First off, I am discussing affirmative action in school admissions, and that case alone. Affirmative action elsewhere is a very different argument.
So what is affirmative action in school admissions? Well it's accepting one applicant based on their race, gender, or background over a "more qualified" applicant. Sounds simple (and unfair to the "more qualified applicant") doesn't it?
But how do we measure the qualification of an applicant? By and large it's grades and SAT scores. So lets take me as an example (white male applying in 1974). I was accepted by the University of Colorado (attended and graduated) and the University of California at Berkeley. So I was clearly highly qualified - no? Except that every other college I applied to, including Lewis & Clark and Whittier (my safetys) turned me down.
Clearly there was a big difference of opinion in what counted as qualified. In my case I had very high SAT scores and terrible grades. The SATs alone got me in to the two schools. But in retrospect, I probably would have done better at a smaller school where they would have been on me to study more. So the method of determining if I was qualified was actually backwards in my case
Ok, so I am starting C.U. (Engineering school) and I can major in just about anything. I can change my major to Spanish, or Computer Science, or Physics among others. The thing is, I suck at learning a foreign language. I added it up once and I think I spent 7 years is K-12 Spanish, finally passing Spanish III with a 2.0. I would flunk out in Spanish in college. (Note: The University of Colorado is called C.U.)
I ended up majoring in Physics and Math at C.U. I was ok at it but that was it - ok. There were almost certainly other people who did not get in to C.U. who would have done better in Physics than me. So I "passed" in terms of being able to get through it, but I was not the "more qualified" applicant.
And the two Computer Science classes I took I got an A in. I've been programmer for over 20 years now and in all due humility, I am really good at it. If I had majored in Computer Science, I would have been "highly qualified" amoung those at C.U.
The bottom line? That the "qualifications" of an applicant are an educated guess at best. And that those "qualifications" do not take into account the applicants apptitude for the major they chose at all. So saying applicant A is 2% more qualified than applicant B is total garbage. Distinctions on large differences, yes, but on small differences, no.
But let's hypothesize for a moment that we should base admissions totally on test taking ability (school grades are based primarily on tests also). So we then have our top colleges with a student body that is almost entirely upper middle class white & asian. (There aren't enough upper class students to affect the percentages.)
The students at these schools then are going to be surrounded by other kids like them. The viewpoints expressed in class will be similar to theirs. The people they hang out with will have a similar background. The people they date and marry will be similar.
Now they can study and read and watch the news and that does not internalize that there are people from very different backgrounds and sub-cultures in the world. They leave the school thinking the whole world is like the one they know - because "everyone" is that way.
Their education is stunted by this homogeneity. This is why medical research for way too long was concentrated on white males with the assumption that everyone else was the same. This is why some marketing idiot at Ambercrombie & Fitch did not understand that a t-shirt saying "Two Wongs make it White" was racist.
It eliminates any chance of students having a comfort level with people from other walks of life when they enter the workforce. The schools can be segregated, but the workplace definitely is not. But what happens when the first time someone has to work with someone who is black and poor and grew up in South Central L.A.
College is a much easier place to learn how to interact with people from other backgrounds. You screw up at school, that happens. You screw up at work and it can be a major issue.
And these other backgrounds bring a different and valuable viewpoint to the discussion. Several years ago I started in a screenwriting class at C.U. For scheduling reasons I had to quit the class and instead took one at Red Rocks Community College. So I went from the top college in Colorado to one at the bottom - taking the same class.
I found the one at Red Rocks to be a better class. (If you want to write screenplays for movies that 100 people find "artistic" and no one else watches, C.U. is better.) The viewpoint of the students in the class was very different. I went from a class of people starting a 4 year stint as full time college students to a class of people working full time that wanted to be movie makers instead.
It was not only a different perspective, but a much broader perspective in the Red Rocks class. The upper middle class suburban culture is actually a pretty narrow culture and it is a very narrow set of life experiences.
The bottom line? For the sake of our overachieving, highly tested, mono-culture kids, we need the kids brought in via affirmative action to give them a better education. Affirmative action helps the "most qualified" applicants every bit as much as it helps those brought in via affirmative action.
Then there is the return to society. State schools like C.U. are funded for a simple basic reason, an educated workforce if a benefit to society. Education is over half of every state's budget. This is done for the return on investment pure and simple.
The state has an overwhelming interest in all groups believing that they believe society is to their benefit. If most people do think that their success depends on society functioning as is, you get Brazil or even worse Somalia.
College education is the key to success nowadays. The state law schools is where most of the legislators come from. The state medical schools feed most of their students back into the communities they came from. This list goes on and on.
If children in the poor communities see that they will never get into a good college, that doing well in their school is never good enough, then we lose not just those students, but those entire segments of society.
Next there is America's promise of equal opportunity for all. Not equal results but that everyone gets a fair shot to get the golden ring is they will put in the effort and have the skills.
No one would call a boxing match equal if one of the fighters had their right arm tied behind their back. That's not providing an equal opportunity, that's selecting a pre-ordained result. Yet that is what our school system does. The K-12 system is horrific for poor children. Fewer that ½ even graduate. And that is a graduation who's requirements are much lower than found in the high income suburbs.
A fighter who goes 10 rounds with one had tied behind their back and then loses on points is arguable the better fighter, if their other hand was untied.
By the same token, students who make it through the disaster of an inner city K-12 school, while not as well prepared as the "most qualified" candidate, clearly does bring some other skills to the table. Most notably, the ability to persevere through challenges that would probably stop most of their classmates.
Finally, for those who are not convinced of the above, I invite you to put your efforts behind your words. You believe that admissions should be based solely on test scores (high school & SAT). In that case, push to eliminate the quotas that exist to reduce Asian applicants and female applicants.
This is the hidden part of affirmative action that no one discusses. If we had a truly test based admission process, our top colleges would be heavily female and heavily Asian and more so year after year. To paraphrase the principal of Punaho (the top High School in Hawaii), if admissions was purely test based, the entire student body would be Asian girls.
It's funny how you don't see those opposing affirmative action taking on this part of it…
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