Why is Affirmative Action so controversial and why do we still need it
Amazing news racism is almost over yeah
in 2003 Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote a court decision that said the court expects that 25 years from now the use of racial preferenceswill no longer be necessary Wow
I mean the only reason to consider race in college admissions is to combat racism right so that means we've got less than a decade to go it's not that simple yeah I didn't think so
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Back in 2003 the court was looking at a case that debated affirmative action which is when an employer or a school has a policy that allows them to consider a person's race alongside other factors in hiring or admissions
in this case barbara Gruder a white woman with a 3.8 GPA and an LSAT score of 161 didn't get into law school but barbara knew how to impress that law school she sued him for discrimination
she knew that the school used race as a factor in admissions
the school claimed their affirmative action policy served a compelling interest in achieving diversity among its student body plus race was just one tiny piece of what they considered
no one was being rejected because they were white
the case was Gruder V Bollinger and it made it all the way to the Supreme Court which isn't that surprising since affirmative action is one of the most controversial issues in the country it's sometimes known as positive discrimination and the point is to give underrepresented groups or people that have faced historical disadvantages a leg up to level the playing field so to speak
but to some like Barbara Gruder this can feel unfair why should something so out of your control like your race influence your chances of getting into your dream school or getting a job
but proponents of affirmative action argue that lots of things out of our control especially race influence our chances in things like what neighborhood you're born in, or what schools you go to, can affect your whole future and people of color they disproportionately live in poorer neighborhoods with underfunded lower quality schools- even the most capable students may not have the resources needed to succeed
back in the 60s when he laid the groundwork for affirmative action, President Lyndon Johnson said you do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberate him bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say he were free to compete with all the others and still justly believe that you have been completely fair
supporters of affirmative action feel strongly that race still hobbles people today Gruder V Bollinger was the first time the court had ruled on affirmative action in higher education admissions in 25 years and it has big implications for the next 25 so now the question is how are we doing as we close in on that hypothetical 25 year mark was the court right to assume we needed more time to you know solve racism do we still need affirmative action formative action
it remains very important in today's society given institutional and structural racism that still exists in our society we have a country that was built on the foundation of racism and capitalism that combined and fused together to make up slavery racism still exists in our institutions because our institutions were built on that that includes our educational institutions
people against affirmative action see things really differently I don't believe that there is widespread institutional structural racism in this country I think that there is racism but I don't think that the way to address it is through more discrimination right
structural racism the idea that there is built-in racism in almost every area of our society that consistently hold back people of color the thing is even the people being discriminated against don't all support a firm of action a 2016 Gallup poll showed that 57% of black people and 47% of Hispanic people who were surveyed said that race should not be a factor in college admissions
why would nearly half the people who affirmative action is supposed to help be against it Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a noted critic of the policy he said in my mind government-sponsored racial discrimination based on benign prejudice is just as noxious as discrimination inspired by malicious prejudice perhaps a more important question is is affirmative action even successful and the answer is probably just to some extent and define successful anyway
okay so eight states have banned their public universities from using affirmative action to select their student bodies a 2013 University of Washington study found a 23 percentage point drop in the chance of admission for minority students in states with bans compared with a 1 percentage point drop in other states relative to non-minority students so in that sense affirmative action works
campuses that use it are more racially diverse but but most of the African Americans for example who are given preferential treatment to our more selective universities don't come from disadvantaged backgrounds
86% of the African Americans who are admitted to more selective universities come from middle-class or upper-class backgrounds so the students benefiting the most from affirmative action weren't necessarily the kids that grew up in poverty and attended poor low-performing schools this brings in a whole new debate do we aim for racial diversity for its own sake or should we be focusing more on socio-economic diversity striving to include more students from a struggling background
the racial achievement gap that exists in K to 12 institutions exists for all black children regardless of the economic background that they come from black children remain at the bottom of the educational rung in terms of student achievement so the fact that you have black children who come from middle-class and wealthy backgrounds does not mean that they were given a fair shot even when they were in the K to 12 institutions there's always been a multi-ethnic and multi-religious macand multiracial society in a society like that
it's because it's increasingly untenable to have our institutions sort people by skin color and national origin and pick winners and losers on the basis of which box you're again it's easy to see why this issue provokes such strong feelings on all sides but what it comes down to is no one wants to feel like their race is impacting their opportunities in life unfortunately that's perhaps the only part of the debate these two sides can agree on
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