Be honest URMs: why does race-blind admissions really bother you?

[kman999]

Law schools may take socioeconomic status into account, but when it comes to measuring diversity, various publications do not care about that status.  A schools diversity will be measured by the number of x race, y race, and z race in each class.  Thus, one cannot help but assume that race is going to be weighted far more heavily(and unfairly) than socioeconomic status and so forth. 

[Miss P]

Law schools may take socioeconomic status into account, but when it comes to measuring diversity, various publications do not care about that status.  A schools diversity will be measured by the number of x race, y race, and z race in each class.  Thus, one cannot help but assume that race is going to be weighted far more heavily(and unfairly) than socioeconomic status and so forth. 

I imagine that the "booster" effect of diversity statistics is somewhat mitigated by very divided public opinion about race-based affirmative action, including active hostility from many alumni.  Schools also get to publicize rags-to-riches stories, particularly in the form of scholarships for students who are the first in their families to attend college or graduate school (e.g., An-Bryce at NYU) and features in alumni magazines.  There is a real incentive to make law schools socioeconomically diverse, even if schools' reluctance to fund more students largely wins out in the end.

[SwEep]

Actually, I'm urm, and it doesn't bother me at all.  I sincerely doubt it bothers any qualified urms.

Just had to mock the other ridiculous, self-justifying urm poster with the dumb thread title.

i somehow couldn't agree more. I am a URM but not the kind that gets the bump in the line. i dont have problems with AA as long as it doesn't work against me, but being a well represented minority, i can't help but express how mistreated i feel. i take the same crap from the society as other traditional minorities but don't get the same benefit.

[CTL]

Actually, I'm urm, and it doesn't bother me at all.  I sincerely doubt it bothers any qualified urms.

Just had to mock the other ridiculous, self-justifying urm poster with the dumb thread title.

i somehow couldn't agree more. I am a URM but not the kind that gets the bump in the line. i dont have problems with AA as long as it doesn't work against me, but being a well represented minority, i can't help but express how mistreated i feel. i take the same crap from the society as other traditional minorities but don't get the same benefit.

That is pretty crappy actually.

[naturallybeyoutiful]

Q: Be honest URMs: why does race-blind admissions really bother you?
A: Because neither you nor anyone else in this nation is or ever will be race-blind. 

Q: Why do you insist upon/tolerate race-consciousness in ***every*** sphere that influences preparation for/access to competitive opportunities for advancement in this country except in the cases where such a practice allegedly doesn't inure to your benefit?  Are you as ardent an opponent against race-conscious housing?  race-conscious schooling?  race-conscious health care?  race-conscious employment opportunities?  race-conscious law enforcement?  race-conscious lending practices?  race conscious advertising and marketing?  race-conscious profiling?  race-conscious stereotyping?  race-conscious services provision?  race-conscious politics?  race-conscious [fill in anything that matters to you]?


Random musings:
As for all this talk about the NBA and the like, do us all a favor and go read "Forty Million Dollar Slaves."  Then perhaps we can have a real discussion on the issue.

I would once, just once like to meet an AA-opponent who is deeply invested and personally committed to racial justice and and the elimination of racial disparities that give the average white person a perhaps unsolicited, but still undeserved advantage of the average black person in this country.

Forget race-blindness.  Where is my forty acres and a mule? 

[Ninja1]

You know damn good and well why it bothers them (the unqualified ones, anyway), though I'd say "scares" is probably more accurate.

[Kirk Lazarus]

You know damn good and well why it bothers them (the unqualified ones, anyway), though I'd say "scares" is probably more accurate.

if you get in, you're qualified. Schools have way more qualified applicants than they have spots for admission. Anti-AA people think that only the best numerically qualified applicants are qualified which is the dumbest thing ever. It is part of the reason why their merit arguments always fail to gain traction because they can never prove that a particular applicant is unqualified.

[LawDog3]

School admission MUST be based on academic excellence, not one's skin color. If we all have the same brain, why shouldn't all of us perform well in school? The implications of AA are much greater than some think. Minorities should be ashamed to expect to get by because they are under-represented, instead strive for excellence so you can COMPETE with your white counterparts. Why isn't there AA for white in NFL or NBA recruitment? By the way, I'm black. 

LOL!

Yeah because nutrition, poverty, racism, sexism, crappy schools, lack of resources, violence all have nothing to do with performance.

To some this might be a revelation: other  races are poor, malnourished, sexually discriminated against, go to "crappy schools," "lack resources," and live in violent neighborhoods too. These are all socio-economic issues, not racial issues. A  white and black kid from inner city Detroit or Baltimore, Maryland are equally disadvantaged. If socio-economic factors hinder performance, then let us make AA for all races; no wonder whites and Asian students are beginning to check "black" in their applications. Go figure! By the way, I'm black.

Naive! The fact is, skin-color (more specifically, white skin color) confers advantages that continue to go unacknowledged by whites. Morever, the disadvantages dark skin color imposes exacts a stressful toll on people of color that has real consequences in terms of physical and mental health, and the ability to expend mental and emotional capabilities otherwise. A poor white person does not deal with some key disadvantages imposed on Blacks and other people of color.

I just finished reading an LSD thread called "HIV+", where someone questioned the OP's ability to withstand the rigors of law school due to the toll the stress would exact on her body, weakening the OP's immune system. If whites can lend credence to this theory, they should be able to accept that being unnecessarily followed by police or security, or receiving rude treatment in basically 1/2 of every customer-service-related endeavor (restaurant patron, etc) also has deleterious effects on ones health over time.

Thus, the absence of these concerns and social hindrances enables one to live his/her life unfettered. With social, economic, political, and institutional constructs that create and maintain inequities in the educational system, promote employment discrimination, enact sentencing disparaties and racist lending practices, and fail to police the systematic infiltration of drugs into neighborhoods inhabited by people of color, skin color differences deprive ethnic minorities of enfranchisement and, by extension, provide whites with great priviledges because the institutions that commit these injustices serve to more firmly entrench the disparaties in enfranchisement and even contribute to white wealth.

[LawDog3]

I may be in the "minority", here (excuse the pun), but I believe admissions is already as race-blind as fairly possible. No one successfully tells adcoms, "My 2.2 GPA and 140 LSAT are all because I'm Mexican; for this reason, I deserve to go to Harvard." It's just that there are certain unmistakable traits and experiences that go hand-in-hand with growing up in urban areas - or growing up Black/Hispanic in suburban areas - and these traits and experiences are given merit by adcoms. Good for them! They get it!

I don't have to tell someone I'm Black. I can tell them that I grew up dodging bullets, getting followed by police and getting called racial slurs, and that I avoided gangs because of a really prominent former athlete who mentored several youth, including me.

If I am a middle-class suburban Black guy, I can avoid mentioning race and just tell adcoms how I was called racial slurs throughout elementary school, how teachers more harshly punished me for playground fights, and how a teacher once nicknamed me "Stupid Steward" and called me that name in front of peers during my entire fourth grade year. I can describe the difficulties my perents had getting along with our neighbors and how a cross was burned on our lawn, similar to many repeated events that forced me to change schools eight times before I was in high school.

I can do all of this without mentioning race...would it make a difference? The fact is that race is a part of anyone's experience in this country, whether we like it or not. Pretending will not make it go away. People of color transcend their difficulties not by exploiting their ethnicities, but in spite of their ethnicities. We show our resilience by keeping forward, despite living in a system that was not designed for us.

That is why admissions committees get excited over a URM with slightly lower numbers. They know what it took for this person to reach the same point you have.

Besides, nothing is really "blind" in admissions. Higher grades and test scores do not equate to "more qualified", something many whites and Asians are just unwilling to accept.

[LawDog3]

More: not all people of color have grown up in the hood or have been called racial slurs to their faces on a regular basis. A URM with the most cushy life has still been disadvantaged compared to a white guy.

Like Chris Rock said at one of his concerts: "Not one white dude in here would even trade places with ME...and I'm rich! That's how good it is to be white in America."

White people who deny the existence of "white priviledge" are either evil barbarians or incredibly naive...gottabe one or the other.