News Affirmative Action in Education: Your Views?

[Moonbear]

Indirect discrminitation is a load of crock made up by ACLU lawyers to justify reversing discrmination in favor of minorities. There can be subconscious, or conscious discrimination, but indirect discrimination is bs. You're either the most qualified, or you're not. Period. I don't care if you're white, black, green, blue or purple. You're either qualified or you're not.

That's not true. When you're old enough to be the one hiring people, you'll understand there is a subjective component to hiring, and that's where indirect discrimination can occur. You can look at two people's resumes and say they have the same years of experience in similar jobs and similar degrees and similar GPAs (unless they come from the exact same university and previous employer, you really can't directly compare point for point GPA or experience; we know some universities have more grade-inflation than others), but then when it comes to picking one of those two, you bring them in for an interview. This is where it gets subjective. Which one answered questions better, which one seems like a better fit for the team, which one seemed more comfortable during the interview? These all can be subject to indirect discrimination.

I'm glad to hear that the younger generation isn't seeing so much discrimination, though I'd like to hear from some minorities and women to find out if it is just the white men who don't see it because they aren't the ones experiencing it. If this trend continues, I really do hope there will be a time when affirmative action isn't needed. It's not something I think should be considered permanent or rigid, I think it's something that was meant as a bridge to get people over that moat of discrimination. I do think it's time to consider changes in how affirmative action is used. It may no longer be working for university admissions, and I think it may be hindering progress at this point because it can be used as a crutch rather than forcing people to address the root causes of inequalities in education leading up to that point.

As for the workplace, that older generation who grew up thinking discrimination was the norm is still out there, still making the hiring decisions, and still practicing both direct and indirect discrimination. There's still a lot of those who give the best career advice and opportunities to those who go out with them for martinis and cigars after work. The affirmative action laws keep them on their toes. It's also not true that they only protect the minority and women applicants. We somewhat recently (about a year ago) had an issue where a business manager was hiring for a new assistant, and selected a minority applicant over a white male applicant. Our affirmative action office would not allow an offer to be sent out to the minority applicant because the white male applicant was far better qualified (yes, this was a case of discrimination against the white male applicant by a business manager who was trying to bring in a buddy for a job; the business manager lost his job over it too - in this case, it wasn't a judgement call between too closely qualified applicants, but a case of blatant discrimination). So, before you complain there are no laws to protect white males, that's not true. These laws protect everyone from discrimination.

I think something worth considering for where to refocus affirmative action for university admissions as we tackle more of the overt discrimination in our society is to take into consideration things such as parents' educational background. Even a kid in a lousy school might have a better chance if their parents are well-educated enough to help them along, while someone whose parents didn't even graduate high school, no matter what school they attend, may be facing more of an uphill battle by not having that support at home for their studies. As new generations come up through the schools, we need to look at whether the issues involved in creating laws and admissions policies several decades ago are still relevant today, and adapt those to more modern times.

 

[gravenewworld]

We Have The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 For A Reason. It Makes Discrimination Based On Race, Sex, Religion, Etc. Illegal. Anyone Who Violates This Act Is Breaking The Law And Should Be Punished Accordingly. Aa Goes Directly Against The Civil Rights Act Of 1964, It Violates The Civil Rights Of White Males, By Discriminating Against Them. Aa=legalized Discrimination. WHY DO YOU NEED AA when we already have the civil rights act?

 

[Zlex]

The purpose of anti-discrimination laws is not to reduce hate, or even, to make things more 'ok.' The purpose of anti-discrimination laws is to prepare just plain folks for the coming anti-judgmental laws. If you can somehow be made to feel guilty for seeking the best relationships in business, commerce, employment, or even your personal life, then you can be made to feel guilty for seeking the best value in any phase of your life. And, in the flawed theory of the long dead 19th century German philosophers and their naive One Pie World, that will mean more pie for some who now have less. We are bobbing adrift in the wreckage of those dead 19th century German philosophers, and it is not clear if the species will survive their nonsense. The atavistic Tribal Gene runs deep, and it keeps surfacing in our politics, in spite of our constitution.

Irrational discrimination is clearly its own punishment; but, that is the hook. If we can be made to identify 'irrational discrimination' with 'discrimination' with 'judgment,' then it is not a distant lurch to painting all judgement as 'irrational judgment,' when in fact, judgment is just the tool by which rational folks seek the highest value when confronted with a choice between multiple values. Irrational choices--based totally on skin color, for example, would be their own punishment. However, ruling out otherwise rational choices in the coincidental presenceof skin color is equally as absurd, and provides no feedback with respect to the choices which DO result in values. Which is what makes Affirmative Action a crippling program.

So, as a hypothetical employer, how dare you even ask if a prospective employee is educated, or, what her grades were, or if she is capable at all of carrying out her employment. She says she needs a job, and that is all you need to know. For you to be judgmental, based on her abilities, and to seek the 'best' employee available to you, is a blatent act of 'discrimination' against those less able.

Or, so we must be all trained to think, come The Revolution.

Look at the sad facts of Affirmative Action as a constructivist act to tool society, as if folks were multicolored interchangeable tinker toys and their only important characteristic was their color. Let's face it, when it was implemented, maybe by some with good intentions, the intent was to accelerate the advancement/success of African-Americans and try to make amends for centuries old crimes. And, slavery was a crime; there is no doubt about that. However, the legislation was not written that way; it was written to include all minorities. So, instead of being a program specifically intended to cripple -- I mean, artificially accelerate the advancement of African-Americans, the intended benefactors of this cruelty--I mean, assistance, found themselves in a pool competing with latinos and even, God forbid, orientals. So, employers, eager to meet their Affirmative Action goals and check off the appropriate boxes in their government bid contracts, discriminated within that pool by using their judgment and selecting the best available candidates from within that pool. To the extent that this competition existed, in fact, is what saved the African-Americans who did benefit from the program, but there is no doubt that the program, as a whole, has not turned out to be targeted bonanza that some might have hoped for 30 years ago. When Affirmative Action quotas can be met by hiring any 'minority,' they will. And, we will not hear too much complaining about that, because it would truly sound pathetic, so, we don't. I think--finally-- pride keeps folks from saying, "That one wasn't quite good enough; we need a special program just to cripple us."

 

[Andromeda321]

Here's a problem with affirmative action that few people flat-out talk about but is always implied, and that is dealing with people and legitimacy. Should I, as a female science student, snag an REU there will always be people questioning if I really "deserved it." And whenever someone starts questioning your legitimacy it always degrades you by implication so you're not on the same level as those who "honestly" reached that position.
Since Moonbear asked and, for those unwilling to believe it, let me tell you there still is a lot of subconscious discrimination out there still that can make success for women and minorities difficult. I can refer you to all the studies where two applicants with the same stats but a "black name" and a "white name" are submitted and the "white name" applicant overwhelmingly gets accepted at higher rates, and the same applies for male and female names. Or as the token female in science I can tell you that I always have to prove my legitimacy and intelligence much more than my male counterparts. For example at the beginning of the school year I went up to a physics professor at my university expressing my wish to double major in physics and astro and was overwhelmingly told to pick one because it would be way too difficult. Before I got out of earshot, however, a guy went up wishing to double major in physics and EE (which requires more credit horus to pull off) and was met with nothing but words of encouragment. The professor had never met either of us and all he heard was "hi, my name is blah and I want to do this and that, what would it require?"
With one instance and one situation it doesn't sound too bad but after awhile it can wear a person down when everyone notices you're the one who misses class and people charmingly condescendingly explain to you to not worry over the details and the others will take care of it. Maybe they're just trying to be nice and all but when it comes down to what's important, the final exam, you all get the same one and those who learned the details will score better than those who were told not to worry over them.

 

[relskid]

affirmative action is all that i have going for me, you guys!

i don't really agree with the idea of affirmative action. it gives people the idea that a minority got into that college on the sole fact that he or she is a minority, and not academically qualified. affirmative action turns minorities into slackers (like me) who think that they can get into any college just because of their skin color.

of course, this doesn't apply to every person.

if someone already said something along this lines, i apologize; i didn't read anything of what others said (except for gravenewworld's lovely comment ;)).