will AA help me into columbia?

steve10c
Sun, 18 Mar 2007 15:27:19 +0000

I think a lot of people are sincere about why they have those policies, but I think they evolved under false pretenses and have failed. I’ve tried to get some empirically verified reasons why people support the diversity hypothesis and I haven’t seen any. I have seen a lot of people suffer and a lot of increase racial tension because of the policies. Thomas Sowell did an empirical study in four or five countries and seen those kinds of effects and explained them in terms of standard microeconomic theory (people act on incentives and AA gives people incentives to change race, go to schools they will not be as sucessful at because they are “better”, etc.).

I used the term reactionary in the sense that the policies are dated and newer, more progressive (contemporary liberal) policies like juding people in the context of their enviornment are a better alternative. I say racist in the sense that they discriminate based on race, regardless of whether they think its good or bad. I’m not saying they’re bad people; I know the adcoms are good people like everyone else who has ever lived and I’ve ever met.

But sometimes good people make mistakes. Maybe I’m mistaken here, but as far as I can see racial discrimination is a big mistake and a socail ill.