (Messerli). The burden of equity has been placed upon those who were not fortunate enough to meet a certain school’s idea of “diversity” (Andre, Velasquez, and Mazur). The sole reason for a college’s selectivity is to determine whether or not a student has the credentials to attend that school....
A black student has been waiting for that letter of acceptance from the college of her choice. She receives that letter and gets in. At the same time a female white student is also waiting for her letter of acceptance from that same college. The white student receives a rejection letter even though she had higher test scores and a better GPA than the black student. Was this fair to the students? Was it the best outcome for the country in the long run? Many minority students are accepted into colleges and law schools due to their race while at the same time white students are rejected because colleges have to make room for these minorities. The question many colleges are facing now is whether race should be considered in college admissions. Is affirmative action necessary anymore and is it fair to all students? What is its long-term impact on American and world society? Liberals say, “Yes affirmative action is a fair path and a path that still needs to be taken if our society is going to move forward.” Conservatives argue that affirmative action is reverse discrimination against white students and that widespread use of affirmative action in colleges is creating an un-level playing field.
The effort to foster an equal playing field in our education system for everyone is a noble cause, yet in reality, this cause has proven to be divisive and ineffective. To put it simply, affirmative action is an utter failure that creates far more harm than it does equality. Years of research have underlined the fact that affirmative action has done little to reverse racial inequality and has only furthered the issue by challenging the true meaning of equality for all.
Affirmative action actually does the exact opposite of what it originally intended to do by creating reverse discrimination. Author Joe Messerli argues that “a poverty- stricken white student who uses discipline and hard work to become the best he can be can be passed over by a rich minority student who doesn’t put in much effort at all.” In other words, Messerli is trying to say that by trying to accept more minorities who do not deserve to be accepted, it is discriminating a white student who actually has worked for his grades. Universities are supposed to make their acceptance decisions based on grades from former years of high school, not just by what color skin a person has. The University of Michigan is known to participate in this practice. In fact, the University of Michigan rates their potential applicants based on a point system. Being a minority student applicant would earn more than twice as many points ...
The purpose ofAffirmative Action is a simple one, it exists to level the playing field, so to speak, in the areas of hiring and college admissions based on characteristics that usually include race, sex, and/or ethnicity. A certain minority group or gender may be underrepresented in an arena, often employment or academia, in theory due to past or ongoing discrimination against members of the group. In such a circumstance, one school of thought maintains that unless this group is concretely helped to achieve a more substantial representation, it will have difficulty gaining the critical mass and acceptance in that role, even if overt discrimination against the group is eradicated. For this reason, more effort must be made to recruit persons from that background, train them, and lower the entrance requirements for them. (Goldman, 1976, p. 179) Proponents of affirmative action argue that affirmative action is the best way to corre...