Sociology 255

Roger Clegg (president of the Center for Equal Oppurtunity and staunchly anti-affirmative action) wrote this in a blog post:

“Racism today is less a cause of our problems than it is a symptom of them…The biggest domestic problem America faces today, and certainly the biggest problem that the African-American community faces today, is that seven out of ten African Americans are born out of wedlock…When you grow up in a home without a father, you are much more likely to grow up poor and remain poor, and to get into trouble with the law, and to do poorly in school… The racial disparities — and any resulting racism — we see all stem principally from this sad fact.”

You can read the whole thing here - http://www.ceousa.org/content/view/578/114/

His point is that the fact that blacks are generally worse off is the cause of racism today, rather than the other way around. Of course, historically speaking, the causation runs the other way. Is he right to separate the two? Is he at least partly right that black’s generally worse position in society is the cause of a lot of current racism? If so, what can be done about it?

Many schools use racial information in admitting students through affirmative action programs. However, for schools who have eliminated affirmative action programs or never used it, race is still an obvious factor in the admissions process. Students have many opportunities throughout the application process to indicate their race, through their essays, extra-curricular activities, etc. Many minority students make their race a central part of their identity and therefore inevitably cause the admissions officer to also consider race in his/her decision. Therefore, even though an institution may not have an affirmative action program, they may have mechanisms in place that provide them information on one’s race.

Rather than having race-based affirmative action, I believe that it would be more beneficial to have class-based affirmative action. For example, if you have two students with identical quaifications, one minority and one from the dominant group, what makes the minority students more qualified than the student of the dominant group? In my opinion, the answer is, nothing. However, if you have two student with identical qualifications but are from different socioeconomic backgrounds, I believe that it would be safe to assume that the student from the lower socioeceonomic status had more obstacles to overcome and therefore may possibly be considered as more deserving; the person from a lower socioeconomic status probably went to a worse high-school, has less educated parents who can help with school work or may have been raised in a disorganized area. Another way in which class-based affirmative action could be more useful than race-based affirmative action is in its ability to distinguish between students of the same race; both poor and rich people from different backgrounds and experiences are considered as equally deserving, when in fact, the poor person may have overcome much more and is more deserving. Therefore, minorities of a lower socioeconomic status have to compete with people from the dominant group and people of a higher socioeconomic from all groups.

Therefore, would class-based affirmative action help create more equal opportunities for students rather than race-based affirmative action?

In a lower post, rthompson  mentions that it seemed that the majority of the class believed that the wealthy white people in the school did not deserve to be here as much as everyone else. I would like to branch a couple comments and questions off of his blog.  I do understand that people believe that all legacies and rich people will get into Vanderbilt. Obviously there are a lot of legacies that get into the school because of that, but the percentage of legacies that get in only because of that is very small. In fact, one of my best friends is a legacy and he is much more qualified considering high school grades and SAT scores then most other people I know. Personally, I believe that a great argument can be made that it is in fact a good part of the minorities on campus who do not deserve to be here. Because of affirmative action minorities are given acceptance to this university who are less qualified than others who did not get in. For example, at my high school there were two minority students who had a B+/A- average, while I had an A/A+ average and I had better SAT scores than both of them. These two students got into Harvard and Yale, two of the top universities in the country because they were minorities and not because they deserved it. How is it fair that I do not get into those schools and some of the others they got into, yet I was more qualified. How is that fair at all? I understand that affirmative action is a very good policy but doesn’t it put more people into universities who do not deserve it then legacies and money do?

At dinner the other night, my friend’s friend came over to our table and informed us that her sister got into Harvard. Because she was black, here are the first few statements that were made about the situation:
1. she has a single mother, right?
2. oh, I think they are from Ethiopia
3. wow affirmative action is so unfair
How do we stop people from having such reactions? Is disabling affirmative action the situation or the symptom of a problem? How should I have reacted?

On the same page as the article on affirmative action called “Failed Efficacy,” the Hustler published an anonymous Rant that read:

“Will somebody please tell me why the library courtyard looks like that of a Detroit public high school? Please spend less of my tuition money on affirmative action scholarships and more on actual lawn.”

Keeping in mind the issues that were raised in Monday’s town hall meeting on affirmative action, how do you feel about this article? Should it have even been published at all? Is it simply a harmless joke or a potentially hurtful statement?

While going through the whole college application process, I clearly remember having a conversation about affirmative action with one of my classmates. In fact he was our class valedictorian. At the time I was so closed-minded to even notice the opponent perspective. I was primarily concerned about getting into college that I did not consider the idea I was given an ‘advantage’ into the process because I am Latina. This made me think- what about things like legacy or families kindly making donations to college or university given the applicant an ‘advantage’? Or the advantage that students have by being able to afford a test prep program? Our case was interesting. Our school was able to offer us Princeton Review classes for a much lower price, but while I did have this advantage a lot of my friends at other schools were not performing as well on their SAT exams. This makes me wonder- can a college counselor really predict whether a student will succeed in college based upon an exam score? It also made me realize that there are many factors, as seen through multiple studies that play a role in a student’s ability to perform well on this assessment test. My classmate came to the United States illegally when he was a child. By simply being Latino and illegal in this country, college admissions counselor probably made generalizations about him and perhaps had lower ‘expectations’, but in fact he worked hard to prove these ‘expectations’ wrong. Although English was not his first language, he managed to exceed on both the math and reading/language portion of the SAT. At the time, the first thought that came to mind was that although he performed really well on his SAT, this did not mean that every minority student with disadvantage performed as well as he did, so therefore there is a need for that “boost.” It was interesting to hear him say that, “affirmative action only sets fewer expectations for minority students” Do you think affirmative action sets lower expectations for minority students since they feel they don’t have to work ‘as hard’ to get accepted into a college or university?

Listening to the town meeting on Monday, I couldn’t decide between the two sides of the argument. I wasn’t sure if it is unfair to let someone into a college or school just because they are a certain race, when there are people who are more qualified than that person. Shouldn’t everything be based on straight merit? On the other-hand, affirmative action aids people with disadvantages and who do not have the same opportunities as some others. Dont we need to help the people of minority who are not given the same chances as everyone else, in order to give them the same chances in the future? I was wondering which side of the argument you guys decided on and why.

The underlying reason behind affirmative action seems to be that minorities are socially and economically disadvantaged, and admitting them in higher numbers to colleges levels the playing field. Why then are proponents of affirmative action based on Socio-Economic-Status labelled as racists? The way I see it, there are a lot of minorities who would qualify for this kind of affirmative action anyway. Affirmative action based on race gives unfair advantages to minorities who are of high SES, and leaves poor whites out in the cold.

Recently I had a discussion about the tax increases for the upper class, and affirmative action.

So tax increase on the upper classes. I think its a good thing. First because even if they are not profiting from tax increase directly, they are indirectly. One point brought up was that the upper class worked hard for that money, and taking it from them could hurt work ethic. I don’t believe a tax increase would lower work ethic, but more importantly i wondered how hard some people really worked for their money. There is of course inherited wealth, and also the problem of many white americans gaining initial wealth from activities involving slaves. In addition, I believe that getting an education is the easiest way to make a lot of money, and that those that don’t end up having to work a lot harder  for much less.

So first  question, do you think that tax increase will lower work ethic? Do you really think this, getting an education is really that much harder work than those working lower class jobs?

Next affirmative action. I think this is a good thing as well. White people can apply to historically black colleges and get admittance based on affirmative action, just as blacks can receive admittance based on it. Not that it is completely based on affirmative action, they are just as qualified as the white people that are admitted, affirmative action is a way to prevent racism, even though in the process it may perpetuate it. Lots of questions for people to think about for those for and against affirmative action.

Once quotas are met, which there aren’t supposed to be but their def. are,  for affirmative action, do you not think that they are cut off and the majority population gets preference? If everything is equal on paper, yet a minority is admitted, do you really think that you and the minority had a similar struggle to make it to that same status? or Is the minorities admitted not really that disenfranchised to begin with? If someone is admitted based on affirmative action, do you think it creates an unequal intellectual level? Is affirmative action not just another factor, such as legacies, feeder schools etc., that plays into admission?

Today in class Dr. Pitt mentioned that all-weather liberals always do the “right” thing.  But when I think of people who claim to be so free from prejudice & discriminatory practices and love to congregate together and talk about how un-racist they are, as the text book mentions, I think of supporters of affirmative action. 

Affirmative action, by definition, discrimates based on what group individuals fall in. 

Does this make people who feel affirmative action is good/necessary reluctant liberals?  (that is, assuming they don’t hold it as necessary because they feel minorities are less prepared or intelligent than whites, which would, more simply, classify them as bigots).

Dr. Pitt’s anecdote about this girl who didn’t want a black lab partner really struck me. It got me thinking about the nature of racism. Is the girl who is pro affirmative action, works on the behalf of black people, recognizes their disadvantages (as a whole)  etc., racist because she would prefer not to have a black lab partner? It seems apparent at first that she is, and my gut certainly tells me something is wrong.

But if the person has evidence in the form of statistics (lower standardized test scores for example) does that change anything? (Assume test scores are a good proxy for college preparedness – that’s a separate discussion.) If there are statistics to show it (and i’m pretty sure that blacks on average have lower SAT scores – of course there are variety of reasons for that which are another separate discussion) then would it not be true that, on average, the black student would not be as prepared for college and might not make as good a lab partner?

Again, my gut says something is wrong with this. But I really want to hear what you all have to say.

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