Poll - If you were given URM advantage, would you take it?

[If you were given URM advantage, would you take it?]

If you were given URM advantage, would you take it?

Yes

No

[WoeIsMe]

i deleted my post...  when someone posed the question:  If you could permanently become a URM to get URM benefits, would you?  it puts things into perspective.

[TheZooker]

i deleted my post...  when someone posed the question:  If you could permanently become a URM to get URM benefits, would you?  it puts things into perspective.

I agree with this.  Now THAT is an interesting question.

Conversely, I would also ask if people who are URMs would trade their "benefits" to become non-URM and leave behind the associated professional racism.

Interesting story about professional racism:

The hiring rep from GE came to my engineering department while I was working in the departmental office.  He was looking for interns (these internships are well paid, and seen as fairly prestigious in many engineering circles), and he asked for a list of all the black candidates in the department.  There were something like 11, out of about 200 students (pretty low numbers, huh?).  He then proceeded, without any knowledge of grades, to call all of them for interviews.  He hired 5 of them.  There were 8 positions total.

I found out later that Hiring reps are given, in this case, a $1000 bonus for minority hires.  I will let the story speak for itself.  Draw your own conclusions.

[One Step Ahead]

Interesting story about professional racism:

The hiring rep from GE came to my engineering department while I was working in the departmental office.  He was looking for interns (these internships are well paid, and seen as fairly prestigious in many engineering circles), and he asked for a list of all the black candidates in the department.  There were something like 11, out of about 200 students (pretty low numbers, huh?).  He then proceeded, without any knowledge of grades, to call all of them for interviews.  He hired 5 of them.  There were 8 positions total.

I found out later that Hiring reps are given, in this case, a $1000 bonus for minority hires.  I will let the story speak for itself.  Draw your own conclusions.

That seems like quite an abuse of affirmative action policy! That policy with the personal financial gain is incredibly sketchy. Surely you don't think this is justification for getting rid of all race-based affirmative action, because of one lousy system that allowed abuse by an unscrupulous employee?

of course he does. 

edit: nevermind, these threads are getting trite

[TheZooker]

No, Mobell, I don't think it invalidates the entire premise.  And, to etruman, I cannot substantiate the payment, that I heard third hand.  I can vouch for the hiring rates, and I really don't care if you don't believe me.

I bring up the story to show the abuse inherently enabled by the current system.  I am, contrary to some countervailing opinions, not entirely anti-AA.  I am very wary, however, of a) the division it causes, and b) the true benefits of this policy to those it is meant to help.

I was originally for a solely SES based policy, but I'm starting to rethink that a little bit.  BigTex had a good post about this topic.  Regardless, while entirely too much of this discussion is too personalized and at times hurtful, I have found value in a few of the posts I've read.  I congtatulate many of the minority posters for their tolerance of the more extreme opinions that have been voice.

[TheZooker]

I definitely agree about the potential for abuse in any given system of preference.  It seems that there will always be people at the margins that will be given the shortest shrift.  I guess we have to just move forward for the greater good in spite of those individual setbacks.

Have you read over the study that I linked to earlier, by Professor Sander?  I think you'd find it very interesting, it raises some valid concernt about the negative aspects of these policies to the minority groups involved.

[One Step Ahead]

Zooker, apparently sarcasm doesn't play over well on this board--my apologies.

I read over the article that you displayed (actually I had read it before you posted it).  I'm not convinced by the conclusions drawn from his research for a number of reasons.  If you actually want to discuss them in a civilized manner I'd be up for it- not today though because I've reached my tolerance point for AA crap discussions.

[Trevor]

It's not necessarily hypocritical to oppose granting URM status while being willing to accept it if offered.  It's perfectly consistent to hold that whatever the rule smay happen to be, one should seek to maximize one's returns under them, even if one doesn't agree with every rule.

It doesn't work that way.

If you say you oppose URM favoritism, for anyone - It would be hypocritical if you then took a URM admission.

If you say you oppose URM favoritism, for others, but would take it if it were offered to you - In this case it would not be hypocritical to take a URM admission. Of course no one would listen to such a clearly self-serving opinion.

If you say the first, but believe the second, then you are a devious liar. You would be described using far worst adjectives than hypocritical.

It would be hypocritical if you could actually deny such preferences to everyone else while reserving them for yourself, but the average applicant isn't in that position.  It's perfectly reasonable to decide to be as competitive as possible within the rules, while harboring a few disagreements about what those rules should be.  YOu guys seem to rejecting this principle in its entirety.  Maybe you could argue that AA is a special case, and then I'd be willing to listen, but your position of "If you think that a certain system of rewards is unfair, you may not attempt to take advantage of it" doesn't look tenable.

In a few of the fuzzier classes I've taken, extra credit is offered.  If it was up to me, no class would offer extra credit, and students would only be judged on the actual required coursework.  But if it's there, I'm going to take advantage of it, rather than put myself at a competitive disadvantage.  If it helps to understand where I'm coming from, I'm trying to generalize to AA from less emotionally-charged analogues, where my intuitions about these things will hopefully be less affected by political reflexes.

[goodadvice (account resigned)]

Hypocrisy is based on what you say, it doesn't need enforcement. In your examples, you're confusing hypocricy with other unrelated ideas. Here is the  definition of hypocrisy.

hy·poc·ri·sy   Pronunciation Key  (h-pkr-s)
n. pl. hy·poc·ri·sies
1. The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
2. An act or instance of such falseness.

If you tell me which of the following describe you, I can tell you if it would be hypocritical of you to take a URM admission.

1. Do you say you oppose URM favoritism, for anyone?

2. Do you oppose URM favoritism, for others, but would take it if it were offered to you?

3. Do you profess #1 but would really act based on #2?

[Trevor]

Right.  The beliefs are:

(1) Candidtates should avail themselves of every competitive advantage a system offers

(2) Competitive advantages based on ethnicity should not be offered

Maybe you'd like to argue that these beliefs are necessarily inconsistent, perhaps by invoking a principle like the one above.  But a person who publicly affirms both of them, and then acts accordingly, is no hypocrite.

[goodadvice (account resigned)]

Your ideas are confused and I'll prove it.

If you're saying competitive advantage based on race should not be offered to anyone, but if it were offered to you, you would take it. That would not be hypocritical by itself. However, it would be hypocritical if you then criticize any URM who takes advantage of race based favoritism.

So which is it? Or is it something else? You need to precisely define your position before we can judge its hypocrisy.