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Affirmative action: Its time is long past
New York Daily News ^ | Tuesday, January 21st, 2003 | Richard Cohen

Posted on 01/21/2003 1:04:03 PM PST by yonif

Edited on 01/21/2003 1:18:10 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

In its cover story this week on affirmative action, Newsweek tells us that "fewer than 7% of Harvard's current freshman class is black, compared to 12.9% of the overall population."The implication is clear: This is a low, unacceptable figure that can be remedied only by affirmative action. Maybe. But there is one figure Newsweek doesn't provide: What should the black percentage be?

Excerpt


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; Editorial; Extended News; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: affirmativeaction
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1 posted on 01/21/2003 1:04:03 PM PST by yonif
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To: All
Interesting.
2 posted on 01/21/2003 1:05:51 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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3 posted on 01/21/2003 1:06:40 PM PST by Support Free Republic (Your support keeps Free Republic going strong!)
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To: yonif
Richard Cohen wrote this?
4 posted on 01/21/2003 1:08:37 PM PST by HumanaeVitae
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To: yonif
This is pretty amazing coming from Richard Cohen, who has been supporter of the Democratic Party line at a near 100% level since he has been a featured editorial columnist at the Washington Post.
5 posted on 01/21/2003 1:09:25 PM PST by Stirner
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To: yonif
And what about Jews? They comprise less than 2% of the population, yet one estimate has them at 21% of Harvard's undergraduate class.

You hardly ever see this discussed. But if all "minorities" are proportionally represented at Harvard, and Jews make up 21%, what is the percentage of non-Jewish whites? Obviously far below their percentage of the population.

6 posted on 01/21/2003 1:09:53 PM PST by Restorer (TANSTAAFL)
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To: yonif
Richard Cohen is a jew, and as I have stated before, Jews have been turning to the right and are continuing to do so daily.
7 posted on 01/21/2003 1:11:08 PM PST by yonif
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To: Support Free Republic
Another question to ask is: What is the percentage of Blacks, compared to Whites, that graduates from High School and becomes elligible for college?

Just going by population percentages as a whole fails to tell an accurate story.

For instance, if the percentage graduating from high school is 85% of Whites, and 75% of Blacks, then the expectation would be about 9.7% of college populations would be Black, vs the 11% expectation if all kids graduated High School (presuming 200 Million Whites and 22 Million Blacks as a baseline).

If they take all things into account and only measure those actually elligible for college, the numbers will be more reflective of reality. If there is a lower percentage becoming elligible for college, then they need to fix it in lower education (which doesn't have an actual quota system).

8 posted on 01/21/2003 1:20:26 PM PST by trebb
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To: yonif
What's fascinating about this story is that the author is Richard Cohen, a member of the Ted Kennedy wing of the Democrat party and the investigative journalist who "got" Spiro Agnew. Cohen may be getting wiser as he gets older. Or it may just be beginning to dawn on white, male upper/upper middle class liberals that if colleges base entrance largely on affirmative action and toss out the college boards and downplay grades and alumni giving, junior may have little chance getting into a selective college, particularly as a male.

Either you have a society based on equal justice under the law, or you don't. At schools like Michigan, the current system favors an immigrant kid who landed illegally from Nigeria or Haiti yesterday who scored 1,000 in the Boards over a White or Asian kid born in the U.S. who scored 1,600 and it favors women over men. It would be interesting to know what percentage of non-Blacks have a U.S. slaveholder ancestor and what percentage of Blacks have a U.S. slave ancestor. Lower than you think. My guess: 1-2% for the former and 60% for the latter. And of course, few Hispanics have a U.S. slave ancestor. They get preference too.










9 posted on 01/21/2003 1:22:05 PM PST by Man of the Right
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To: rdb3; Khepera; elwoodp; MAKnight; condolinda; mafree; Trueblackman; FRlurker; Teacher317; ...
Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

10 posted on 01/21/2003 1:27:35 PM PST by mhking
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To: yonif
"...you would think that there is some sort of racial crisis in higher education that mandates the persistence of affirmative action. After all, how else can we go on discriminating in favor of one race and discriminating against another unless nothing else could possibly do? Is 7% an unacceptable figure? If so, how do blacks stack up against Italian- or Polish-Americans? Should Asians be held to their exact percentage in the overall population (3.6%)? And what about Jews? They comprise less than 2% of the population, yet one estimate has them at 21% of Harvard's undergraduate class."

I did not know that...MUD

11 posted on 01/21/2003 1:32:17 PM PST by Mudboy Slim (Bill Clinton is a Sexual Predator and a TRAITOR to America...MUD)
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To: mhking
"On "Meet The Press" Sunday, Condoleezza Rice said that the reason President Bush asked her views on affirmative action was that for six years, she had been the provost of Stanford. What she did not say was that Bush approached her because she is also an African-American and might, therefore, bring a special perspective to the discussion.

In a way, that was an odd omission. But if Rice wants us to look past her race - as Bush seems to have done - then who can blame her? In fact, when it comes to affirmative action, it's past time that we follow her example. "

YES!

12 posted on 01/21/2003 1:33:54 PM PST by hoosiermama (GO CONDI!)
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To: yonif
I'll believe Cohen is a right-winger when pigs fly! 'Pod
13 posted on 01/21/2003 1:34:36 PM PST by sauropod (Mike Farrell has donated his brain to science. Too bad he is still here....)
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To: yonif
Even left-wing Jews have been generally against affirmative action from the start. It's one of the few areas where many differ from Democratic party orthodoxy. I doubt this is anything new for Cohen.
14 posted on 01/21/2003 2:06:54 PM PST by Celtjew Libertarian
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To: Restorer
PAt Buchanan has written about this.

The difference is taht Jews generaly get in by Merit and are treated as white.
15 posted on 01/21/2003 3:11:42 PM PST by rmlew
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To: rmlew
I realize that. I don't begrudge them the rewards for their accomplishments, I just get ticked off when so many of them insist that people like me must take it in the shorts so they can feel better about themselves.

If we had true proportionate representation, Jews would be limited to something like 2%.
16 posted on 01/21/2003 4:01:27 PM PST by Restorer (TANSTAAFL)
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To: Restorer
You hardly ever see this discussed. But if all "minorities" are proportionally represented at Harvard, and Jews make up 21%, what is the percentage of non-Jewish whites? Obviously far below their percentage of the population. If you count the asians (30%) and the jews (21%) along with the rest, we have minority representation of over 60% in our colleges and universities. Now compare that with a minority population of only 30%, I say that is more than diverse enough.
17 posted on 01/21/2003 4:52:33 PM PST by NP-INCOMPLETE
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To: Restorer
It seems to me that Jews also suffer from affirmative action.
18 posted on 01/21/2003 5:02:51 PM PST by rmlew
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To: rmlew
It seems to me that Jews also suffer from affirmative action.

Not statistically speaking.

Most Jews are upper income and academically successful. They also have a disproportionate amount of the "legacy" and other connections that help not-so-bright kids get into schools.

The real sufferers from affirmative action are poor white kids, especially from rural areas and inner cities. They have no more connections than poor black kids, and they frequently come from equally deprived cultural backgrounds. Yet our laws insist on treating them as part of the ruling elite. Very few Jews are in this group of poor whites.

BTW, this group is actually significantly larger in number than the group of poor blacks.

19 posted on 01/21/2003 5:25:16 PM PST by Restorer (TANSTAAFL)
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To: Restorer
Most Jews are upper income and academically successful. They also have a disproportionate amount of the "legacy" and other connections that help not-so-bright kids get into schools.

Older Jews certainly are more likely than the average American to be sucessful. However, these rich Jews also have about 1.2 children per woman.
At least at Columbia about 1/2 of the Jewish students (myself included) were first or second generation and many of these were not well off. Furthermore, the Orthodox Students who commuted from Brooklyn were middle class.

I would also note taht Jews only really had fair admission standards from the mid-50s to the early 70s. Before then there were quotas to keep Jews out and afterwards there were quotas that hurt all whites. That's half a generation not encumbered by discrimination.

Are many Jews legacies? Yep. However few legacies are dimwits. Intelligence and academic performance are formed by nature and nurture. Intelligent parents have smart kids and tend to raise them with academic skills. Some may be lazy, but few are stupid.
Not that universities check these things but my IQ is a mere 145. (Is that 2 or 3 standard deviations above the norm?) I was a legacy and had a SAT score of 1420 and quite good AP scores. I did not get into Columbia the first time I applied, because of my B average. I had to tranfer to get in.

The real sufferers from affirmative action are poor white kids, especially from rural areas and inner cities. They have no more connections than poor black kids, and they frequently come from equally deprived cultural backgrounds. Yet our laws insist on treating them as part of the ruling elite.

Are you proposing socio-economic affirmative action and even quotas?
Sounds a little socialist to me, but it is preferable to our current racial structure.

Very few Jews are in this group of poor whites.
Come to NYC for a few hours. (Also, please note the cost of living in NYC. $80,000 is a middle class salary here thanks to the highest taxes in the nation and high rents. This is never taken into account in aid packages.)

20 posted on 01/21/2003 6:45:46 PM PST by rmlew
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