5 Responses

1. Evan Nichols

   19|Nov|2009 1

   And no one can nag because there is no affirmative action category!

2. Brendan Campbell

   19|Nov|2009 2

   And just like that, there is.

3. Evan Nichols

   19|Nov|2009 3

   Thanks!

4. Kaitlin Henry

   19|Nov|2009 4

   I don’t like the thought of affirmative action when it’s based only on race. It seems more insulting than anything else to say, Because you’re ____, we’re going to assume you’re financially disadvantaged and didn’t receive a quality secondary education.

   Anyone from a poorer area–regardless of race–might be less able to compete academically with students from wealthier areas. Affirmative action should be based only on what a student’s socio-economic background actually is. Anything else almost seems like racial stereotyping.

5. Jared Wilde

   19|Nov|2009 5

   Hey I found a cool site that helps out….

   Myth 5: A large percentage of White workers will lose out if affirmative action is continued.

   Government statistics do not support this myth. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, there are 1.3 million unemployed Black civilians and 112 million employed White civilians (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). Thus, even if every unemployed Black worker in the United States were to displace a White worker, only 1% of Whites would be affected. Furthermore, affirmative action pertains only to job-qualified applicants, so the actual percentage of affected Whites would be a fraction of 1%. The main sources of job loss among White workers have to do with factory relocations and labor contracting outside the United States, computerization and automation, and corporate downsizing (Ivins, 1995).

   Myth 6: If Jewish people and Asian Americans can rapidly advance economically, African Americans should be able to do the same.

   This comparison ignores the unique history of discrimination against Black people in America. As historian Roger Wilkins has pointed out, Blacks have a 375-year history on this continent: 245 involving slavery, 100 involving legalized discrimination, and only 30 involving anything else (Wilkins, 1995). Jews and Asians, on the other hand, are populations that immigrated to North America and included doctors, lawyers, professors, and entrepreneurs among their ranks. Moreover, European Jews are able to function as part of the White majority. To expect Blacks to show the same upward mobility as Jews and Asians is to deny the historical and social reality that Black people face.

   Myth 7: You can’t cure discrimination with discrimination.

   The problem with this myth is that it uses the same word — discrimination — to describe two very different things. Job discrimination is grounded in prejudice and exclusion, whereas affirmative action is an effort to overcome prejudicial treatment through inclusion. The most effective way to cure society of exclusionary practices is to make special efforts at inclusion, which is exactly what affirmative action does. The logic of affirmative action is no different than the logic of treating a nutritional deficiency with vitamin supplements. For a healthy person, high doses of vitamin supplements may be unnecessary or even harmful, but for a person whose system is out of balance, supplements are an efficient way to restore the body’s balance.

   Myth 10: Support for affirmative action means support for preferential selection procedures that favor unqualified candidates over qualified candidates.

   Actually, most supporters of affirmative action oppose this type of preferential selection. Preferential selection procedures can be ordered along the following continuum:

   1. Selection among equally qualified candidates. The mildest form of affirmative action selection occurs when a female or minority candidate is chosen from a pool of equally qualified applicants (e.g., students with identical college entrance scores). Survey research suggests that three-quarters of the public does not see this type of affirmative action as discriminatory (Roper Center for Public Opinion, 1995e).

   2. Selection among comparable candidates. A somewhat stronger form occurs when female or minority candidates are roughly comparable to other candidates (e.g., their college entrance scores are lower, but not by a significant amount). The logic here is similar to the logic of selecting among equally qualified candidates; all that is needed is an understanding that, for example, predictions based on an SAT score of 620 are virtually indistinguishable from predictions based on an SAT score of 630.

   3. Selection among unequal candidates. A still stronger form of affirmative action occurs when qualified female or minority candidates are chosen over candidates whose records are better by a substantial amount.

   4. Selection among qualified and unqualified candidates. The strongest form of preferential selection occurs when unqualified female or minority members are chosen over other candidates who are qualified. Although affirmative action is sometimes mistakenly equated with this form of preferential treatment, federal regulations explicitly prohibit affirmative action programs in which unqualified or unneeded employees are hired (Bureau of National Affairs, 1979).

   Even though these selection procedures occasionally blend into one another (due in part to the difficulty of comparing incommensurable records), a few general observations can be made. First, of the four different procedures, the selection of women and minority members among equal or roughly comparable candidates has the greatest public support, adheres most closely to popular conceptions of fairness, and reduces the chances that affirmative action beneficiaries will be perceived as unqualified or undeserving (Kravitz & Platania, 1993; Nacoste, 1985; Turner & Pratkanis, 1994). Second, the selection of women and minority members among unequal candidates — used routinely in college admissions — has deeply divided the nation (with the strongest opposition coming from White males and conservative voters.) And finally, the selection of unqualified candidates is not permitted under federal affirmative action guidelines and should not be equated with legal forms of affirmative action. By distinguishing among these four different selection procedures, it becomes clear that opposition to stronger selection procedures need not imply opposition to milder ones.

   So as this site points out (here’s the link http://www.understandingprejudice.org/readroom/articles/affirm.htm) due to the long history of racism and segregation in society we need to use all available means possible to advance the people willing to do the work. According to federal law it is illegal to hire unqualified people. And I believe that INSTEAD of being against affirmative action altogether we need to advocate for minority selection among EQUALLY qualified candidates and abandon the other more extreme forms of affirmative action. Without this policy Michigan has suffered a drop in minority enrollment across the board from 2005-2009 after the ban and Wayne State Medical School which was hailed nationwide as the school that educated the most black doctors out of all public universities suffered a 64% drop in minority enrollment during these 4 years.

   So to answer your question as with all issues yes and no on affirmative action. We need to take a middle ground. Monitor admissions processes more strictly and hiring decisions so that when candidates are equal we accept the minority to have a more diverse/inclusive society and reverse our previous wrongs but at the same time not favor someone less qualified.