Quote:
Originally Posted by Blade";p="
But you, and everyone else, is rationally and ethically entitled to >>>NOTHING<<< based on your skin color. The people whoe are entitled to anything anywhere are those who show up with the goods: in the case of educational institutions, test scores and grades.
|
This is true in principle, but it assumes that opportunity was not being separately limited by skin color.
The whole premise of affirmative action is that past (and continuing) discrimination unfairly limits current opportunity, and thus a certain balancing must occur to level the playing field and prevent the majority (whites, in this case) from locking in the benefits of such discrimination.
I believe the premise was valid (and thus, AA was necessary) in the past -- i.e., immediately after the smashing of segregation barriers and "separate but unequal." It would have been absurd and unfair for whites to simply tell blacks, "Sure, we've spent the last few centuries locking in significant advantages in wealth and education, but from now on we'll just compete straight up." Ignoring that the whites still held those centuries of ill-gotten advantages. It's like the whites were professional golfers AND had a handicap besides.
The question is whether it's still valid and necessary now, and how one goes about trying to answer that question with some degree of objectivity.
To my knowledge, neither opponents nor proponents have ever done that with any rigor.
Proponents tend to be outcome-based -- discrimination is presumed until the percentage of blacks admitted to college equals or exceeds their share of the general population.
Opponents tend to simply deny that there are any significant lingering effects of discrimination, while trumpeting the philosophically pure and intellectually ideal standard of "colorblindness."
Me, I tend to think the whole thing could be sidestepped if we focused on economics rather than race. If the system discriminates against blacks, they will tend to be less economically successful. Thus a system that provided increased academic support and opportunity to poorer families would disproportionately benefit blacks as a result -- without discriminating against whites.
So provide scholarships based on financial need (in addition to those for merit), and a mild bump on the admissions ranking using a sliding scale based on income. You'd still be letting in "lesser qualified" applicants at the expense of some slightly better-qualified applicants, but it wouldn't involve race.