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[Lionking]

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[philibusters]

I don't have a strong stance on AA.  It seems okay to be, but a little unfair.  I generally think its the cheap way out.  Whats needed is for more resources to put into disadvantaged social and economic groups.  It seems AA is more a way to mask the problem, making it look like everything is alright because there are a certain amount of X people in this or that, but nothing is really solved because performance does not necessarily improve.  It seems to answer is to not really make any substantive polcies that require scarfice, yet make it look like you are solving the problem.  I think AA is here to stay though because its back by strong political interest groups especially within the democratic party and that its not possibly to fully turn back on, only to help shape its future course. 

[Faure]

I don't have a strong stance on AA.  It seems okay to be, but a little unfair.  I generally think its the cheap way out. 

AA is the cheap way out. I don't think URMs feel like they are less intelligent than non-URMS. If everyone had an equal starting place, I believe that all races would have similar numbers. I teach at a Philadelphia community college that has a lot of kids from disadvantged backgrounds. You wouldn't believe how hard these kids try and how succesfull many of them are despite spending time in some of the worst schools in the country. It's a lot easier to give URMs a few extra points for admissions than it is to fix rundown schools where more time is spent on discipline than education.

[ImVinny!]

"It seems AA is more a way to mask the problem, making it look like everything is alright because there are a certain amount of X people in this or that, but nothing is really solved because performance does not necessarily improve. "


Exactly.

[ImVinny!]

Well, I think that we should get rid of the race box, or even just do it based on socioeconimic status. I think that would get all of the diversity the schools are looking for, and I also think that may go over better in the long run. It seems that AA is not bringing people together, but pushing them further apart.

[angmill08]

I doubt getting rid of the race box would increase diversity.

In the short term I'd advocate giving socio-economic difficulty more weight in admissions.
Long term I advocate turning around failing schools & neighborhoods and promoting racial & economic integration -- this ought to be a very high public priority. This ought to be the responsibility of all US residents --  we should all accept some financial, emotional and physical responsibility for making this happen.

In the meantime, stop gap measures to increase racial integration should be taken... AA, housing set asides, quotas. But these should be limited in scope and duration, and should be subject to a lot of public scrutiny, as AA has been. 

I know some people think it is hypocritical to allow disparate treatment for people of different races in the name of achieving a color blind society. I hear what they are saying, I'm just not that kind of a purist. I accept that these programs are limited in usefulness, but they can have some positive effects in specific times and places.

[lsatlover]

if socio-economic difficulty were the only criteria used, the main beneficiaries would be white dudes, simply because there are a lot more of them.

my guess is you don't really have a problem with AA, just the magnitude of the boost given to some URMs over others.  out of curiosity, why should socioeconomic be given more consideration over personal hardship?

[hammer101]

Phil made some very good points earlier and I agree with many of them.

I also respect where the OP is coming from -- it's much easier to attack the policy than look at solutions. Certainly, doing everything we can to eliminate the inequality gap is a start, but even if we could wave a magic wand and give every minority student access to the best schools, study aids, etc, it wouldn't be enough to correct the problem by itself. There's also an underlying sociological problem.

Most impoverished rural and urban minority communities are influenced by decades of extreme racism and its impact won't disappear overnight. Restoring people's sense of dignity is much more difficult than allocating funds to build new schools, etc., but it's got to be part of a solution -- otherwise, any solution we propose would fail. Eliminating the vicious cycle of misery, victimhood and hopelessness also is essential.

Access to better resources is a start and maybe can help correct it over time. Racial integration can also help with this. Thoughts?

[ImVinny!]

Why would they necessarily ALL be white dudes being helped, I think that the race of the helped individuals would be varied. Then everyone that has some sort of problem getting in can get the extra boost.  Personal hardships would relate to socioeconomic status. Through AA people say that the white person working 40 hours still hasthe home support system, and the black person working 22 hours doesn't so they get the boost. This would help fix that sort of problem i think.

[risingMC]

Alot of this is already repeated above, but anyhow:

- I would put more importance on socio-econ status. It seems like right now it's all about race, with socio-econ status pretty much ignored or only examined among URM candidates. I wouldn't eliminate the race box entirely, but make AA half-race-based and half-based on socio-econ.

- Put more money into the school system. The people who are the main beneficiaries of AA are usually not the type who need that extra boost, and are usually not the type who are going to "go back" to the community to help out (since they weren't from that kind of community to begin with). The basis I have for this is the statistic (from the Mich study? The UVA one? I forget) that almost 80% of AA beneficiaries come from an upper-middle class background.

I think that's it.