AA controversy at CU

[philibusters]

I  looked at her situation from a more favorable pt. of view.

favorable to what, exactly?  your preconceived position on affirmative action?  that would be rather convenient, you'd almost have to admit? 

in your post you admit that there might be quite a few other reasons for her academic shortcomings and yet you still attempt to support your position.

"Who knows, we don't have enough information, but I am inclined to be sympath[etic] to her." 

why are you so inclined?

i would argue that it is because of this inclination that aa is a necessity. 

What are my preconceived notions on affirmative action shaz, I post them all over, have you bothered to read them? Look to my thread "what drives AA" for my position.

I said I don't know the facts of the situation, she is obviously a distraught woman, I simply assumed the facts most favorable to her in trying to understand her story and empathize with her, if I were an adminstrator at CU  and looking into her case I would do more investigating.

Because I going to try to empathize with her AA is a necessity?  That makes lots of sense.

[shaz]

in no way do i see where i come off as inhumane.  i honestly felt that this individual had been given a tremendous gift.  why should i feel sorry for her that she squandered that gift?  what upsets me is the attitude that this individual should be pitied because she was placed into a situation in  which she did not succeed.  this attitude is condescending and assumes that some one is inherently inferior.  that it does not matter if the socio-economic playing field is somewhat balanced; minorities will fail anyway. 

the problem i have is that this individual failed and apparently shirked the responsibility for her failure.  her very arguement is that she was placed into a position where her only course was failure.  i can't accept that.  there are too many examples of minorities who have succeeded against the odds.  her stance is shameful.  it plays into so many stereotypes of racial inferiority.  it just sings "bell-curve" to me.  she really ought to be ashamed.  this is nonsense.  i will not support it with any empathy, because i can't empathize.  failure is a fact of life.  it is how one deals with failue that defines them. 

[dbgirl]

What shaz said.

[philibusters]

maybe inhuman was too strong a word, but definitely a tough perspective. 

I have this problem with AA supporters.  They are so defensive they think everything about AA most be perfect or that they are conceding the entire argument.  Most successful policies have flaws, in fact it might be impossible for a large scope policy not to have a flaw.

AA does a lot of good, it adds diversity to schools, it a lot of times helps disadvantaged people, it keeps the law profession closer to general population at large (by making more urm lawyers who have direct connections to urm communities that might otherwise not ahve any connections lawyers and by making the profession seem less elite), it gives urm political groups a victory in politics and keeps them more in the political process, among many other good things it does.

However, I don't agree its perfect like some of its defenders on this board believe. Sometimes two of the above mentioned goals will conflict for example 1)producing more urm lawyers and 2) helping disadvantaged people.  I think its a joke to say that AA personally helped this girl, she is f*cking depressed, lost confidence, et cetera.  You are right to say lots of AA admits do well in law school, but this girl didn't.

 To me this just confirms the notion mentioned in my other posts that AA is more about social and political factors than helping individuals.  Like other polices AA can be tweaked to make it even more efficient, but I do think this girl was part of a large systematic process and that she probably somewhat got f*cked by the process (though again I do not know the facts), and has a legitimate gripe beneath the complaining.

[dbgirl]

A lot of people don't do well in law school, period. Some people lack the discipline to do well.
This is not an example of the failure of AA. This is an example of a person who screwed up and wants to blame someone else.