The new and unspoken 'affirmative action' in colleges ?

<link>

It's interesting that it would be unspoken. Affirmative Action is/was a mandate to boost minority student enrollment... this seems like a volunteer program to boost the majority!

- As an aside, my grandmother was a cook for Kenyon College for years - it's a beautiful area, especially in Fall. It's a really good liberal arts college, too, I've heard. My folks finally sold the family farm (hasn't been a working farm in 30 years) in Gambier a few years ago. Brings back memories!

"Affirmative Action is/was a mandate to boost minority student enrollment... this seems like a volunteer program to boost the majority!"

As the favored group, males, is a minority in both the general population and in applications for college admission and, as the males are getting accepted over more qualified females, it sounds like classical affirmative action based on quotas.

...when you start messing with criteria for admission to college - or for that matter, jobs or anything else. If everything is merit-based, this goes away. Admit the best students to the best schools, with lesser students going to lesser schools and so forth.

Preferential treatment, affirmative action, quotas, ratios...they're all discrimination in favor of one group and against another. Nothing new in colleges and universities, where 'legacies' and class considerations used to govern admission, but shouldn't we be trying to eliminate this kind of thing rather than extend it or dress it up as 'diversity' or whatever?

The Law of Unintended Consequences seems to be working here, and from more than one direction at once.

It looks like the male/female ratio for college age people in the US is 1, but I had thought males were in the majority.

Males, particularly white males, are a privileged class in the US. Classical affirmative action was an attempt to legislate opportunity to an underprivileged, often poor minority class. This seems different to me.

"It looks like the male/female ratio for college age people in the US is 1, but I had thought males were in the majority."

The article gave a percentage in this case of 56 female to 44 male and general population is a fraction of a percent more female.

"Males, particularly white males, are a privileged class in the US."

Some are, I wasn't, beyond my native gifts.

"Classical affirmative action was an attempt to legislate opportunity to an underprivileged, often poor minority class. This seems different to me."

Seems the same to me, passing over superior qualification to favor a minority. Like Horus, I favor meritocracy and think AA's time has passed, in whatever form.

"Males, particularly white males, are a privileged class in the US."

Some are, I wasn't, beyond my native gifts.

>> You believe you had less (or even the same) opportunity as a black man? Really?

"Classical affirmative action was an attempt to legislate opportunity to an underprivileged, often poor minority class. This seems different to me."

Seems the same to me, passing over superior qualification to favor a minority. Like Horus, I favor meritocracy and think AA's time has passed, in whatever form.

>> In searching around, I did come across an article stating that black enrollment in the South equalled their population (as a percentage) for the first time in history, so maybe its time has passed... I'm not entirely convinced, though, given the poor quality of primary education that many minorities receive.

We're talking about working around the margins here, though, aren't we, and in small numbers? It's not the case that the most talented white student gets replaced by the least talented minority student. I don't have a problem with swapping a slightly less talented minority student with a majority student who barely qualifies anyway.

"You believe you had less (or even the same) opportunity as a black man? Really?"

My schools were integrated, the military was integrated, the workforce is integrated, my residential neighborhood is integrated. The opportunities were/are there. Like the Hmong refugees who went through Kansas City schools and excelled, it's a matter of what you do with it.

My greatest advantage, aside from a good genetic intellect, was a two parent family dedicated to education and hard work, not unlike Colin Powell's family.

tsedek:

"You believe you had less (or even the same) opportunity as a black man? Really?"

My schools were integrated, the military was integrated, the workforce is integrated, my residential neighborhood is integrated. The opportunities were/are there. Like the Hmong refugees who went through Kansas City schools and excelled, it's a matter of what you do with it.

My greatest advantage, aside from a good genetic intellect, was a two parent family dedicated to education and hard work, not unlike Colin Powell's family.

How do you account for the radically different levels of poverty, unemployment, income and incarceration? I can't bring myself to believe that it's entirely self-inflicted or that some small advantages against a tide of disadvantages couldn't at least help.

"How do you account for the radically different levels of poverty, unemployment, income and incarceration?"

Assuming that this is serious, the main factor is poor people having children that they can't provide adequately for. It is as much a white, rural problem as it is black inner city. A child growing up without a father in poverty is at a serious disadvantage to a child growing up in a two parent, reasonably comfortable household. This crosses racial and ethnic lines.

"I can't bring myself to believe that it's entirely self-inflicted"

I don't consider it entirely self-inflicted, blame being better placed on parents and micro-culture. The fact that people do excel and overcome their environments indicates that there is a certain amount of personal responsibility involved. Crime is a choice, unprotected sex is a choice, and effort at education is a choice.

Going to school at night after a ten hour day is a choice, enlisting in the military to get out of a hell hole and getting training and opportunity for education and the GI Bill to own a house is a choice. Either blowing a little weed or getting hooked on the horse in country is a choice. Served with a lot of men who made the right choices, know a few white, black, and brown who didn't.

"or that some small advantages against a tide of disadvantages couldn't at least help."

There are remedial programs for students to take to bring them up to speed. Junior colleges, lesser universities are available. Why punish someone who has played the game well, who is not culpable for discrimination, to allow someone to pass them? Two generations of AA is enough, I think.

Not thinking, I stood up to applaud your post, scared the cat, she knocked the lamp over, the noise from that caused the dog to run straight through the closed screen door to see what the noise was about.

Bravo, you are so spot on.

"Bravo, you are so spot on."

But not particularly proud of it. If AA worked I'ld be a big fan, being the typical liberal who wants everyone to be well educated and successful. Maybe I'm just old and cynical, or just an old bartender/bouncer, but just because you put someone on their feet doesn't mean they're willing to stand.

Well, I agree that there's an element of choice to all this, of course. But there is a numbers game here that's hard to deny. I don't think that you can begin to account for the disparities between black and white by chalking it up to bad choices. We aren't many generations removed from our blatantly racist past - I don't think you can discount that as a major contributor.

If we were pouring every dime we had into inner city schools, I suppose I wouldn't have room for complaint. But we aren't, far from it. The difference in per-student spending here in the Chicago area is astounding - I suspect it's the same nation-wide.

Personally, I am all for allowing for universities to take into account background (including ethnicity, gender, etc. because I think that one should learn how to work well in a diverse environment.

However, at the same time, we need to seriously ask what we want from our education system. Personally I would like to see a country where 80% or more of the 30 year olds have a BA or BS degree. The thing is that AA did work, but then our economy changed and it no longer matches what we need it to do (mixing up the white-color job market).

In addition to looking at what is required to give people a reasonable shot at an education, I think we also need to:

1) Provide tax credits for businesses where most workers are from close by the business (reside within, say, 2-3 miles of work).

2) Provide more tax credits for such businesses which are owned and run from inside the inner cities.

This would hopefully provide a job market for places where there are fewer jobs today, cut down on long commutes, etc. Just because a lot of the institutionalized racism today comes from within the affected communities does *not* mean that there aren't disparities which we should look at addressing.

"If we were pouring every dime we had into inner city schools, I suppose I wouldn't have room for complaint. But we aren't, far from it."

We aren't putting every dime into the rural schools, either. Interestingly, we had a court ordered desegregation plan in Kansas City some years back that put twice the money into inner city schools. Didn't work, as the students went home from school and back into the failed culture that produced them. We could blame the schools or we could look at the Southeast Asian refugees who went through the same school system in the mid '70's and excelled. Takes more than money, as a number of other districts discovered.

" I don't think that you can begin to account for the disparities between black and white by chalking it up to bad choices."

Then how do we account for the differences among blacks or among impoverished whites? Not all blacks are failures, not all whites are successes, black doctors come from the same neighborhoods as crack dealers, a white guy I went to school with became a rapist, another one became an Air Force general.

Personally, I think it is the micro-culture, what Jason Whitlock calls the Prison/Hip Hop culture that bears a lot of the blame. Asian immigrants arrive speaking no English, but with strong families and a powerful work ethic, and their kids become doctors and engineers. Haitian immigrants arrive and seem successful, as do black African immigrants or black Cubans and Puerto Ricans.

Good discussion. More tomorrow, if you're willing.