What value is diversity if it discriminates against somebody else?
What value is a degree if anybody with enough money and connections or for no other reason than his/her skin color can earn one?
And what does it do to a person's self esteem and/or opportunities to not be able to succeed in college and wash out or quit? Latest studies show that white students are 2-1/2 times more likely to graduate college than black students. Asian students graduate at a much higher rate than white students.
Shouldn't college admissions be awarded to those most likely to succeed?
Who do you want as your heart surgeon? The person, white, black, Asian or whatever who graduated at the top of his/her class? Or the affirmative action person who barely graduated and only did so by standards being lowered for him/her?
To achieve diversity via affirmative action requires lowering standards, encouraging mediocrity, encouraging failure. To achieve diversity by merit says the public schools are doing a quality job of education for all students.
We should stop all the social engineering crap that goes on in public schools, and devote time, resources, emphasis on pushing quality college prep courses in real subjects to all students who want that and give student inspiration and belief that they can master those subjects and qualify for quality higher education. That would be the very best thing government could do for any student including the black ones.
What value is diversity? Employers value it, that is one thing. Beyond that, it adds value for the students who encounter people from different backgrounds, experiences etc. (not just racial). It encourages new of thinking and problem solving as well as a greater understanding of other people’s backgrounds. If you want to get rid of racism that is one way to do it. Meet people. Work together to solve problems (such as an engineering task you given in a course). Collaborate.
Secondly, it isn’t a an either/or situation where if you have diversity you can’t also have merit. These elite schools have never selected based on test scores and GPA alone. They have to write an essay, they have a resume of activities to show they are well rounded or have shown leadership, and they have an in person interview. All of which counts towards the decision.
No one is admitted solely on skin color. And you also miss the point: earned.
You don’t earn a degree simply being accepted.
The reasons people don’t graduate aren’t necessarily because they can’t handle the academic rigor, there can be a number of reasons including financial.
However, in Harvard (and I’m using that as representative of these elite schools) the graduation rates by race are:
Asian. 97.67%
White. 97.17%
Hispanic 96.83%
Black 96.43%
That is barely any difference between races in terms of graduation rates. It sounds like admissions are being awarded to those most likely to succeed. And again, ALL of these young people admitted are going to be highly qualified regardless.
Why would you assume that your future heart surgeon barely graduated because of AA or because race/ethnicity/income status/first generation/gender may have been of of multiple factors in the admissions decision?
And another note…why is it that people are ONLY upset about Black admissions and not any of these others I mentioned above? Not women, not Hispanics, not first generation…all the accusations about lack of merit are only directed only at Blacks (not saying that of you, but of what I see in thread after thread).
