Well, I just wrote a fairly lengthy post about affirmative action, but then I deleted it. It was a stupid post because it didn't say anything that hasn't been said before.
Affirmative action is weird. On the one hand, I support it because I think that minorities who have been historically discriminated against and who are struggling to rise out of socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds deserve a break when they are forced to compete against rich, white kids who have had the best schools and education that their upper-middle class parents could afford. (I just think you have to put in more of an effort to get to the same place when you go to a painfully underfunded school and when you come from a neighborhood which is largley full of single parent families and where large percentages of the population are regularly circulating in and out of jail).
On the other hand, I had a friend who lived with me at Trinity who totally worked his ass off to get into med school (I mean this guy studied so much that he almost gave himself a nervous breakdown a few times), and then was initially rejected from every med school that he applied to. This guy just had to really work like crazy just to barely meet the entry criteria, you know?There were a couple of other kids who went to school with us who were also in the pre med program and who were bright, capable kids, and these kids were instantly accepted to med school because they were considered minority applicants, even though their overall grades and test scores were similar to or slightly lower than the grades and scores that my suitemate had. It didn't seem fair. I didn't want to hold anything against these minority kids (at least one of whom I was very good friends with), but it seemed unfair to my suitemate that he was being passed over while other kids who hadn't necessarily worked quite as hard were being given a free pass.
Finally, I brought the whole issue up with one of these guys, Mario, and asked him how he felt about it (Mario was friends with my suitemate as well, and had already been accepted to med school despite having similar grades and test scores, but applying as a person of Hispanic heritage). Anyway, Mario thought about it awhile and said that he thought it might not be fair on an individual level, but that it was probably fair on a societal one. Mario pointed out that my suitemate's father was a doctor, and that he came from an affluent family. Mario was (I believe) the first person in his family to go to college, and that if he went back to his neighborhood to practice medicine (which he planned on doing) that he would be one of the only Hispanic doctors to be practicing in that neighborhood that he knew of. If he went to med school, maybe a few other Hispanic kids from his old high school would try it.
Well, my suitemate eventually got a late acceptance letter to med school, and I believe that he's now practicing in Houston (unless he's moved recently), so everything ended well, but the whole episode has come to symbolize the whole affirmative action debate for me. (Let it be noted that Mario was one of the first ones to buy my suitemate a beer when he got his acceptance letter, and that my suitemate and he remained close friends throughout the whole thing)
By the way, this whole thing came to mind because the Supreme Court is getting ready to hear some more affirmative action cases (although I think in the context of elementary and secondary schools). I'm actually surprised that the conservatives haven't done more to attack affirmative action during these last couple of years, but I guess there's not really a big rush given the way they've got the court stacked at this point.
Uh, man, I'm not sure this post was better than the first one, but I have a headache now, so I'm done.
4 comments:
good post. take excedrin for the headache. i agree with mario's assessment of affirmative actions' fairness. (no surprise there. seriously, could i be more liberal? i'd like to legalize drugs, ban guns, socialize medicine, elect a black woman president, and honor gay marriages while the platform is open.)
I would settle for getting rid of Bush (and his brother) and getting rid of at least half the laws in the Texas Penal Code...that would be a great start!/dk
We had the opposite issue in our med school class, thanks the Hopwood Act......admissions looked at only numbers (GPA, MCAT scores) and not at race, religion, or gender.
Out of 208 students, there were no African-Americans, 4 Hispanic (who did not speak a word of Spanish), and the usual number of Asian/Indians. Proabbaly 70% white males.
There were 20 Mormons, who we joked were the minority students.
And this was easily the most dysfunctional group of med students in the history of that institution....
Yay affirmative action, and I'm as white as a glass of milk.
Beyond the restorative justice aspects of affirmative action, I think that diversity, in and of itself, adds value to the educational experience. The world is a much smaller place than it was even 20 years ago, and schools that want to prepare students to be effective leaders in their professions and communities need to provide an education that allows students to experience as many different viewpoints as possible. Some of the most engaging experiences I had as an undergraduate were those where I had spirited (sometimes drunken)debates with people who held views and came from backgrounds that were very different from my own.
With respect to affirmative action as a remedy for past discrimination, I think it is still necessary. Despite what some people would like to think, race matters. The type of overt legislated racism faced by my parents, such as segregated schools, is largely gone. However, race is still a factor in American life. Would illegal immigration be such a hot button issue if the immigrants weren't brown skinned and speaking a different language? How come we don't hear about the millions of illegal immigrants who are from other parts of the world and who overstayed their visas? Moreover, the impact of the racism of the past continues to affect entire communities. Although it seems like Jim Crow was something from the distant past, we are only one or two generations removed from it. I remain hopeful that we will reach a point where affirmative action is no longer necessary, but we're not there yet.
Okay, so this is getting a little long. I think there is a lot more that can be said on this issue, probably over beers.....
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