Where is the outrage over these numbers?

[Captain]

     Here are some telling numbers about legacy students and their acceptance to a few top universities across the nation.  At UPenn the overall acceptance rate is 21% the acceptance rate for legacy is 41%.  At Princeton the overall acceptance rate is 11%, the rate for legacy is 35%.  At Stanford the overall rate is 13% where as the legacy rate is 25%.  At Harvard the overall acceptance rate is 11% but the acceptance rate for legacy is 40%.  Why aren't people complaining about this?  Is it because the primary beneficiaries of this type of affirmative action are White?  I do not want to belive that is it but unfortunately I think that is the sad truth.

Technically, Legacy admissions isn't AA. Private schools do this as a favor to their Alumni -- who provide them direct financial benefits. Without Alumni contributions, many private schools would not exist (and lets not forget that black kids are legacies too -- moreso now than ever). People don't complain about this because it is one of the many reasons WHY you want to get into Harvard. I went to a good school, and even if my kid doesn't score as well on the SAT, I can probably get him into that good school as well.

Since the late 1960s there has been a definite back lash against Blacks and Civil Rights.  Nixon's successful Southern Strategy demonized Black Americans and the "activist judges" who enforced Civil Rights legislation.  Since then the progress of the 1960s has been rolled back gradually.  Affirmative action has lasted 40 years but it has been badly battered and bruised.  It's attackers hide behind ideas of fairness and eqaulity, not realizing that AA leads to just that.  Before the implementation of AA Blacks made up less then 5% of the college population.  By 1990 that percentage swelled to 12%, the percentage they held in the general population.

So the percentage increased DESPITE the battering?

The Black middle class continues to grow exponentially and Black representation in top professions is growing.

The black middle class will continue to grow, and those individuals' existence and success will aid in continuing that expansion.

AA works, plain and simple.  With numbers out on the disparity between Black and White males, however, it is painfully clear that we still have some work to do.  I would like to reach out to White opponents out there and ask them to think critically about the policy.  It is not as prevelant as you think it is.  It doesn't make much difference in the admissions process.

AA is a school-by-school thing. My UG until very recently, didn't practice any form of AA -- we weren't very diverse. However, we were a lot more diverse than peer (catholic) institutions. Part of the reason that we didn't have many black students (we did well at recruiting Latino students), was BECAUSE of that reputation -- minority applications were low. I spoke once with a non-trad. black student in one of my night classes, and he said he was literally afraid to come to our campus because we had a reputation for being "vanilla."

My point? Some schools aren't diverse for reasons other than their admissions standards. A HUGE percentage and swath of the white population applies to college. Do black students apply at the same rates? No. In fact, many of the black applicants are middle-class (or wealthy), and had all of the same advantages of their white counterparts.

It does NOT just benefit Blacks or Hispanics but those with different ideological perspectives, geographic backgrounds, legacy students, and many more.

Affirmative action benefits minorities. Legacy admissions benefits ALL legacies (including the children of minority alumni).

[n/a]

Jesus christ, this forum sucks... find something else to complain about... like how bad this forum is, for example.

[nick1]

I avoid this board for months at a time, largely because most people here have no clue about law school... or about anything, for that matter.. and it's not worth attempting to set people straight when they're so convinced that they've got the gospel. 

It is much easier to attend an 'elite' law school when coming from an elite undergraduate institution... as opposed to... say.. CUNY.. or Mississippi State.

I'm amazed by how much bull some people spew.  All you have to do to verify this contention is go look up the number of students by undergraduate institution at various top law schools.  Pretty simple, really.  Elite schools feed elite schools.  Most top schools publish this data, and often express great pride in the fact that Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Princeton, etc... are their top feeder schools.   

[nick1]

Exacty. Guess Princeton doesn't matter.

[EEtoJD]

I avoid this board for months at a time, largely because most people here have no clue about law school... or about anything, for that matter.. and it's not worth attempting to set people straight when they're so convinced that they've got the gospel. 

It is much easier to attend an 'elite' law school when coming from an elite undergraduate institution... as opposed to... say.. CUNY.. or Mississippi State.

I'm amazed by how much bull some people spew.  All you have to do to verify this contention is go look up the number of students by undergraduate institution at various top law schools.  Pretty simple, really.  Elite schools feed elite schools.  Most top schools publish this data, and often express great pride in the fact that Harvard, Yale, Michigan, Princeton, etc... are their top feeder schools.   

It's true that more people who attend "elite" UG schools attend top law schools as opposed to lower-ranked schools. But it is just because it's easier for them? Sure, that's a factor. But don't you think more people from those schools (a) apply to top schools and (b) choose to go to law school?

In all the statistics I've seen, your UG school appears to be a soft factor that comes into play when you're on the bubble.

BTW, this is just speculation because I don't know anything about law school.