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Essay on the future of affirmative action in college admissions
Critical analysis of perspectives on affirmative action in college admission
Affirmative action policies
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Racial Bias in College Admission
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.
Minimalizing racial bias prevents students from being the victims of preference, rather than being judged on personal merit. As Roger Clegg’s response to the Wall Street Journal’s thoughts on banning race-conscious admissions illustrates,
“There is exactly one sentence about why schools should want to discriminate… It reads, ‘When the state’s most elite universities are less diverse, [a school official] said, it doesn’t provide our students with a level of diversity they need in order to learn about other cultures and other communities’…And that’s supposed to outweigh all these costs of discrimination; It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination.”
Clegg, expanding on the expense of discrimination towards scholars, displays how discrimination has a single benefit: diversity. Likewise, Abigail Fisher, plaintiff in the recent case Fisher v. University of Texas, has better grades than the average needed to gain admission for African-American and Hispanic students, yet was rejected from the University of Texas. Fisher, who is white, was forced to attend the l...
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...world. Even though some may argue that a few races have a disadvantage, the quality of their education is most important in a real-life circumstances. Consider writing a letter to your local college admissions office explaining why you believe racial preference will be detrimental to society.
Works Cited
Clegg, Roger. "Why California Schools Want to Discriminate." National Review Online. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Apr. 2014.
Gritsch, Eric W. The Wit of Martin Luther. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2006. Print.
Heriot, Gail. "The Sad Irony of Affirmative Action Publications National Affairs."The Sad Irony of Affirmative Action. National Affairs, n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
Pojman, Louis P. "The Case Against Affirmative Action." Csus.edu. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014.
Sacks, David, and Peter Thiel. "The Case Against Affirmative Action." Stanford Magazine. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 May 2014.
The second is the concern over segregation and the effect it has on society. Mr. Kozol provides his own socially conscious and very informative view of the issues facing the children and educators in this poverty ravaged neighborhood. Those forces controlling public schools, Kozol points out, are the same ones perpetuating inequity and suffering elsewhere; pedagogic styles and shapes may change, but the basic parameters and purposes remain the same: desensitization, selective information, predetermined "options," indoctrination. In theory, the decision should have meant the end of school segregation, but in fact its legacy has proven far more muddled. While the principle of affirmative action under the trendy code word ''diversity'' has brought unparalleled integration into higher education, the military and corporate America, the sort of local school districts that Brown supposedly addressed have rarely become meaningfully integrated. In some respects, the black poor are more hopelessly concentrated in failing urban schools than ever, cut off not only from whites but from the flourishing black middle class. Kozol describes schools run almost like factories or prisons in grim detail. According to Kozol, US Schools are quite quickly becoming functionally segregated. Kozol lists the demographics of a slew of public schools in the states, named after prominent civil rights activists, whose classrooms are upwards of 97% black and Hispanic — in some cases despite being in neighborhoods that are predominantly white. It has been over 50 years since Brown vs. Board of Education. It is sad to read about the state of things today.
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, 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.
To sum everything up, we as a human race are not perfect, nor will we ever make solutions that will satisfy both side of arguments. One lesson we can learn from this research paper, however, is that everyone should have the ability to fully enjoy their Equal Protection Clause under the Fourteenth Amendments. Nonetheless, the development of reverse discrimination, the creation of stigma against women and minorities, the buildup of racial tension, and the fact of attempting to solve a racial problem that no longer exist all contributed to the danger of affirmative action. It may be created with good intentions, but certainly not applicable to our society now if all of us wish to be treated equal.
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.
Payne, Angela R., and Bharat S. Thakkar. "The Hypocrisy Of Affirmative Action: Race And The Labor Market." International Journal Of Innovations In Business 1.4 (2012): 274-292. Business Source Premier. Web. 11 Nov. 2013.
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 ... ...
Tanabe, C. (2009). From the courtroom to the voting booth: Defending affirmative action in higher education. Philosophy of Education Yearbook, 291–300.
Tairo, Mario. "A Critical Look at Affirmative Action - Panorama - TakingITGlobal." A Critical Look at Affirmative Action - Panorama - TakingITGlobal. Taking It Global, 05 Apr. 2005. Web. 01 May 2014.
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....
Stephanopoulos, George, and Christopher Edley, Jr. "Letter to the President." Affirmative Action Review Report to the President. 19 July 1995. 16 Dec. 2002 <http://clinton2.nara.gov/WH/EOP/OP/html/aa/aa-lett.html>
Race and education are two very important topics that seem to have a very great effect on each other. We live in the land of opportunity, and this land provides “The American Dream”. However, the American Dream must come with equal quality education for all people regardless of their race. Education is one of the major obstacles today that stands in the way of giving everyone the same opportunity that they deserve.
Reed, Rodney J. (1983) Affirmative Action in Higher Education: Is It Necessary? The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 52, No. 3, Persistent and Emergent Legal Issues in Education: 1983 Yearbook, 332-349.