<p>Are you in a bit of a panic right now because all your years of resenting AA might be for naught, that the repeal of AA would ultimately not benefit your tribe but another?</p>
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<p>Scholarships are not the matter. The kind of students who get recruited for lacrosse or fencing don’t really need scholarships because they can pay full tuition if they need to; they just need a “hook”.</p>
<p>And minorities can’t play those sports if they don’t have access to the institutions that have those sports.</p>
<p>My post describing scholarships was a mistake [should’ve been acceptence rather], as I seem to recall mentioning when Fab called me out on it.</p>
<p>Also, whether an individual can participate in such sports that would be considered “hooks” or positive cridentials would definitely boil down to socio-economic level rather than race. Perhaps you could explain why whites automatically have excessive access to sports based solely on race to me?</p>
<p>Theoretically, minority students can take the SSATs and go to some New England prep school and get recruited for sailing. And while we’re in this theoretical mindset, white kids from Westchester can also go down to Harlem and play streetball with the black 'hood kids and earn basketball scholarships. It’s all just about making an effort right?</p>
<p>On another point, are you still blissfully unaware of the fact that rolling back AA would pretty much create 40-50% Asian student body populations at the top universities of the country? Be careful what you ask for.</p>
Only dumb liberals do that. They are the ones that think if you pour enough money on the problem it’ll go away (despite the huge body of evidence that literally laughs in the face of such stupid fantasies).</p>
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Oh, you mean like a meritocracy? That’d be nice.</p>
<p>Non-Jewish whites are already tremendously underrepresented in major universities. I haven’t exactly seen the riots in the streets over that situation.</p>
<p>That was an uncharacteristically ignorant thing to say and detracted from any argument you were trying to make by isolating people who don’t agree with you. People in general do that, right or wrong, regardless of political affiliation. Personally, I don’t know if affirmative action is a liberal vs. conservative issue, as people on both sides of the aisle agree/disagree with it. </p>
<p>Sports like fencing, lacrosse, and crew are all cultural sports that kids play because it’s in their cultural realm of perceived possibilities. Up until thirty years ago it was both externally and internally socially unacceptable for african americans to participate in those sports; for many it was fiscally impossible. Even today, as a black middle class emerges, it isn’t in the culture for black youth to participate in the sport because none of them have parents who participated. As a result, history has discriminated against african americans in their representation in such sports, and by offering their players preferred admission to elite universities colleges deprive black applicants of chances to go to school and chances to win non-academic scholarships. Sure you could say everybody has a “choice” to find a way to learn any sport nowadays, but to what extent can we expect teenagers (children, really, because in order to be division I competitive in these sports one must start at a younger age) to independently overcome what’s expected of them?</p>
<p>I’m not asserting that this is a justifiable argument for AA, but I’m refute the idea that anyone who subscribes to it is a “dumb liberal.”</p>
I do it just to get rises out of people like yourself. Works like a charm.</p>
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Affirmative action, almost certainly, is a “liberal” issue. Now, many high achievers are liberal (Jews & Asians) and therefore much internal debate about the issue exists in the left wing. However, almost all the conservative intelligentsia (and huge amounts of the rank and file) are against affirmative action. What I mean by “conservative” is self described conservatives who vote Republican.</p>
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As I’ve already said, non-Jewish whites are underrepresented at the Ivy League (and certainly at schools like MIT). Where are the liberal champions trying to rectify the situation? The level of hypocrisy is just continually hilarious.</p>
<p>My solution: Straight up meritocracy. Model it after the UC system (where the best go to the best schools and no excuse for race is even made).</p>
<p>I think the UC system is the best for AA but I wouldn’t call it a “straight-up meritocracy” at all. There are some points that favor minorities like “first in family to attend college” and “overcoming struggles” which I’ve been told by counselors often includes racial prejudice.</p>
<p>I like the system because each applicant has to describe how racial prejudice has affected them (if at all) and it doesn’t favor rich minorities over poor whites. I have no problem with 40-50% asians, especially because California has high numbers of Asian immigrants who are often very successful.</p>
<p>The UC system is probably the most meritocratic program of the “highest achieving” schools.</p>
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First in family to attend college doesn’t favor URMs. In fact, once you look at the academic prowess of the cohort which has no parents in college it becomes readily apparent that the same trends emerge.</p>
IllogicWarrior, your statement literally means nothing.</p>
<p>What is the population of students (whose parents didn’t go to college) within a certain SAT score range. If, within that range, 70% of the students are white, 20% asian, & 10% URM then the plight of the minorities isn’t helped. I’m not sure data like this exists on the open marketplace.</p>
<p>As I’ve linked, there is a .5-.75 standard deviation gap in performance between asians/whites and URMs at all parental education levels. The fact of the matter is that the UC system has tried (and failed) to game the system. As shown by the extremely low URM admission rate (not really, just the matriculated student body is the indicator).</p>
<p>There are going to be more URMs in the population simply because more URM parents didn’t go to college. SAT scores have nothing to do with it. You’re vastly overstating the importance of SAT scores anyway, as if it were the only part of an application besides affirmative action.</p>
<p>You appear to not know how UC admissions work. You get the same amount of points for being the first in your family to go to college no matter what your SAT score is.</p>
<p>There may be some correlation, yes, although I would definitely not peg it as “inextricable.”</p>
<p>The consequences of adopting your simplistic “inextricably tied” mentality are clear: first- and second-generation black Americans make up only 13% of all blacks aged 18 or 19 in the U.S., but they constitute 41% of all black students in the Ivy League. You really think these first- and second-generation black Americans are mostly poor?</p>
<p>You’re focusing on the wrong thing. It’s not minorities’ not having access to the institutions that have those sports. It is poor students’ not having access.</p>
<p>If they are inextricably linked, then we could take care of the problem through the much less controversial socioeconomic affirmative action, right?</p>
<p>Most people don’t know that non-Jewish whites are underrepresented. Most people think Yale and Harvard and Princeton are WASPy institutions with a substantial amount of Asians. They’re fine with that idea. Get an Asian majority and I think the majority would change their tune.</p>
<p>Socioeconomic affirmative action favors white students as a whole and would do so even if white and black applicants had the same average scores. For any given income, there’s more white students and more extreme outliers. </p>
<p>If you wanted to get rid of racial AA and maintain a substantial white enrollment in the face of a surging Asian enrollment, socioeconomic AA is a good way to go. If you want more minorities, you’ll have to look for them because their academic underachievement is not solely based on socioeconomic factors. </p>
<p>Excuse me if I don’t believe that some random football player’s kid is necessarily going value education because his or her father’s salary makes him or her affluent.</p>
<p>NearL, you’re right. However, what I think nba is arguing is that you shouldn’t get rid of racial AA because race is inextricably tied to socioeconomic class, and socioeconomic disadvantage unfairly holds down student performance. It seems natural, then, to just tackle the source of the unfairness: socioeconomic disadvantage.</p>
<p>There are more white people in general at every socioeconomic strata, so any action designed to help a specific socioeconomic strata will probably help more whites if you just look at absolute numbers.</p>
<p>The entire AA issue comes down to whether you think there is value in attending a racially-diverse educational institution.</p>
<p>If you agree that a mixed-race educational environment is valuable (as did U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day OConnor, et al.), then you will be in favor of a holistic admissions process that includes considering race as a factor.</p>
<p>If you see no educational value in classroom/living/daily interaction with students of all races, then of course you will be against an admissions process that considers race.</p>
![http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Education2.png[/url]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1995-SAT-Education2.png%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
