Why Does Affirmative Action need Justification?

[Lerting]

It's not a matter of who has a right to a spot, it is a matter of who deserves a spot.  A person with better credentials deserves a spot more than someone who's aren't as good.  I still for the life of me can't understand how anyone could justify letting an individual who isn't as qualified to take a spot while there are more qualified people who don't have that spot.

Also, you talk about people with great soft factors getting in, and that's great, but they've actually accomplished something.  Being born into a certain race isn't accomplishing something.  It doesn't add to your character at all really, no matter what race your born into.  Character is actions you've taken (or in some cases not taken). 

I have a couple of questions.  How is it determined who deserves a spot?  Do legacies deserve their spots?  If it is just a matter of LSAT and GPA, everyone with the highest LSAT and GPA would always get into every school and even white people with slightly lower LSATs and GPAs would not deserve to get in.  It is interesting that I never see the anti-AA people making the argument that those white students dont deserve to be there. 

is the legacy argument the best the pro-aa crowd can come up with? you know why we don't make the argument that whites with far below median lsats don't deserve to be there, because they don't get in. harvard didnt admit any white with lower than a 168 this cycle according to lsn which i tend to believe more than h4cs's self serving anecdote.

[Lerting]

I have a couple of questions.  How is it determined who deserves a spot?  Do legacies deserve their spots?  If it is just a matter of LSAT and GPA, everyone with the highest LSAT and GPA would always get into every school and even white people with slightly lower LSATs and GPAs would not deserve to get in.  It is interesting that I never see the anti-AA people making the argument that those white students dont deserve to be there. 

Well, LP, you're of course rubbing against one of the deeper underlying problems here; that many of those that oppose AA don't like that what they have is not what adcoms want and are essentially arguing that their perceived strengths should be all that is considered in this process.  I call it the Googler theory of AA.

It's hilarious when you realize that in many cases as these people are often just frat-types who coasted their way through just-slight-more-that-minimum coarseloads while boasting how easy it was to study at the last minute to get a B+ without doing any work.  Or they "had a bad freshman year" which is used as an excuse to explain poor performance without taking repsonsibility for it.  Instead of blaming themselves for not doing better, they're scapegoating.  They want to decide who "deserves" a spot and it's them and them alone.  I think this describes about 2/3 of the opposition to AA that we've seen in this thread and on this board in general.

and blacks explain their crappy gpas and crappy lsats on institutional racism and the slavery bull. never their own laziness.

[Lerting]

FWIW, I'm saddled with the cruel burden of cruising through anti-AA threads repeating myself ad infinitum. Let's wind it up again, and hope it registers with someone ...

Admissions committees do not exist to reward your merit. Their job is not to pat you on the head and give you blue ribbons because you "deserve" them. Their job, actually, has very little to do with you: they seek to assemble the best possible class for their college, according to whatever criteria strike them as reasonable.

Most will want a class that is ethnically and economically diverse; therefore, they might even reject "more qualified" whites for "less qualified" URMs. Note the quotation marks: anti-AA people always use their own arbitrary definitions of "qualified" here; unsurprisingly, these are numbers-based and convenient to their argument. This is a red herring.

The only true and meaningful definition of "qualified" in this instance is not what YOU think it is, it's what THEY think it is. If someone was admitted in your place, then by definition they are MORE QUALIFIED in this sense. You may not agree that admissions should look beyond LSAT, or whatever, but too bad.

Admissions isn't about YOU, or making you feel good, or rewarding your achievements. If you don't offer what the school wants, too bad. You were playing the wrong game.

Besides, plenty -- a majority, indeed -- of non-URMs are admitted to these classes every year. Why are you so viciously resentful of the URMs, then? Why not kick yourself for being beaten by an entire CLASS of non-URMs? After all, they kicked your ass royally, fair and square. Sucks, doesn't it?

Repeat after me: "I didn't make the cut."

Say it over, like a mantra. You're just not good enough.

Believe that. It's manifestly true.

Now, what was your problem with AA again?

my god, did you manage to break a 155? your reasoning skills are beyond hopeless. you are not making a logical argument. all youre doing is saying that the admissions policies are justified because they are. it's about judging whether what they're doing is right.

[aerynn]

In general, anti-AA venom-spitters are slighted white males whose easy-ride lifestyle was relied upon to pave the way silently for their success. When these bitter little narcissists hit a wall -- a committee blind to their supposed innate superiority, a hurdle where everything they value about themselves can't QUITE get them past -- they lash out in shame-rage, a classic sociopathic / narcissistic response. The only legitimate response is to ignore their petulant hisses, and remind them that they are NOT the center of the universe, NOT the best, and when you come right down to it, not even really very good at all. See them spit in shame and fury!

Can't blame them really, given the state of society. It wasn't too long ago that the basic unit of society was the "citizen." Today, it's the "consumer." We scrabble about in a vast me-first, spend-more super-size orgy of waste and excess, and dawn's about to break.

Whew. Good morning, LSD!

I am a little kinder.  I think that many anti-AA people simply don't have a lot of encounters with discrimination.  Not personally, not anyone they know.  Likely it is because they are from a largely white, middle class or higher, world.  They know that they wouldn't (consciously) discriminate, nor would their friends.  Why is race a problem, except for those gang bangers who bring it on themselves?  Ironically, these are the folks who stand to benefit most from increased diversity to minorities from all points on the SES spectrum.  To see how even an articulate, middle class black girl gets ostracised and struggles because of her race.  To listen to her unique perspective.

Look earlier in the thread.  Scooby (if I recall correctly) compared the racism that minorities face to the discrimination he faced as a CHRISTIAN in his high school.  Seriously, the best model for personal discrimination he faced was as a Christian in America.  No wonder he doesn't see a need for AA.

[Lerting]

Also, people are generally much more receptive to economic-based AA than race-based.

The argument is often made that by operating only on race, AA risks ushering in hordes of middle and upper-middle class URMs who faced no hardships at all. I think this is manifestly untrue; if it can be demonstrated that the population targeted by AA is overwhelmingly poor, this should allay some of the concerns, yes?

I think you may be walking down the wrong path with this line of thinking.  Pro-AA people come back with how unfair it is to poor white applicants.  Many pro-AA people don't seem to acknowledge that minorities have unique challenges and unique things they can contribute in a group learning situation (such as a law school classroom employing the socratic method) that white students couldn't contribute even if they are of the same socio-economic status.

what can rich blacks contribute that rich whites cant. stop with the bull. you've been reading too much alice walker crap.

[Lawprofessor]

It's not a matter of who has a right to a spot, it is a matter of who deserves a spot.  A person with better credentials deserves a spot more than someone who's aren't as good.  I still for the life of me can't understand how anyone could justify letting an individual who isn't as qualified to take a spot while there are more qualified people who don't have that spot.

Also, you talk about people with great soft factors getting in, and that's great, but they've actually accomplished something.  Being born into a certain race isn't accomplishing something.  It doesn't add to your character at all really, no matter what race your born into.  Character is actions you've taken (or in some cases not taken). 

I have a couple of questions.  How is it determined who deserves a spot?  Do legacies deserve their spots?  If it is just a matter of LSAT and GPA, everyone with the highest LSAT and GPA would always get into every school and even white people with slightly lower LSATs and GPAs would not deserve to get in.  It is interesting that I never see the anti-AA people making the argument that those white students dont deserve to be there. 

is the legacy argument the best the pro-aa crowd can come up with? you know why we don't make the argument that whites with far below median lsats don't deserve to be there, because they don't get in. harvard didnt admit any white with lower than a 168 this cycle according to lsn which i tend to believe more than h4cs's self serving anecdote.

No, it is not the best argument, but you still didnt respond to this "weak" argument.  Are you arguing that all of Harvards admits this cycle posted their LSAT score on LSN?  

[aerynn]

Also, people are generally much more receptive to economic-based AA than race-based.

The argument is often made that by operating only on race, AA risks ushering in hordes of middle and upper-middle class URMs who faced no hardships at all. I think this is manifestly untrue; if it can be demonstrated that the population targeted by AA is overwhelmingly poor, this should allay some of the concerns, yes?

I think you may be walking down the wrong path with this line of thinking.  Pro-AA people come back with how unfair it is to poor white applicants.  Many pro-AA people don't seem to acknowledge that minorities have unique challenges and unique things they can contribute in a group learning situation (such as a law school classroom employing the socratic method) that white students couldn't contribute even if they are of the same socio-economic status.

what can rich blacks contribute that rich whites cant. stop with the bull. you've been reading too much alice walker crap.

Looks like you haven't read enough.

And this is the last time I am ever going to respond to you.  You don't deserve any response whatsoever.

[Lerting]

is the legacy argument the best the pro-aa crowd can come up with? you know why we don't make the argument that whites with far below median lsats don't deserve to be there, because they don't get in. harvard didnt admit any white with lower than a 168 this cycle according to lsn which i tend to believe more than h4cs's self serving anecdote.

Untrue.

And LSN is a skewed sample, you mean little coffin-humper. Look at the admissions grid for any middle or low-ranked school for evidence.

Stop living wrong. The beam in thine own, pal. Why didn't you just study up a bit more? Hmm? Maybe you'd have made the cut, then. Just think -- you could be sitting pretty with all of us, sniping slighted losers in AA threads.

i'm not even a law student fagboy. i took the lsats but decided instead on a top 3 business school so i can go into finance and own all you liberal pussies.

[Lerting]

my god, did you manage to break a 155? your reasoning skills are beyond hopeless.

Damn. Hot damn! This coffin humper has FUEL!

you are not making a logical argument. all youre doing is saying that the admissions policies are justified because they are. it's about judging whether what they're doing is right.

No, it's about accepting reality.

If you want to discuss whether URMs ought to be admitted preferentially, that's one thing. When you verge into "so and so stole my spot," that's real. They didn't steal your spot. They beat you. It's your own fault for not knowing the rules of the game.

six of one, half a dozen of the other. if urm's are admitted preferentially they're stealing someone's spot. qed.

[Lerting]

i'm not even a law student fagboy. i took the lsats but decided instead on a top 3 business school so i can go into finance and own all you liberal pussies.

Here it comes.

A top-3 business school, eh? Which one?

Put your money where your mouth is.

Furthermore, your life shouldn't be about 'owning' us liberal pussies. It should be about 'owning' your insecurity, and your rotten core. Own THAT, you mouthbreathing, cat-strangling dicktaster.

you expect me to tell you my actual school, wow you're dumb. i'll be able to put my money where my mouth is because i'll have more of it than you especially if you do faggot ass public interest work. enjoy billing hours ass pirate.