Using Synonyms for Race, College Strives for Diversity

The New York Times ^ | 12/07/2002 (for editions of 12/08/2002) | Jacques Steinberg

[End The Hypocrisy]

Jesse Jackson's son Yusef Jackson may own a beer distributorship and countless other assets, but the odds are he got into U.Va. Law as a "disadvantaged" applicant. Linda Chavez recently exposed the followng about U.Va. Law's admissions policies:


http://www.ceousa.org/html/update/update.html

"A detailed, 50-page study released by the Center for Equal Opportunity concludes that racial discrimination is widespread in Virginia law school admissions. The report focuses on the three Virginia public law schools -- the University of Virginia, William & Mary, and George Mason University -- and reveals odds favoring black applicants as high as 731 to 1. To put it in other terms: A student with an LSAT score of 160 and an undergraduate GPA of 3.25 had a 95 percent chance of admission into U.Va. if he or she was black, but only a 3 percent chance of admission if white, Hispanic or Asian."

[rovenstinez]

What if a guy's paternal grandmother is real black, his paternal grandfather is Native American, and the maternal grandfather is Irish, and the maternal grandmother is Hispanic. Do you get to pick which race you want to belong to then? It's getting real mixed up folks.

[Fish out of Water]

The Federal Government has no authority or business funding Universities so that method of coercion should be eliminated. After that Private Universities should be allowed to make admission decisions on any basis they want to dream up, Public Universities should admit all applicants that meet what ever minimum academic standards they establish in order to limit enrollment without discriminating on the basis of race.

[xm177e2]

But Kristin Dukes, 19, a sophomore from Greenville, Tex., who is black, said that many of her classmates were unaware of the university's admissions policies.

"At Rice, probably in the back of their minds, kids are still thinking I was privileged to get in because of the color of my skin," said Ms. Dukes, a psychology major. "Just because they have new standards at the university doesn't mean the students at the university feel the same way."

And at the end of this whole article about how affirmative action lives, the reporter quotes two minority girls talking about how "proud" they are of getting in without a bonus for their race. What a joke!

[LibertarianInExile]

Screw that. Public Universities should be eliminated altogether. Government has no business buying property that could be put to better use by either a private person or company. Do you have any idea what kind of difference it would make in the real world if the thousands of tenured liberals employed by public universites had to earn a living on the basis of their productivity? I laugh just thinking about it.

"Have doctorate in Women's Studies. Will work for food."

ROFLMAO.

[Verginius Rufus]

Teddy Kennedy presumably got into U.Va. law school thanks to a powerfully-written essay about how he had "overcome" the blow to his self-esteem suffered when he was expelled from Yale.

[Fish out of Water]

True but the US Constitution tried to tie the hands of the Feds to prevent such interference but States where left free to determine their own course.

[cgbg]

If universities want to be diverse they should start permitting mentally handicapped folks to be in the student body.

Yes, I know they are already represented on the faculty and in the administrative offices... ;-)

[LibertarianInExile]

Granted. But the feds have little or nothing to do with private universities like Rice, except student loans and research subsidies. Rice could admit students on the basis of their ability to walk and chew bubble gum, as far as I'm concerned. I would be less likely to hire a black Rice grad knowing what I know about Rice's admissions, just as I have less respect for a white UC Berkeley grad vs. an Asian one.

And that's the real problem: college admissions and degrees, state or otherwise, are a joke. Private schools are the only ones that are primarily affected by it, because if their graduates' education and/or ratings by employers suck, their grads make less money and alumni don't have money to donate. State universities keep on stamping those diplomas out regardless, because the states think it's worth paying for diploma mills.

Nevertheless, state and federal subsidy pays off not on the basis of sucking up to affirmative action, but first and foremost, on the basis of what politicians like. Witness Phil Gramm's Texas A&M payoff, buried in the Homeland Security Act, further evidence that Gramm is just another pork-barreling traitor in disguise, no matter what the neocons try to spout about Senator Enron being a "fiscal conservative."

I think ultimately the solution to problems with education involve ending affirmative action; however, I think we gotta get rid of all subsidies for schools before we bother with that. It's a matter of prioritizing what is the bigger problem with our country, and to me, eliminating all nationally subsidized research and education are way up on the list before discriminating against those who want it.

[Fish out of Water]

The university feared that openly defying the federal court could cost it $45 million annually in federal aid, about 15 percent of its budget.

This type of coercion makes things worse all the way around.

[Endeavor]

Yes, but private universities receive federal research dollars (via grants from establishments like NIH to individual faculty members to support their research) and therein lies the impossibility of separating public from private -- at least from a governmental support point of view.

[Fish out of Water]

What is NIH and where in the Constitution is authority for such government action?

[Endeavor]

"Eliminating all nationally subsidized research. . ." is a particularly uninformed approach. Brilliant work, both in the basic sciences and in application science is performed by University researchers. That research is enhanced, in fact, is only possible, through government induced grants via funding agencies such as NIH, DOE, etc. Otherwise it would not occur, or would be funded by biased third parties with their own particular axe to grind.

[Endeavor]

National Institutes of Health. Do your own homework, and try being a little more informed. I'm not "yo mama."

[Fish out of Water]

Why should I care about keeping track of government Acronyms and when are you going to answer the rest of my question?

[pabianice]

I thought courts dropped anvils on organizations that defied court rulings like this. Why have they been allowed to get away with it? If SCOTUS stikes-down affirmative action next year, what's to stop the quota mongers from simply side-stepping their decision in just this way?

[Blue Screen of Death]

Teddy Kennedy presumably got into U.Va. law school thanks to a powerfully-written essay about how he had "overcome" the blow to his self-esteem suffered when he was expelled from Yale.

I thought he got an athletic scholorship to be on the swim team.

[Endeavor]

When hell freezes over, dimbulb.

[Fish out of Water]

When hell freezes over, dimbulb.

If you are incapable of supporting your challenge of my statement you should try doing something productive instead of wasting other peoples time with your nonsense.