the courts ruling

[steel13]

i've decided to sart a new thread instead of adding on to the other AA thread. so whats everyone think about the michigan case and the verdict. i admittadly am not as up to daate on affirmatice action as many others, but know the key poiints. i think this is the first time in a while that our country has made a compromise (meaning its not clearly liberal or conservative) that i support. i think that race is an issue. most minorities that are in poverty conditions are there because of a result of what whites have done. the child of someone that couldnt get a job or go to college in the '60s is often living in less than ideal conditions, therefore must work a lot harder to get to into school. so i think this ruling is good because race is an issue. campuses need to diversify, however i think michigan had put too much emphasis on race and stuff like that will drive a spike between cultures not unify us. so the verdict of allowing race to be an issue, while not basing it on a point system seems right to me. anyone elses thoughts?

[hairygrump]

As somebody who works in higher ed, I think affirmative action (as a goal) is a Good Thing (tm). The institutions that train voters, workers and leaders benefit from the presence of voices that might otherwise be absent from those discussions, and I think it's a smart thing for a place like Michigan to work to make itself more open to underserved students.

Why they make the focus of that work race is something I'm always going to think is stupid. It's an unfortunate thing that race maps so neatly onto socioeconomic status in this country, but it goes further to confuse the real issues more than it should. If someone scores poorly on the LSAT, it's not clearly because of their skin color. There's a strong correlation between relative whiteness and high LSAT scores (I'm told), but there's also a strong correlation between skin color and other factors that have a strong correlation with LSAT scores... like annual income, 25-year survivability and $ spent per student on secondary education. That data is available, but it's not used to aid in the admissions process like race is.

So, yeah, my problem with AA isn't that we do it... I think we should. I just hate how much we oversimplify the issue by using stereotypes that don't support anybody's argument.

Also, anybody that gets waitlisted by Michigan Law got accepted everywhere else they applied. They shouldn't bitch. They should go get their degree and get to work and not worry so much about whose class ring they get to wear.

[kennbenny667]

Down here in the anals of community college land, I'd say about 50% of my classmates are minorities, both domestically raised and foreign. I'm a white kid from the South Side of Chicago, so no matter how hard I try, I harbor racial prejudices. Going to college opened my eyes. Whether you agree with AA (I see some good and bad points) or not, you have to agree that in order to be "successful" in today's society, minorities have to do 150% of the work that white kids do. The President doesn't support AA in Michigan, he got into YALE with a "C" average!!! I doubt any minority applying to Michigan law had anything lower than about a 3.8 GPA. I personally hope that any African American or any other minority grad of Michigan law fight to uphold and preserve affirmative action. The fact that it exists supports the basic gist of the constitution. ALL men (and women) are created equal! Any realist knows this will never be in many American's eyes, but at least it is fair on paper.