25 replies to this topic

[djharkavy]

tycoonboy388, on Apr 29 2007, 01:53 AM, said:

Affirmative action is a very testy subject. On one side of the argument, such policies might hurt some people who have faced struggles not related to their skin color, while rewarding priviledged people of underrepresented groups. The other side is then getting rid of these policies, and seeing minority presence vanish entirely. I'd like to believe that there is a happy medium between the two policies, between rewarding racist thought and becoming an exclusive society with minorities being marginalized.

Then affirmative action should be focused less on skin color (or other ethnic backgrounds) and more on the factors that actually will affect their success.

But where it is supported, it doesn't. It is purely racial in tone.

At one point, I was working in Buffalo, NY as a temporary teacher. There were quite a few temporary teachers at that time, because a judge had decreed that the proportion of minority teachers was too low. As a result, minority teachers were hired on a permanent basis, even if they didn't pass qualifying exams (subject to them eventually passing those exams, which they were allowed to re-take multiple times), whereas non-minority teachers were hired temporarily, and not allowed to be hired even on a temporary basis, if they did not pass the exams.

The economic and educational backgrounds of the teachers, minority or otherwise were not taken into account. The fact that minorities at the time were a smaller percentage of the teaching pool than they were in the general population was not taken into account. All that mattered was the racial make-up.

To me, that is insulting to the minorities hired. You don't need to be good enough, because you aren't expected to be good enough.

Were it me, I would rather get my job because I was qualified than because I managed to meet some column on a color chart.

And the entire policy is racist to me, unless it is economically (or some similar measurable factor), rather than racially based.

For the record, I am in favor of programs that give the disadvantaged the skills that they need to compete in college and in the outside world. I am not in favor of programs that give the disadvantaged positions that they are not qualified for, even if it is to 'level the playing field' because in the end, you do neither the person who is given the position, nor the person offering the position any favors in doing so.

Edited by djharkavy, 29 April 2007 - 01:35 AM.

[tycoonboy388]

djharkavy, on Apr 29 2007, 01:31 AM, said:

For the record, I am in favor of programs that give the disadvantaged the skills that they need to compete in college and in the outside world. I am not in favor of programs that give the disadvantaged positions that they are not qualified for, even if it is to 'level the playing field' because in the end, you do neither the person who is given the position, nor the person offering the position any favors in doing so.

While I have not lived as long or as rich of a life as you have, Mr. Harkavy, I have never encountered an affirmative action program like the one you described above. It sounds most similar to the ones that were prematurely created in the 70's or 80's (in the earlier days of affirmative action programs), and have subsequently been replaced by programs that take more into account than just racial makeup, and actually try to counter past economic and social discrimination rather than just rewarding people for certain genetic traits. Obviously as I have not entered the workforce yet, I cannot be totally sure, but in college academia, I don't believe such a blatant affirmative action program exists anywhere in this country.

[djharkavy]

tycoonboy388, on Apr 29 2007, 11:35 AM, said:

While I have not lived as long or as rich of a life as you have, Mr. Harkavy, I have never encountered an affirmative action program like the one you described above. It sounds most similar to the ones that were prematurely created in the 70's or 80's (in the earlier days of affirmative action programs), and have subsequently been replaced by programs that take more into account than just racial makeup, and actually try to counter past economic and social discrimination rather than just rewarding people for certain genetic traits. Obviously as I have not entered the workforce yet, I cannot be totally sure, but in college academia, I don't believe such a blatant affirmative action program exists anywhere in this country.

I do have to admit that I haven't dealt with such programs in years. But every program that I read about deals with race and diversity and not with economics or other hardships.

[tightjeans]

ill be honest, i dont know who i'll vote for. i'll be a registered democrat, but in the presidential election i might vote republican (if Giuliani wins the republican primary.) for the primary, however, i will probably vote for Bill Richardson. Joe Biden annoys me, and after seeing him on meet the press i like him even less. i dont support clinton's and obama's universal healthcare plans. i want a candidate not only based on the iraq war, but someone who i agree with on social issues. Giuliani supports gay rights. He does not want to ban abortion, even though he had to do a bit of flip flopping to pander to the republican base. and this guy has guts; he went after crime in new york and he wasn't afraid to do it. lastly, i like a guy whos not so clean cut. while i dont personally like that he had an affair, in my opinion that will not affect his job and choices and people can get off of this high horse that they are on when it comes to president and what they see as "morality."

[jbarron]

tycoonboy388, on Apr 29 2007, 10:35 AM, said:

While I have not lived as long or as rich of a life as you have, Mr. Harkavy, I have never encountered an affirmative action program like the one you described above. It sounds most similar to the ones that were prematurely created in the 70's or 80's (in the earlier days of affirmative action programs), and have subsequently been replaced by programs that take more into account than just racial makeup, and actually try to counter past economic and social discrimination rather than just rewarding people for certain genetic traits. Obviously as I have not entered the workforce yet, I cannot be totally sure, but in college academia, I don't believe such a blatant affirmative action program exists anywhere in this country.

You're right, legally speaking. The Supreme Court has ruled that affirmative action programs must be individualized, and quota systems are unconstitutional. The two recent Univ of Michigan cases expressed this: the undergraduate school's program gave X points to a candidate if they were a member of a underrepresented minority group--this is not allowed because it doesn't look to the individual at all and just gives people points for being a certain color. The law school had a different program: they looked at each candidate as a whole, and considered their race as only a piece (with no set point value) of the whole. The court ruled that this is constitutional. So, in other words, if you have two candidates and you they both meet your requirements, but you can only take one, you can take the one that is a minority because it will further diversity in your school. Most people would agree that diversity is a good thing, and the Court has basically said that you've got to do it the hard way and consider every single person as an individual, and not take the easy by reserving 10% of the seats or giving 20 bonus points to people just for being a certain color.

Of course, this all changed when the voters of Michigan passed a law outlawing affirmative action. From what I have read, the University has decided to use a program that looks to the "background" of each applicant, as in hometown, high school, etc. and the economic situations in those places. Supposedly this will allow them to achieve diversity without actually considering the race of the applicants.

My personal take: if you read the nytimes article about kids not getting into havard, you understand how arbitrary the process is. Harvard gets tons of kids who are valedictorians, or perfect SATs, or whatever. Colleges, especially top ones, don't want to just take the people with the highest test scores--you don't need high test scores to do well once you're there, so they take some high scorers, but also some low (ok, middle-to-high) scorers, like maybe some kid because he's from Alaska, and hey, who doesn't think it's cool that one of your classmates is from Alaska? Or they'll take someone else with good, but not great scores, because he's an athlete, or because he grew up overseas and has lived in 10 different countries and has lots of great stories to tell. It's all about a balance, and college admissions want a balance of rich/poor, urban/rural, east coast/west coast, white/black, etc. Of course if your scores are way outside the range, you're not going to get in (colleges want to keep their numbers up) but it would be pointless for an elite college to just rank everyone by stats and then take the first 1,000 or so. You want an english class to have a lively discussion, which you're not going to get if everyone is some private school, Kaplan-prepped rich kid who had the perfect SAT, GPA, and extracurriculars. You want diversity of people, including people of different ethnic groups who bring different perspectives.

-jbarron

[z2z007]

I have a few questions for tightjeans...

1. Why not support Clinton's and Obama's universal health plans? (I'm not disagreeing. I'm just curious.)
2. When you say Giuliani went after crime in NYC, what do you think of Giuliani's prior knowledge of Kerik's ties to a company that was connected organized crime? (See: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/30/us/polit...8f&ei=5070)