The controversy I have chosen originated behind the different views people share about affirmative action so I ask the following: Does affirmative action benefit minority students or does mismatching set them up to fail? To acquire this source, I used Google and the keywords “Affirmative Action” and “Mismatching” to obtain an article published online by The Atlantic. Moreover, the article was co-written by Richard Sander, a law professor at UCLA and economist studies the effects of racial preference and Stuart Taylor Jr., a contributing editor for National Journal who is currently teaching a course on news media and law at Stanford Law School. This article is relevant to my topic because it defends the legitimacy of mismatching in affirmative …show more content…
In many cases, affirmative action can be said to have become “a political lightning rod,” as stated by the authors due to its ability to ignite an argument. Taylor and Sander attempt to validate mismatching as a passable reason for why affirmative action should be rescinded and why many minorities across the nation fail at the nation’s best institutions. Mismatching leads to an environment where minorities are unable to learn and compete with their white peers because the course material is not at their level. Taylor and Sander claimed “racial preference policies often stigmatize minorities, reinforce pernicious stereotypes, and undermine the self-confidence of beneficiaries,” as some of the side effects that can occur when institutions use affirmative action to diversify …show more content…
The banning of Prop 209 affected UCLA and Berkley in accepting minorities and was viewed as a racist gesture. with the ban of prop 209, there was an expected drought of minority applicants to both institutions. Additionally, UCLA failed to release information pertaining to the school's ban of prop 209. People do not publicly speak out on the dangers of mismatching for fear of social suicide, they are afraid of what affirmative action has become. Taylor and Sander claimed “simply acknowledging the fact that large preferences exist can trigger accusations that one is insulting or stigmatizing minority groups,” to account for the fear people have in change and in this case in doing something about affirmative action as it mismatches
In 1973 a thirty-three year-old Caucasian male named Allan Bakke applied to and was denied admission to the University of California Medical School at Davis. In 1974 he filed another application and was once again rejected, even though his test scores were considerably higher than various minorities that were admitted under a special program. This special program specified that 16 out of 100 possible spaces for the students in the medical program were set aside solely for minorities, while the other 84 slots were for anyone who qualified, including minorities. What happened to Bakke is known as reverse discrimination. Bakke felt his rejections to be violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th amendment, so he took the University of California Regents to the Superior Court of California. It was ruled that "the admissions program violated his rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment"1 The clause reads as follows:"...No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor without due process of the law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."2 The court ruled that race could not be a factor in admissions. However, they did not force the admittance of Bakke because the court could not know if he would have been admitted if the special admissions program for minorities did not exist.
Another article titled “The Painful Truth About Affirmative Action” (Source B) by Richard Sander and Stuart Taylor Jr. takes a similar stance, but walks the reader through an alternative route in reaching a conclusion by discussing the negative aspects of AA on minority students. A third article by the name of “Actually, we still need affirmative action for African Americans in college admissions. Here’s why” (Source C) by Valerie Strauss provides input from the other side of the spectrum by arguing that AA is still needed. While source A provides an extremely biased perspective on affirmative action and does little to persuade the audience with its weak language, source B presents a slightly stronger argument against affirmative through its descriptive language and academic tone, which appeals to the reader but fails to address the opposite side of the dispute. However, source C offers the most compelling argument through its thorough analysis of affirmative action that considers both sides of the spectrum with strong diction and formal tone to effectively convey its ideas to the
As I stated before, Proposition 209 was passed in 1996 by California voters. It was passed by a margin of 56% to 46% but was ruled unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in 1997 and has not taken effect. There are many loop-holes in Proposition 209. One, for instance, is the title on the ballot: “Prohibition Against Discrimination and Preferable Treatment.” The proposed amendment would actually make sexual and racial discrimination more legal while attracting voters at the poll with its loosely written title. What Proposition 209 really does is end affirmative action outreach programs for women and minorities in government jobs and contracts, bans courts from ordering affirmative action remedies in the case of racial or sexual discrimination, and scraps math and science programs for girls. The proposed amendment is worded so carefully that it would persuade the average reader to vote for it, thinking they were voting against discrimination, while they were voting against discrimination programs.
Discrimination is still a chronic global issue, and drastic inequalities still exist at the present time. Thus, the Affirmative Action Law is an important tool to many minorities most especially to women, and people of color, for the reason that this program provides an equality on educational, and professional opportunities for every qualified individual living in the United States. Without this program, a higher education would have been impossible for a “minority students” to attain. Additionally, without the Affirmative Action, a fair opportunity to have a higher-level career...
The primary focus of this case is on the use of racial quotas and affirmative action policies used in the admissions procedures of the Medical School of the University of California at Davis. As a means to remedy past discrimination in the medical field and to promote diversity, the school had reserved 16 percent of its available seats for entering applicants for “disadvantaged minorities,” including “Blacks,” “Chicanos,” “Asians,” and “American
majority, does not advance the cause of minorities in a meaningful way, and needs to be
Affirmative action, the act of giving preference to an individual for hiring or academic admission based on the race and/or gender of the individual has remained a controversial issue since its inception decades ago. Realizing its past mistake of discriminating against African Americans, women, and other minority groups; the state has legalized and demanded institutions to practice what many has now consider as reverse discrimination. “Victims” of reverse discrimination in college admissions have commonly complained that they were unfairly rejected admission due to their race. They claimed that because colleges wanted to promote diversity, the colleges will often prefer to accept applicants of another race who had significantly lower test scores and merit than the “victims”. In “Discrimination and Disidentification: The Fair-Start Defense of Affirmative Action”, Kenneth Himma responded to these criticisms by proposing to limit affirmative action to actions that negate unfair competitive advantages of white males established by institutions (Himma 277 L. Col.). Himma’s views were quickly challenged by his peers as Lisa Newton stated in “A Fair Defense of a False Start: A Reply to Kenneth Himma” that among other rationales, the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action (Newton 146 L. Col.). This paper will also argue that the Fair-Start Defense based on race and gender is a faulty justification for affirmative action because it cannot be fairly applied in the United States of America today. However, affirmative action should still be allowed and reserved for individuals whom the state unfairly discriminates today.
Imagine, your walking down the street looking for a job. You see a sign in the window that says, “Whites encouraged to apply.” Imagine the period in time when just being white got you into a college, without any other considerations of grades or athletic ability. Those were the days of the Jim Crow laws. Now these instances have happened in the past 20 years, through new laws called Affirmative Action. The big argument is over these few years of affirmative action. Have they alleviated the pain of the Jim Crow laws? The answer to that question is no. Especially, in the case of the University of Michigan‘s use of Affirmative Action in the acceptance of students. Using race as a factor of admission is wrong and is reverse discrimination.
“It is harder for a white college student to understand the need that minority students feel to band together against discrimination” (Waters, 1996, 236). Waters points out that often times in colleges where diversity is not apparent, the minority students—Asian, African Americans, Jewish, Arab and Latino—bind together no matter their racial differences. Since Senate Bill 1070 was passed in Arizona, racial profiling by local forces has become very problematic.
Affirmative action has been a controversial topic ever since it was established in the 1960s to right past wrongs against minority groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and women. The goal of affirmative action is to integrate minorities into public institutions, like universities, who have historically been discriminated against in such environments. Proponents claim that it is necessary in order to give minorities representation in these institutions, while opponents say that it is reverse discrimination. Newsweek has a story on this same debate which has hit the nation spotlight once more with a case being brought against the University of Michigan by some white students who claimed that the University’s admissions policies accepted minority students over them, even though they had better grades than the minority students. William Symonds of Business Week, however, thinks that it does not really matter. He claims that minority status is more or less irrelevant in college admissions and that class is the determining factor.
Subconscious prejudices, self-segregation, political correctness, reverse discrimination, and ignorance all wade in the pool of opinions surrounding affirmative action and racial animosity. With racial tensions ever present in this country, one might question whether the problems can be solved by affirmative action.
“There is exactly one sentence about why schools should want to discriminate… It reads, ‘When the state’s most elite universities are less diverse, [a school official] said, it doesn’t provide our students with a level of diversity they need in order to learn about other cultures and other communities’…And that’s supposed to outweigh all these costs of discrimination; It is personally unfair, passes over better qualified students, and sets a disturbing legal, political, and moral precedent in allowing racial discrimination.”
Today there is considerable disagreement in the country over Affirmative Action with the American people. MSNBC reported a record low in support for Affirmative Action with 45% in support and 45% opposing (Muller, 2013). The affirmative action programs have afforded all genders and races, exempting white males, a sense of optimism and an avenue to get the opportunities they normally would not be eligible for. This advantage includes admission in colleges or hiring preferences with public and private jobs; although Affirmative Action has never required quotas the government has initiated a benefits program for the schools and companies that elect to be diversified. The advantages that are received by the minorities’ only take into account skin color, gender, disability, etc., are what is recognized as discriminatory factors. What is viewed as racism to the majority is that there ar...
The discrimination against Caucasian and Asian American students a long with the toleration of lower quality work produced by African American students and other minority students is an example of the problems caused by Affirmative Action. Although affirmative action intends to do good, lowering the standards by which certain racial groups are admitted to college is not the way to solve the problem of diversity in America's universities. The condition of America's public schools is directly responsible for the poor academic achievement of minority children. Instead of addressing educational discrepancies caused by poverty and discrimination, we are merely covering them up and pretending they do not exist, and allowing ourselves to avoid what it takes to make a d... ... middle of paper ... ...
Hinrichs, P. (n.d.). The effects of affirmative action bans on college enrollment, educational attainment, and the demographic composition of universities. Review of Economics & Statistics, 94(3), 712–722.