<p>MattsMomFL: I try to confine my AA argument to this thread, which was made for the purpose. And yes, I have been told that I enjoy conflict–I feel quite strongly about my opinions, especially one that has -altered- as I learned more about the subject. Due to my upbringing, I used to blindly hate affirmative action; and for a while I was truly on the fence because I do value diversity and I recognize the hardships that many URMs have gone through. However–I believe that those hardships are due more to socioeconomics than to race, and I believe that racial discrimination of any type is fundamentally flawed and even immoral, just as racism is immoral. And I am very much NOT a believer in “the end justifies the means”; in fact, I take the opposite approach in asserting that the means creates the end–if your means are morally fuzzy, so will be the end result.</p>
<p>In regard to your suggestion, I consider arguing/debating AA in a polite (if persistent) manner to be a valid way to change. Asian Americans often tend to lack initiative in advocacy. This is America; protest, argument, and words CAN change laws and public perception. I think it important to put forth valid, thoughtful arguments against affirmative action, just as you and other posters have chosen to put forth valid, thoughtful arguments for it.</p>
<p>After reading later posts, MattsMomFL, I am shocked by your descent into petty insults–“militant,” causing “drama,” conceding nothing. Perhaps you need to reread all of my and fabrizio’s recent posts. I have seen drama, believe me, and I have no desire to fall into the trap of anger–from my surprised vantage point, neither have I seen fabrizio falling further into that trap than you. Furthermore, I do not see how “it is apparent he wasn’t accepted to HYPSM”–I myself am a junior who has yet to apply to any colleges, who will apply to Yale but also to rural Midwest LACs like Oberlin where I constitute URM, who has developed this position on the issue after much thought, whose eventual college acceptances will have absolutely no bearing on my opinion regarding AA.</p>
<p>–And I accept the apology offered in #1027. Heh, this post must seem schizophrenic as I write in response to what I read. I love Questbridge and what it has done for low-income students; however, I do not believe it has any bearing on racial affirmative action, which is much more widespread and less “selective” (for Questbridge is extremely selective).</p>
<p>We accomplish more here than simply “venting”–we contribute our arguments to an online and searchable archive, as well as direct rebuttals of others’ arguments. I agree with fabrizio–founding an “Asian” school would solve very little on both cultural and legal grounds. You, I would presume, know this very well, and thus I understand fabrizio’s reading of condescension in your post.</p>
<p>Tyler09: A genuine question for you. Do you believe that the US higher education system, public or private, should be a meritocracy? NOT A STATS-BASED MERITOCRACY. (I hope that was loud enough to drown out the immediate, fallacious naysayers.) I do think that adcoms can look at two students -as two whole people-, consider everything they’ve done and everything they are within the context of their opportunities, and rank them quantitatively. In fact, many books and reporters have shown that adcoms do just this–assign a number for academics, a number for ECs, a number for essays, a number for “personal character.” Will this be a flawed quantification? Sure. But it is a valid attempt to equalize what cannot be truly equalized. --In such a meritocracy, socioeconomically disadvantaged students would have a built-in “boost,” so to speak, because they are considered in light of their circumstances (no different than what colleges claim to do now). The shaping of a class, the various institutional needs, are not taken into account. Now, of course institutional needs are valid–so there is no need to stick to the quantitative ranking and institutions will naturally pick and choose from the top of the ranking down, as usual with the fuzziest area being the borderline. My central argument and disagreement with AA, as you acknowledged, is that while diversity is an admirable institutional goal, it is an -illegal and immoral- institutional “need” when implemented through direct consideration of race (versus indirect methods like recruiting applicants from high-minority areas).</p>
<p>I apologize for my “relapse” to CC-jargon. Shall I speak in terms of qualified admissions probability instead? I think you understand the jargon perfectly well, and my point there is clear enough: a typical Asian student has a much lower chance of admission at elite schools (both private and public) than a typical black or Hispanic student, assuming that both are academically qualified (a lower standard than meritorious by my definition). Some posters have argued that the typical Asian student is the math/science engineer/geek/genius. This is a generalization but I acknowledge its truth–perhaps due to cultural or immigration influences, its origin is irrelevant despite my personal interest in the topic. However, why should an Asian engineer have a lower chance of admission than a white or URM engineer, assuming equal merit (again by my definition)? I have no evidence for this, only overall anecdotal impression, but neither have I seen any evidence against this hypothesis. The Asian engineer did not ask to be born Asian and he (I will make the student male to eliminate the gender variable) can’t help being interested in math/science–it is unfair to penalize (yes, penalize) him just because his race/ethnicity has a tendency toward math/science. If a school only wants X number of engineers, that’s fine–but they should select the most meritorious engineers, and if Asians are overrepresented in that group, so what? Such a result would only provide correlation that Asians tend to excel in engineering; no school should penalize students for excellence because their racial group possesses that same excellence on the whole, that is the essence of racial discrimination.</p>
<p>If you do not agree that the typical Asian student is currently penalized in admissions at top universities, for whatever reason, then I acknowledge that the above argument will not make much sense–but then, I rest my case because that is a fundamental assumption and one that I believe is true.</p>