<p>It is not wrong to want every race represented in a student body. Rather, it is wrong to create an admission process that de facto excludes certain races from qualifying for admission.</p>
<p>kk19131,</p>
<p>I am not a Supreme Court Justice, although I admit that I would love to be one. If I were ever appointed, then I would strive to interpret the law as it is, not what I think it should be. I prefer the philosophy of judicial restraint over judicial activism.</p>
<p>Regarding your comment that preferring minorities who were once politically and socially oppressed for “societal gains” is not wrong, I direct you to the ruling of the Former Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, in Gratz:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I assure you that the administration of Michigan justified their twenty-point policy because they wanted to help races that were previously “consistently politically and socially oppressed.”</p>
<p>Really, are you being caused anguish, pain, or sorrow? Did AA make you sin?
I think that you’re blowing AA up to be an epidemic, and it’s really not. Now that the Michigan scandal has blown over most people don’t care so much.</p>
<p>Fabrizio, you are only seeing what you want to see. The objective is to aid those underrepresented minorities, thats what needs to be done to achieve the goal. The best way to do that is to…aid those underrepresented minorities. Not to aid people in Montana and hope that the urms there are stronger than non urms. Not to aid the lower class ( though i do believe that socioeconomic diversity is important to, but that AA is separate from racial AA) and just hope that poor urms are stronger than poor non-urms. </p>
<p>Racial diversity will not inevitably result from geographic AA, geographic diversity will. If you use economic AA, economic diversity will result.
And if you use _______ AA, racial diversity will result. Fill in the blank…</p>
<p>Tell me. Can private colleges not create measurements for accepting applicants? How can it be construed that the process “de facto excludes certain races from qualifying for admission”? How and where does this happen? What schools have 0% of a certain race because of AA? </p>
<p>Who decides who is ‘qualified’ for admission? The schools correct? Say I think it wrong for schools to create an admission process that de facto excludes people with lower than 1000 SAT scores. Just because I believe that to be ‘wrong’ doesn’t make it so, and surely doesn’t mean that colleges shouldn’t be allowed to decide where to set SAT standards.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m sure we both agree that systematically denying some American citizens equal treatment based on their skin color was wrong.</p>
<p>You hint that it’s not wrong to “‘prefer’ said races for societal gains.”</p>
<p>All you’re doing is continuing to not grant the same American citizens the right to equal treatment. Instead of discriminating against them, you’re discriminating for them.</p>
<p>Fab, Rehnquist said the “current freshman admissions policy” violated the EPClause, not the “compelling interest in diversity.” They just needed to rework the policy, not the goal.</p>
<p>kk, Race is a “suspect” class (as determined by the USSupreme Ct), and 1000 point SAT scorers are not. That is why excluding races is wrong and excluding poor scorers is not.</p>
<p>kk, I didn’t say AA excludes races. I meant that without AA policies, some schools may end up (due to their admission policies that don’t consider race), excluding some races.</p>
<p>“Regarding your comment that preferring minorities who were once politically and socially oppressed for “societal gains” is not wrong, I direct you to the ruling of the Former Chief Justice, William Rehnquist, in Gratz:”</p>
<p>“Because the University’s use of race in its current freshman admissions policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondents’ asserted compelling interest in diversity”</p>
<p>The court used strict scrutiny to decide the case, and the KEY line in the holding is that the “policy is not narrowly tailored to achieve respondents’ asserted compelling interest in diversity”.</p>
<p>Meaning… an Affirmative Action program IS constitutional if it is narrowly tailored to achieve the diversity the state seeks. </p>
<p>Further, Justice O’Connor held in Grutter that: the United States Constitution “does not prohibit the law school’s narrowly tailored use of race in admissions decisions to further a compelling interest in obtaining the educational benefits that flow from a diverse student body.”</p>
<p>Tyler,</p>
<p>I wrote “Its consideration has caused much anguish, pain, sorrow, and sin in our nation’s history” to describe slavery and segregation. I would imagine that my use of the word history would have made you think back a little further than 2003.</p>
<p>Proposal 2 was a victory, and BAMN failed to get it overturned in the courts. Next year, several more states will have similar initiatives which will let the people choose.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’re absolutely right. And, how should we aid them? We should do whatever it takes to make sure they receive the same K-12 opportunities as their “regular” peers do. Like norcalguy said, we need to start earlier if we are to ever truly aid these students. Tim Wise says that “under-represented” minority high school students are consistently placed into less demanding course tracks than their regular peers. This is but one problem that needs a solution.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree with you.</p>
<p>It is not wrong to want every race represented in a student body. It can become wrong, however, if the methods used to produce such representation involve racial preferences.</p>
<p>It is wrong to create an admission process that de facto excludes certain races from qualifying for admission. But, to my knowledge, in the last decade, no such process has been created. Can you point one out to me?</p>
<p>“kk, Race is a “suspect” class (as determined by the USSupreme Ct), and 1000 point SAT scorers are not. That is why excluding races is wrong and excluding poor scorers is not.”</p>
<p>-What about engineering schools prefering women? Gender is a suspect class; is it wrong for schools to ‘prefer’ female candidates?</p>
<p>ok, and why can’t we do that, and have AA, fabrizio?</p>
<p>“It is not wrong to want every race represented in a student body. It can become wrong, however, if the methods used to produce such representation involve racial preferences.”</p>
<p>-What kind of sense does this make? How can you say that a school can want every race represented in its student body, but then deny that school the right to make it happen? That’s absurd.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Thank you for the clarification.</p>
<p>If diversity is the goal, then I’m for it. There are many ways to obtain diversity without violating our laws.</p>
<p>As you know, I’m not for a policy that violates the Constitution.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Affirmative action can definitely be constitutional. I have no qualms about that. If the practice of affirmative action reverts to its original meaning of ensuring that no one is discriminated against, then the practice would undoubtedly be fully constitutional, not to mention just.</p>
<p>Yet, the current practice has significantly diverged from its roots. Hence, more and more states are having ballot initiatives that will let voters decide whether their constitutions should be amended to make sure that the state neither discriminates nor grants preferential treatment based on race.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You can have affirmative action. You just can’t have racial preferences. Don’t you agree that you can ban racial preferences but keep affirmative action intact? You yourself have claimed that these two are distinct. So, why are we arguing about this?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you suggesting that racial preferences are the only way for all races to be represented? I definitely do not believe that.</p>
<p>“There are many ways to obtain diversity”</p>
<p>-Like?</p>
<p>“Are you suggesting that racial preferences are the only way for all races to be represented?”</p>
<p>-No, I’m saying that it is the only way to GUARANTEE that a school can meet its diversity goal. Also, I don’t know that I understand your idea of AA… You seem to think that it involves schools blindly accepting any minority applicant that applies…</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like selecting students by interest, geography, socioeconomics. All of these can result in diversity, which is defined as “difference.”</p>
<p>By “diversity goal,” do you mean quotas? Oh, yeah, that’s right. The Supreme Court banned the word. Somehow, goals and targets weren’t banned…</p>
<p>I do not think that racial preferences involve schools blindly accepting any minority applicant that applies. I have never written anything along those lines.</p>
<p>i dont see what leg you’re standing on now fabrizio. All of your core arguments have gone out the window and ultimately it just seems like you don’t like that your racial group isn’t receiving any admissions benefit from AA. (though they are receiving a diversity benefit, but you don’t value that)</p>
<p>“Like selecting students by interest, geography, socioeconomics. All of these can result in diversity, which is defined as “difference.”</p>
<p>-Really… “interest”… So you support selecting students based on something as flakey as “interest” but not on race? </p>
<p>Geography?.. So if a school accepted a larger number of people from a place like Detroit- which is like 82% Black, you’d be ok with this?- how about from a part of Chicago that is pretty nearly 100% Black…. after all, it wouldn’t be preferring people based on ‘race’- just going to the ‘geographic locations’ wherein a majority of one race is. Would you be ok with this? </p>
<p>“By “diversity goal,” do you mean quotas? Oh, yeah, that’s right. The Supreme Court banned the word.</p>
<p>Somehow, goals and targets weren’t banned…”</p>
<p>-No I mean goal, decided however the college chooses. How can you say that it’s not wrong to have every race represented in a student body, but then say that goals and targets should be banned? By the very definition of having “every race in a student body” that means that at least some fraction of a percent has to be represented- this is, by its very nature, a quota.</p>