Tufts and Affirmative Action

bluirinka
Tue, 30 May 2006 14:56:35 +0000

“The point of AA is to give qualified underprivleged students the chance to compete with rich-tutored-surburbians-snobs, to me it’s not fair that some people get tutored and other not.”

I happen to think that AA in colleges is a good practice, giving promising underpriviliged minorities the chance to get a good education and achieve a greater racial balance in America. I happen to think so even though I am a white girl from suburban New Jersey, the KISS OF DEATH in admissions offices, and probably the very person who was rejected in favor of someone who is maybe not as qualified as I am. I do, however, resent that people who are not underpriviliged minorities are immediately branded “rich-tutored-suburbian-snobs”. Some families have attained their comfortable lifestyles through hard work and education. My parents did exactly what you did when they immigrated here from Russia - worked full-time jobs while completing their degrees at NYU-Stern. And their parents had Ph D’s in mathematics but had to work as factory workers when they originally came here. I understand that you may not have had the same opportunities that I did, and you should definitely be given the chance to be educated at a top school and attain a comfortable lifestyle, and I know that you obviously aren’t like, “All suburban kids are snobs!” but you may want to be careful throwing things around like that; at Tufts, for example, there are a fair share of suburban snobs, but I know even richer kids here who are as normal and down-to-earth as anyone. Just be careful; putting people in boxes is unfair.

But yeah, when my kids are of high-school age I’m just going to move the family to Wyoming.