<p>No slip at all; I meant every word of what you quoted. I have always been in favor of the original, real affirmative action as defined by President Kennedy where it’s all about treating people equally WITHOUT REGARD to their racial classification. I have never been in favor of the perversion it has become: a system of racial preference.</p>
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<p>You should agree; as I recall, aren’t you at Stanford? And c’mon, johnwesley, I am NOT in favor of admissions being “numbers only.”</p>
<p>Yes. And the legal requirements for a charge of discrimination, from a practical basis (referring to what the parameters of the argument need to be, in order to be convincing before a court), generally require that such ‘exclusion’ or alleged “different treatment,” etc. has to be documented and documentable over time, and as a group (IOW, all/virtually all of that category), it has to be systematic, and built into the very structure of who is admitted as a “member.” </p>
<p>Further, to my knowledge no court has ever said or implied that colleges cannot make subjective judgments. Thus, colleges may determine what is means to be ‘qualified’ on subjective as well as objective criteria, **and they are not legally required to admit only the ‘most qualified’ <a href=“by%20either%20subjective%20or%20objective%20critera,%20or%20both”>/b</a>. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be some not-deeply-smart students admitted (who are not URM’s) whose parents are major donors, etc. The moment that anyone from the public wants to argue that private universities should be required by the courts to admit only the deeply smart students, those private U’s will cease to exist as we know them, as they will not have the athletic recruits, the donors who help sustain that U (since tuition actually does not cover individual student cost to educate), the celebrities who help to keep the brand in public view, etc.</p>
<p>American universities are part of American business, and as such are allowed to operate with some of the same assumptions that pertain to other segments of commerce. (Remaining competitive, meeting their revenue, attracting from a broad population, etc.)</p>
<p>Perhaps a Government University would be IP’s ideal, but that’s not what any of our elite U’s are.</p>
<p>This was the first year in a long time neither sister was in the finals. Btw, it was Serena who was unceremoniously bounced from US open due to a penalty point during that match.</p>
<p>Humm, considering that after have two finals between the Williams’ sisters in 2001 and 2002, only one sister made a final (Serena in 2008) there have been plenty of US Open finals without one of the Williams in the past eight years. </p>
<p>2010 Kim Clijsters def Vera Zvonareva
2009 Kim Clijsters def Caroline Wozniacki
2008 Serena Williams def Jelena Jankovic
2007 Justine Henin def Svetlana Kuznetsova
2006 Maria Sharapova def Justine Henin-Hardenne
2005 Kim Clijsters def Mary Pierce
2004 Svetlana Kuznetsova def Elena Dementieva
2003 Justine Henin-Hardenne def Kim Clijsters</p>
<p>As far as the unceremoniously bounced, it was about time someone had to courage to muzzle one of the least gracious and unsport(wo)man-like persons in tennis. In press conferences, after losing, Serena nevers credits her opponents and is usually extraordinarily rude and aloof. She also never showed a bit of true contrition or remorse after the incident with the line person. </p>
<p>First of all, they’re never going to limit enrollment to just those who test well, as has already been explained. However, if they agreed to expand to include all those who by their own admission are well-qualified "to do the work, " it would bring undergrad student enrollment (at some campuses) to beyond the size of a large public campus, which would make private tuition hardly desirable for the supposed product gained.</p>
<p>Well, I’m sure this has been covered, but, just to refresh everyone’s memory – that’s the first lesson you should learn about affirmative action, even as defined a half century ago. You can certainly treat ALL PEOPLE equally and still not be in compliance. A simple example would be forbidding anyone from obscuring their face during working hours. It may be that you are applying the requirement equally, but it’s obviously going to have a disproportionate impact on women who are Muslim. In a situation like that you’d at least want to know 1) how many Muslims women applied for the job 2) how many may have been discouraged from applying due to the requirement 3) how many may have been accepted but were fired for not leaving their veils at home, etc, etc, none of which would be possible under your version of AA which would be to forbid everyone from revealing their race, religion and ethnic background.</p>
<p>You’re talking about disparate treatment versus disparate impact. In your example, the requirement can be easily struck down if the employer cannot justify it as necessary for business. Would you like to suggest something you feel has a disparate impact on so-called “underrepresented” minorities in college admissions?</p>
<p>There was a court decision in the 1970s that allowed universities to consider race in deciding who gets admitted and who doesn’t. That’s what I was referring to.</p>
<p>Discriminating based on ability is absolutely legal. Based on race shouldn’t be.</p>
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<p>That is not the theory. The theory is that some Asians are kept out because of racial discrimination. The definition of deserving can be anything, as long as it doesn’t incorporate race. There is plenty of evidence that when race is eliminated from the definition (as in Florida, Michigan and California), the share of Asians jump at the expense of URMs.</p>
<p>Epiphany, I am in no way claiming that Elite U.s should only admit the smartest. They should definitely have people who are not the smartest but have other hooks - donors, legacies, celebrities, and athletes, for example. However, I object to race being a hook. Hopefully that explains my position. </p>
<p>What I don’t understand is your insistence that if the racial preference goes Elite U.'s will cease to exist as we know them. Would love to know why you think that.</p>
<p>"Why would it make for a better community? "</p>
<p>Big "if’, I know. Maybe just for me. Call me “racist”, but I like to see people who look like me. In fact, I like to see a range of “pigments”.Fortunately (for me), I am well past college, so perhaps there is no need to take my preferences into account,at least for college.</p>
<p>Actually, no. The employer merely has to prove, objectively, that the requirement is crucial for the job and cannot be stricken down. If, for example, the employer is a strip club and the job is that of a performer, it will be perfectly OK for the owner to discriminate against Muslim women who must have the hijab on at all times. However, if the job is back end clerical, then the employer must remove the requirement.</p>
<p>Since you mentioned paths to lucrative careers in prior posts, do you think it would be best for a group of Joe-Six-Packs to establish the hiring policies than having the owners of the managers of the company make those decisions? </p>
<p>Do you think that the recruiters at Goldman Sachs or McKinsey should not rely on their own knowledge and experience in making the selections of new employees?</p>
<p>Isn’t that what every court challenge to college admissions AA boils down to?<br>
Someone alleges that AA has a disparate impact on them; the courts go through this complicated balancing act weighing suspect classifications versus justifiable state actions (analagous to legitimate a “business requirement”?) Some of us are saying, it’s always going to be a balancing act while the anti-AA faction takes a more fundamentalist approach.</p>
No need to have to wade through more pages than we already have to.</p>