[tsbalr120]

(CNN) -- Heman Marion Sweatt and Abigail Noel Fisher both wanted to attend the University of Texas at Austin.

Both claimed their race was a primary reason for their rejection. Both filed civil rights lawsuits, and the Supreme Court ultimately agreed to hear their separate appeals -- filed more than half a century apart.

Their cases share much in common -- vexing questions of competition, fairness, and demographics -- and what role government should play when promoting political and social diversity.

But it is the key difference between these plaintiffs -- separated by three generations and a troubled road to "equality" -- that now confronts the nation's highest court: Sweatt was black, Fisher is white.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/08/us/sco...t=hp_inthenews


I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand I believe the students with the best grades should be amitted, regardless of race or any factors. The fact that a student gets in with a worse resume than another just because they are a minority is unfair in my opinion.

On the other hand,

Poverty rates is skewed greatly with mostly minorities. To help this problem the main option is to get more minorites into higher education. Affirmative Action helps with this.


What do you guys think?

[Iamamartianchurch]

There is a problem with the underlying logic that treats higher education as job training.

[barrel roll]

Originally Posted by Iamamartianchurch

There is a problem with the underlying logic that treats higher education as job training.

Get out of my head.


I am a firm believer that not everyone should go on to university. I am also a firm believer that you don't need university to learn.

I find it troubling that racial quotas are deemed ok for the sake of "diversity".

[tsbalr120]

Originally Posted by Iamamartianchurch

There is a problem with the underlying logic that treats higher education as job training.

I'm curious, why is it a problem?

[marcozombie]

These fit nicely here


http://www.npr.org/2012/10/10/162567...n-in-higher-ed

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/09/162565...-fully-blended

[Iamamartianchurch]

Originally Posted by barrel roll

Get out of my head.


I am a firm believer that not everyone should go on to university. I am also a firm believer that you don't need university to learn.

I find it troubling that racial quotas are deemed ok for the sake of "diversity".

I completely agree with you here.

[Tafari Makonnen]

Originally Posted by tsbalr120

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/08/us/sco...t=hp_inthenews


I have mixed feelings about this.

On one hand I believe the students with the best grades should be amitted, regardless of race or any factors. The fact that a student gets in with a worse resume than another just because they are a minority is unfair in my opinion.

On the other hand,

Poverty rates is skewed greatly with mostly minorities. To help this problem the main option is to get more minorites into higher education. Affirmative Action helps with this.


What do you guys think?

Race and gender should not be considered in college admissions at all.

Low income isn't the only factor as to why minorities perform more poorly academically. White students outperform minority students in standardize testing in the same income bracket, and often do better than minority students from families of higher income levels. There are underlying cultural (and likely physiological) factors that need to be addressed to improve the academic performance of minority students and students in general. Affirmative action and similar proposed solutions don't address the actual problem of poor performance, they simply make people feel better about it.

[Matt.is.back2011]

I think affirmative action is aimed more at schools with historically poor performance, and less on race.

Realistically, a 3.5 isn't a 3.5 depending in what school you go to, and students should be rewarded for beating the odds and their peers.

When your schools average test scores and grades are significantly lower than the national average and you have some students who excel and do better than their peers, they should be rewarded for that. Even if their grades happen to be a 2.7 or 3.5.

[Iamamartianchurch]

Originally Posted by tsbalr120

I'm curious, why is it a problem?

It reduces learning into narrow specialties. Such a mindset is more well suited to apprenticeship and trade school. For most careers, this will more than suffice. A big side effect of this particular focus in the university is the over emphasis on abstraction over than reflection. What I'm talking about is learning itself. Abstraction develops a fetish of reducing the irreducible, IE nature. Not that you can't generalize with success. It is merely that theory alone is often insufficient to perform the task you are supposedly trained to so. Which explains the hordes of hopelessly inadequate degree holders I've spoken of here o. Occasion. Personal experience mind you, the type of reflective knowledge that usually shunned. Anyway.

The point is, the university system exists to pass on the cultural and intellectual heritage of humanity to coming generations. Treating the university system as anything but obfuscates this goal and devalues the education one receives.

[Iamamartianchurch]

Originally Posted by Tafari Makonnen

Race and gender should not be considered in college admissions at all.

Low income isn't the only factor as to why minorities perform more poorly academically. White students outperform minority students in standardize testing in the same income bracket, and often do better than minority students from families of higher income levels. There are underlying cultural (and likely physiological) factors that need to be addressed to improve the academic performance of minority students and students in general. Affirmative action and similar proposed solutions don't address the actual problem of poor performance, they simply make people feel better about it.

Asians fair exceptionally well.

[Overbear]

How can you view "affirmative action" as anything but pure racisim?

Person 1: Sorry we can't let you in even thou you have a 4.0, you are white.
Person 2: Oh, well come, sure you only have a 3.0 but your black/asian/whatever so thats ok.

[Iamamartianchurch]

For most of you, this is the relevant problem with our current philosophy:

Higher education as job training creates a requirement for most of population to attend college. Diminishing quality aside, you are flooding the market with degree holders subsequently devaluing that degree. Chiefly, the bachelors which is by no means cheap. At face value this probably sounds like bull****. Which might be a true statement if we had close to full employment. Back to the point. Men and women are more or less forced to incur massive debt for a degree that is not guaranteed to land them with a job. Flood the labor market with holders of the same degrees and you have a massive problem on your hands.

[licence2kill]

education isn't a zero sum game martian. the problem isn't a more educated populace, its a ****ty labor market which we allow to exist.

[drgonzo]

Seems like most people in this thread need to get educated on how affirmative action actually works.

"Even if Abigail Fisher had received a perfect Personal Achievement Index score she would not have been admitted ... because her Academic Index was simply not high enough," says Gregory Garre, lawyer for the University. Garre, who served as U.S. solicitor general in the George W. Bush administration, says flatly that "Fisher would not have been admitted, no matter what her race."

This is really the long and short of this. This person was simply did not make the grade to get accepted. The thinking that she should have been accepted and only was not based on her skin color is borderline racist, and at minimum smacks of racial privilege.

This should not have gotten this far and this shows you what is wrong with a politicized supreme court. They are only taking this case to serve their political benefactors.

[Matt.is.back2011]

Originally Posted by Overbear

How can you view "affirmative action" as anything but pure racisim?

Person 1: Sorry we can't let you in even thou you have a 4.0, you are white.
Person 2: Oh, well come, sure you only have a 3.0 but your black/asian/whatever so thats ok.

It has to do in relation to one's peers. Plus, anybody with a 4.0 gets into whatever school they want (excluding Ivy League and other exclusive schools if you're an out-of-state student).

So here's a more accurate example:

Person 1: White, suburbia, scores a 3.2 GPA, 1600 SAT score. In the top 25% of their class.
Person 2: Black, inner city Detroit, scores a 2.9 GPA, 1550 SAT score. Top 10% of their class.

Person 1 doesn't get in, person 2 does. Do you think this is fair?

[chodeyg]

I didn't get into UF (not that I would go near the place) despite taking 7 AP classes and passing the exams on 5 of them, several years of Latin classes and competing in state/regional forums, getting a 1370 on my Sats, holding a job for a few years, competing in rowing for four years blah blah. Meanwhile several girls I knew who got awful test scores, fewer ap classes, no sports or job got in just fine. My roommate was one of two students in his high school who were in some system similar to international baccalaureate program that didn't get into that school as well. Both of them were the only white students in the program...

These days affirmative action is just reverse racism. It may have been effective once but it is not reducing the skewing effects of poverty these days. Racial quotas need to be ended, and they need to be ended quickly.

[barrel roll]

Matt - I ignored location and race. I looked at scores, and not statistics (% above class). No, not "fair".

[Iamamartianchurch]

Originally Posted by licence2kill

education isn't a zero sum game martian. the problem isn't a more educated populace, its a ****ty labor market which we allow to exist.

It is in our ****ty labor market. That was the whole point.

[barrel roll]

Originally Posted by licence2kill

education isn't a zero sum game martian. the problem isn't a more educated populace, its a ****ty labor market which we allow to exist.

He is arguing that just because you get 4 more years of training for a career as an XYZ, it doesn't mean you are educated. The purpose of higher education isn't to train you for a career, it is to further develop the individual.

[tsbalr120]

Originally Posted by Matt.is.back2011

It has to do in relation to one's peers. Plus, anybody with a 4.0 gets into whatever school they want (excluding Ivy League and other exclusive schools if you're an out-of-state student).

So here's a more accurate example:

Person 1: White, suburbia, scores a 3.2 GPA, 1600 SAT score. In the top 25% of their class.
Person 2: Black, inner city Detroit, scores a 2.9 GPA, 1550 SAT score. Top 10% of their class.

Person 1 doesn't get in, person 2 does. Do you think this is fair?

No, because the only thing person 2 has going for them is being black and went to school with dumber people.

[Matt.is.back2011]

Originally Posted by barrel roll

Matt - I ignored location and race. I looked at scores, and not statistics (% above class). No, not "fair".

So you think admissions should weigh GPA and Test Scores equally, ignoring demographics?