<p>I’m choosing to interpret your posts as grudgingly acknowledging that there is nothing unfair about my proposal. Anyway…</p>
<p>Yes, as per Grutter, using racial classification as a factor in admissions is Constitutional. And I think you’ll agree that my proposal does not ban the use of racial classification. It may curtail it, I freely admit. But ban it does not.</p>
<p>Remember, I’m not saying that they can’t use it. And I don’t think the proposal makes it impossible for them to use it. I once heard a State Legislator say, “People can marry any person they want, as long as that person is of the opposite sex.” Obviously, under that system, gays can’t marry. By contrast, on my proposal, private universities can use racial classification; they just have to pay for it.</p>
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<p>I think it’s important to emphasize that just because using racial classification in admissions as per Grutter is Constitutional doesn’t mean that racial classification has to be used. Voters in California, Washington, Michigan, and Nebraska have all voted to end its use in their states’ public university systems. In each case, status quo defenders filed lawsuits alleging that banning racial preferences was un-Constitutional because it is Constitutional to use properly designed racial preferences. And in each case, the lawsuit was laughed out of Court.</p>
<p>I am neutral on your proposal. However, I do think any admissions procedure/criteria that results in any/all minorities in America being grossly under-represented in the nation’s colleges and universities is by definition discriminatory and unfair.</p>
<p>I think your proposal is unfair. Federal financial aid goes with the student, not the institution (though it is paid to the U for disbursement to the student). So you’re really talking about depriving students of federal aid because you disagree with the admissions policies of their universities. (Often this aid is only a small portion of the student’s cost of attendance, BTW, and the U does dig deep to fund the rest).</p>
<p>If you mean you want to withhold federal grants from the university, that’s unfair to the taxpayers who have a right to expect that their money for research will be awarded in a competitive process to the best proposal.</p>
<p>And for what? There is nothing objective that can show that the private schools’ holistic processes are better or worse or less fair or more fair than numbers-only admission. The SAT is not a particularly good predictor of achievement in college. The U of C system almost stopped requiring it a few years ago when they realized how little validity it had.</p>
There is a reason AA isn’t based on economic status and on skin color instead. The point of AA isn’t to help out those who are disadvantaged - if that were true, it would be based on family income and poor people would get the help they need, regardless of ethnicity. The thing is, every college wants to make itself look ethnically diverse, and AA increases the percentage of blacks, hispanics, and native Americans on campus. Even with AA, URMs are still underrepresented at top colleges though. Some colleges do consider economic status though in admissions. </p>
<p>I’m apathetic toward race based AA, but gender-based AA bothers me a lot more. Maybe because as a white female interested in a science career, race based really has no affect on me and gender based does…but I don’t want to go off topic here.</p>
<p>I don’t share your opinion that “any admissions procedure/criteria that results in any/all minorities in America being grossly under-represented in the nation’s colleges and universities is by definition discriminatory and unfair,” as you well know, and I think that making such a remark in light of a proposal that seeks to curtail but not ban the use of racial classification implies that racial classification is a very important factor indeed.</p>
<p>Regardless, my proposal does not ban the use of racial classification. I’m not saying that they can’t engage in admissions procedures that they want. I’m just saying that if these procedures involve the use of racial classification, then they can’t receive any federal funding. Just because racial preferences properly implemented are Constitutional doesn’t mean they’re mandatory. They’re optional, and my proposal doesn’t make them either mandatory or forbidden. I’m merely attaching a price to them.</p>
<p>Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on a minute. Did I ever say that I was against holistic admissions? Did I ever say that I am for numbers-only admissions? There is a huge misconception that opposing the use of racial classification necessarily means opposing holistic admissions. That is simply not the case. I am all for the consideration of essays, recommendations, extracurriculars, and even character and personal qualities. That I am against the use of racial classification does not mean I support the international system of college admissions. Please understand this.</p>
<p>That federal financial aid is paid to the university doesn’t create any problems for my proposal. As you said, it goes with the student, not the institution. The aid is given to the student, and its use depends on where the student wants to go. That is, the student chooses where to use the federal financial aid, and if the student chooses a private university that uses racial classification as a factor in admissions, that’s the student’s choice. Say I chose to spend last year’s stimulus check on religious services. Just because the money came from Uncle Sam doesn’t mean that Uncle Sam has endorsed my religion. It’s the same thing here. And if the university “does dig deep to fund the rest,” then doesn’t that say that the universities do have the means to fund their desired levels of diversity out of their own pockets? Why shouldn’t they?</p>
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<p>That’s what my proposal would seek to do: withhold federal grants from private universities that use racial classification as a factor in their admissions. I completely fail to understand how using racial classification makes a research proposal better.</p>
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<p>Well, that depends on how far you want to predict. It predicts first-year performance very well.</p>
And many consider race. The UC experience has made it abundantly clear that if “socioeconomics” is used then poor asians outcompete other groups into college.</p>
<p>This is absolutely basic knowledge. At every income level there are still group differences in scores.</p>
<p>But why would you do that, fab? Just because you think AA is not fair? The U.S. Supreme Court and nearly every top college in the country think AA is fair. I don’t think geographic preferences are fair, but I don’t want to ban federal funding because of it. You will need to be a lot more convincing if you want that legislation passed. Losing all federal funding is not a “mere” action by any stretch. It is a huge penalty. How do you justify it? What about gender and legacy preferences? Shouldn’t colleges lose funding for those too?</p>
<p>Why is it presumable that precisely the same percentage of each given ethnicity would apply?</p>
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<p>Read the first 2-3 pages.</p>
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<p>How often is any one awarded scholarships for “unpopular sports”? Also, those sports are very open to minorities as well, there’s no “in-race” at all. It’s definitely more of a socio-economic class issue than ethnicity issue.</p>
<p>This is the same argument you’ve used multiple times in the past. Look, in your mind, geographic preferences may be the “same thing” as racial preferences, but under SCOTUS jurisprudence, they are most certainly not. Because racial classification is a suspect class, its use is subject to the strict scrutiny standard. I don’t know whether geographic preferences should be analyzed under intermediate scrutiny or rational basis, but they definitely should not be analyzed under strict scrutiny because geography is simply not a suspect class. The same reasoning applies for legacy preferences. Gender is different, as it’s de facto a suspect class. I don’t support them, either, as I see no point in them whatsoever. In many universities, women actually outnumber men, and there is barely any achievement gap between the genders, making “affirmative action for men” wholly unnecessary. To answer your question, if gender preferences are used, then ‘yes,’ lose the federal funding.</p>
<p>Losing federal funding is a huge penalty. And in light of the history of the usages of racial classficiation in our country, its continued use should not be at no cost. I’m simply invoking the idea of “if it’s really worth that much to you, as you claim, then why don’t you pay for it?” (‘you’ referring to the private universities who engage in racial preferences).</p>
<p>At least at the state level, not necessarily true. Colorado, for example, voted to keep racial preferences in 2008. It is the first state where the civil rights initiative has not succeeded (cf. California, Washington, Michigan, Nebraska).</p>
<p>While I think they made the wrong choice, they were well within their rights to keep the practice.</p>
<p>I’m happy to read that you think my proposal is unfair, but I would very much appreciate more elaboration than, “[r]ead the first 2-3 pages,” which I already did when I gave you my original reply of, “Unlike others, I’m not arguing that private universities can do whatever they want, end of discussion. I’m saying that if they want to use racial classification as a factor in admissions, then they can’t accept any federal funding; that is, they have to finance their desired level of racial diversity out of their own pockets. It’s akin to a parent telling his child, ‘If you want it, you pay for it.’”</p>
<p>Who were the ‘others’ I referred to? Take post 6, “…it is not for you to debate such actions taken by private institutions–it is their right.” Also take post 10, “Private institutions (e.g. private colleges) have every right to bar anyone from entering, in the same way I can deny anyone from coming into my house.” And post 14, “At least at this time, private institutions retain the right to base admissions decisions upon factors like race.”</p>
<p>These posters were in effect saying, “private universities can do whatever they want, end of discussion.” I, on the other hand, was not saying that; I’m attaching a price to the use of racial classification in private university admissions. Does that make sense?</p>
<p>I’m as self-righteous as you can be, but don’t forget that opponents of racial preferences believe that your favored policies hurt minorities more than they help.</p>
<p>If you’re going to keep financial aid from going to students who attend school with AA, you should definitely first ban students of religious colleges from receiving that funding. That seems a lot more dubious when AA has been approved by the Supreme Court.</p>
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Why does it have to be precisely the same? These similar schools attract a similar applicant pool and the difference is huge. Look at any school with no AA and compare it to a similar school. Asian students always benefit.</p>
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<p>Schools across the country have lacrosse teams full of preppy white kids from Maryland. They don’t care about scholarships, just athletic admissions.</p>
<p>Is there really a difference? Private universities are already financially independent. I don’t care about a price tag, it’s oppression either way. Insinuating that they could pay to be prejudice in admissions is an insult to America.</p>
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<p>So it can be comparable.</p>
<p>I think somewhere along in this particular thread my stance became a tad unclear, I am positively for more Asians getting in as an effect of the lack of the affirmative action.</p>
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<p>Minorities have every bit as much opportunity to access these teams as whites do, athletic admissions, scholarships, whatever, that’s not the point, just an error in the post you quoted. As I said and reiterate, that falls down moreso to socio-economic level than ethnicity. Some sports have more whites, others more minorities, it all evens out.</p>
<p>Many private universities do, in fact, receive federal funding. It’s a myth that just because they’re private, they’re “financially independent” (ie. receive no federal funding).</p>
<p>I do not support racial preferences. Affirmative action is positive racial discrimination, and it’s being positive doesn’t make it any better than negative racial discrimination in my mind. At the same time, however, I’m not against a private institution’s right to admit applicants as it sees fit. I’m arguing that if it’s going to use racial classification as a factor, then it should distance itself from federal funding. Does that make it harder on them? Probably. Does it make it impossible for them to continue using racial classification? Probably not. If they think it’s worth so much, then why don’t they pay for it? Simple question.</p>
<p>That wasn’t the point. I’m surprised that’s what you got from my post.</p>
<p>My point was that if you decide to award research funding on the basis of: “who doesn’t try to remediate past discrimination”, you’re not necessarily going to fund the best applications the way you would if you based the award on the quality of the proposal.</p>