Why not ignore legacy admits and focus all our expendable energy on AA

[t...]

Legacy admits don't fuel racial (and social) tension?

I, for one, feel tense. 

Yeah, I (sorta) wish I could sympathize.

Still stoked on "St. John's?"

Not sure I understand that last reference. 

How's "Brooklyn Law School?"

[OperaAttorney]

Brooklyn has a law school?

That's true.  People like Lindbergh get stuck at TTTs like Columbia. 

The word on the streets is that Lindbergh attends UVA.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

The problem with AA supporters is that they keep wanting to ignore how negatively AA DOES affect race relations.  Just look around this board, and you can see what a problem it creates.  Anyone who's ever spent time talking to working class (or even middle-class) whites about this issue knows what a problem this is.  However, of course, this problem doesn't affect privileged whites, so they disregard it.

Strange.  It only seems to negatively affect race relations in threads you participate in.   

Also, race relations seem to be just fine at my school.  I guess there are no Lindberghs in attendance.

 

The unspoken side effect of AA is that the policy effectively weeds out the Lindbergh's from the class - those damned URM's take their spot.

Let's keep it real - the only racial tension that is created by AA is created by a particular group of whites (certainly not all whites) who feel that they are being deprived of yet another advantage that is either rightfully theirs or else nobody gets to use it at all.  The argument of making it on one's own merit is merely a pretext.  If the "AA" that is already currently available to these same white students were marketed and labeled in the same manner as AA currently is, they would quickly and quite consciously take advantage of it in order to "get into" law school and there would be no more discussion, and thus, no more racial tension.


As one of the white moderators posted about a year ago, the relevant question that whites must ask themselves is "would you accept AA if you had to remain a minority for the rest of your life?"

If the answer is "hell no since you put it that way" then you must concede that the only problem that you have with AA is that you can't personally use it to "get into" law school yourself. 

It should be noted that I use the term "get into" loosely because yet another major misconception about AA is that:
(i) it is an automatic pass that allows minorities to "get into" law school when they don't deserve it, and also that
(ii) it is actually allowing a superfluous amount of black and minority students to "get into" law school period.

When many of you actually do "get into" law school and are sitting there in your first year classes, you will look around for about 5 seconds and see just how ridiculous it was to argue about #(ii).  And for those of you who will be going on to Biglaw, you will immediately be able to see how ridiculous the contention of #(ii) is.

As one example, I will be starting next month for a Biglaw firm in NYC - out of the 150+ partners and associates, I will be the only black male in the entire firm.  All of my minority classmates have told me very similar stories whether they landed firm jobs, government jobs, public interest jobs, whatever - it doesn't matter.  Minorities still, in 2007, make up a very small amount of the legal profession.  So small, in fact, that you're practically guaranteed to be one of the only faces, if not THE only face, that looks like you wherever you go to practice.  Yet people still have the audacity to chastise AA despite this rather important fact.

And if you are among those who acknowledge that this fact exists and agree that it is unfortunate then many of us in this profession (both minority and non-minority) welcome any thoughts you have on how to improve the current system, but to allow it to cause racial tension is completely unnecessary and unwarranted if you are educated with the facts surrounding AA, minority enrollment, and minority representation in the legal profession.

[t...]

The problem with AA supporters is that they keep wanting to ignore how negatively AA DOES affect race relations.  Just look around this board, and you can see what a problem it creates.  Anyone who's ever spent time talking to working class (or even middle-class) whites about this issue knows what a problem this is.  However, of course, this problem doesn't affect privileged whites, so they disregard it.

Strange.  It only seems to negatively affect race relations in threads you participate in.   

Also, race relations seem to be just fine at my school.  I guess there are no Lindberghs in attendance.

 

The unspoken side effect of AA is that the policy effectively weeds out the Lindbergh's from the class - those damned URM's take their spot.

Let's keep it real - the only racial tension that is created by AA is created by a particular group of whites (certainly not all whites) who feel that they are being deprived of yet another advantage that is either rightfully theirs or else nobody gets to use it at all.  The argument of making it on one's own merit is merely a pretext.  If the "AA" that is already currently available to these same white students were marketed and labeled in the same manner as AA currently is, they would quickly and quite consciously take advantage of it in order to "get into" law school and there would be no more discussion, and thus, no more racial tension.


As one of the white moderators posted about a year ago, the relevant question that whites must ask themselves is "would you accept AA if you had to remain a minority for the rest of your life?"

If the answer is "hell no since you put it that way" then you must concede that the only problem that you have with AA is that you can't personally use it to "get into" law school yourself. 

It should be noted that I use the term "get into" loosely because yet another major misconception about AA is that:
(i) it is an automatic pass that allows minorities to "get into" law school when they don't deserve it, and also that
(ii) it is actually allowing a superfluous amount of black and minority students to "get into" law school period.

When many of you actually do "get into" law school and are sitting there in your first year classes, you will look around for about 5 seconds and see just how ridiculous it was to argue about #(ii).  And for those of you who will be going on to Biglaw, you will immediately be able to see how ridiculous the contention of #(ii) is.

As one example, I will be starting next month for a Biglaw firm in NYC - out of the 150+ partners and associates, I will be the only black male in the entire firm.  All of my minority classmates have told me very similar stories whether they landed firm jobs, government jobs, public interest jobs, whatever - it doesn't matter.  Minorities still, in 2007, make up a very small amount of the legal profession.  So small, in fact, that you're practically guaranteed to be one of the only faces, if not THE only face, that looks like you wherever you go to practice.  Yet people still have the audacity to chastise AA despite this rather important fact.

And if you are among those who acknowledge that this fact exists and agree that it is unfortunate then many of us in this profession (both minority and non-minority) welcome any thoughts you have on how to improve the current system, but to allow it to cause racial tension is completely unnecessary and unwarranted if you are educated with the facts surrounding AA, minority enrollment, and minority representation in the legal profession.

Just for the record, my post was sarcastic.

However, I think what you said needed to be said, and I think it is well said. Unfortunately it's just going to fall on deaf ears, as most good points here do.

[UNAS]

What I would like to know is how law students white black or otherwise function with being saturated in racial tension day after day because of AA. How can the students get their work done? Jeez, I can only imagine. It must be like Higher Learning only in real life. The only experiences I can liken to the racial tensioned caused by AA on law school campuses nationwide would probably the tension caused by hanging a nuece under a tree to intimidate black students, maybe the tension in rosewood, fl after the 1922 riots or what about the tension on a plane with a few arab passengers immediately after 9/11. Boy, law school is really a ticking time bomb. This AA has really got to go if us law students are to live our lives without the mental encumbrance caused by AA

[UNAS]

On a serious note, I went to an HBCU an though white folks received monetary incentives to attend for the purpose of diversity I think it is safe to say that racial tension did not exist. I will also submit those students brought some value added to the HBCU experience because of their difference in background.

On a related note. For racial tension to exist two or more parties have to feel tense. If only one party is tense it is no longer racial tension, but rather racial anxiety. At this point you have to look internally

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

As one of the white moderators posted about a year ago, the relevant question that whites must ask themselves is "would you accept AA if you had to remain a minority for the rest of your life?"

If the answer is "hell no since you put it that way" then you must concede that the only problem that you have with AA is that you can't personally use it to "get into" law school yourself. 

Speaking as someone who agrees with AA, this remains one of the least effective arguments I've seen in favor it.

A right or ability conferred upon a person or group of people is not justified just because the average individual would not choose to accept said benefit in exchange for becoming part of said class. To put it more simply, being disadvantaged does not in of itself give you the right to disadvantage others in return.

...While not a benefit that would have white people fervently wishing that they were a minority, it still smacks of injustice.

Speaking of bad arguments - this one assumes that AA disadvantages white students.  It doesn't.

Why do people assume that any attempt to increase the representation of minority students must = "disadvantage" to white students?  In order for that argument to be true, we would have to accept as factual that white students are somehow entitled to the seats at these schools as a default.  If we except that proposition then yes, any disturbance of that default number would be disadvantageous to whites because we would then be detracting from the number of white students who are "supposed to be" there.

I tend not to agree with that logic.

Each school in this nation (with the exception of CA and MI) is free to define its own diverse student body however it sees fit.  As long as they are doing this lawfully, who are we to say that their decision as an institution of higher learning to compose their own student body from a qualified pool of applicants is a "disadvantage" to any of us rising to the level of "injustice?"   Remember AA does not force schools to do anything, it merely allows them to consider race as one among many factors in making up its diverse student body.

As UNAS noted, at an HBCU where black students make up the majority of the student body, the school should be able to choose to add white students to diversity its student body without any drama or cries of injustice from those black students who may not have been selected by the HBCU.

There are many other examples of programs or entities that help a few in the minority to gain equal footing with the majority that do not necessarily = injustice.  One of my favorite examples, the Scholarship for those who are descendants of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.  Now, if I know my history, while this scholarship doesn't specifically say "whites only," there wasn't ONE black signer of the Declaration of Independence, so it would be pretty safe to assume that blacks are excluded from this one right?  Injustice?


Bottom line, I think some people have an overly active imagination going on here when we use the words "injustice" or "disadvantage."  We're comparing apples to oranges.

The "disadvantage" and "injustice" that has resulted in our current atmosphere in the U.S. in 2007 where blacks only constitute about 4% of the legal profession has come from a series of can'ts won'ts and don'ts - as in you "can't go to this school," you "won't learn how to read or we will kill you" and "you don't belong here."  These were absolute bars.  That, my friends, is injustice.  No law school in America has ever told a white student "you can't go to this school because you are white."

What?  The FAA would ground all planes and the stock market would shut down. 


So let's not get too carried away with all this "injustice" talk where AA is concerned.  If blacks made up 90% of law schools and 90% of the legal profession then clearly, that would be an injustice because we're only 12% of the U.S. population.  As the legal profession stands today, we barely make up 4%.

Now let me get this straight - we want to put a microscope on this 4%, divide them up based on income and say "this 3% shouldn't be here because they have somehow been able to make enough to become middle class, but this 1% can stay though because they are poor."



Meanwhile, legacy admits are sliding in the back door in record numbers and nobody bats an eye.

Something is not right with this picture...

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

As one of the white moderators posted about a year ago, the relevant question that whites must ask themselves is "would you accept AA if you had to remain a minority for the rest of your life?"

If the answer is "hell no since you put it that way" then you must concede that the only problem that you have with AA is that you can't personally use it to "get into" law school yourself. 

Speaking as someone who agrees with AA, this remains one of the least effective arguments I've seen in favor it.

A right or ability conferred upon a person or group of people is not justified just because the average individual would not choose to accept said benefit in exchange for becoming part of said class. To put it more simply, being disadvantaged does not in of itself give you the right to disadvantage others in return.

...While not a benefit that would have white people fervently wishing that they were a minority, it still smacks of injustice.

Speaking of bad arguments - this one assumes that AA disadvantages white students.  It doesn't.

Surely you must understand that if AA/URM did not exist there would be a lesser incentive for schools to accept lesser qualified minority students.  This would allow more qualified "white" students to be admitted.

Well then this must be an injustice because we certainly need more white students in law schools, right?

I'm sorry, but it's hard to believe that you find that to be a compelling argument given the current make up of the legal profession.

[t...]

Lol at thinking law school admissions are on a level playing field.

Even most critics of AA realize this, and thus argue for AA that is more socioeconomic based.

[t...]

Also, lol at thinking that URM's are jumping tiers because of AA.