(no subject)

[novapsyche]

I'm going to say it, and I don't care how many people hate me for saying it:

Affirmative action is still needed in the United States.

Comments

[sophiaserpentia.livejournal.com]

Yes. We might need to even intensify it. It says something about the depth and persistence of racism that, even with 30 years of affirmative action, there is still a sickening disparity.

[sarahmichigan.livejournal.com]

I don't hate you. I'm voting NO on Prop 2.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_swallow/]

For serious.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

I do not hate you. I do not disagree. I just think it needs to be reformed. And people will be more willing to improve it if it's gone.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

It is hard for me to understand how we two people, coming from different disadvantaged groups, see past each other on this issue.

The no-brainer for me is that suffrage and civil rights went hand in hand, historically speaking. The struggle for rights for blacks and for women went on rather concurrently. They together make up what's commonly known as "minority groups." However, they are not the only minority group around, nor the only minorities that have been discriminated against. However, their triumphs in terms of rights recognized extend to other minority groups.

For me, it's a logical extension to add "sexual orientation" to "one should not discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, gender, ethnic background, or religion" rather than to strike them all down out of hand.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

I don't think members of the GLBTQ community should be given additional "benefits" just because they are minorities. I just want the same rights everyone else has. Not discriminating against is very different from giving special rights to. Affirmative Action is giving special benefits to specific groups. While I do think that some rights deserve special attention, I do not think those groups are specifically: those of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.

If this were about discrimination, and preventing it, I'd be all for it. But this is not about preventing discrimination. As long as we (as a society) proceed in recognizing that women are different from men, women will be different from men. If we stop giving special privileges to groups, maybe everyone will start letting people just be people.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

Considering that affirmative action does not mean quotas, please tell me what special privileges to which you refer.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

When applying to colleges, people of races other than white are given additional "points." Depending on how many students the schools are accepting, they accept the people with the most points. An African-American with a 1380 SAT score will be accepted before a White person with a 1400, ceteris paribus.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

You are narrowly defining affirmative action as dealing only with higher education. That is understandable, as the last big AA case before SCOTUS was the U of M case, but that should not be the only thing in your mind when you consider the program.

I will respond to this in full later, but for now answer me this: Do you feel so energetically opposed to other weights in admission, such as offspring of alumni getting preference? Personally, I am very happy that any of my future children will have an edge getting into my alma mater.

[brendand.livejournal.com]

I am not narrowly defining AA. I was giving one example of what I mean. But AA is based on the idea that we're giving benefits to people based on something other than need or qualifications.

I'm completely indifferent to the thought of my own children going to Eastern Michigan University. I'd like to think they could get into somewhere better (as I probably could have, had I wanted to). But it would bother me that someone else would get in based on that, if the other person is more qualified and as worked just as hard or harder to get in.

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

But AA is based on the idea that we're giving benefits to people based on something other than need or qualifications.

Where are you getting this definition?

[brendand.livejournal.com]

I'll assume that you concede the "based on something other than need or qualifications," and that you're looking for me to defend "the idea that we're giving benefits to people." If that's not a fair assumption, please let me know.

From Wikipedia, "Affirmative action is a policy or a program which gives preference to some group of people (often minorities, women, or the physically handicapped) with the stated goal of countering past or ongoing discrimination against them. It can take many forms including priority acceptance for government contracts, education, or employment and/or language training or vocational training." (emphasis mine)

"When members of targeted groups are actively sought or preferred, the reason given is usually that this is necessary to compensate for advantages that other groups are said to have had (such as through institutional racism or institutional sexism or historical circumstances)." (again, emphasis mine)

How do you define AA? Equality for all? Because that is exactly not what AA is.

[simianpower.livejournal.com]

Agreed entirely! Very similar to what I said here. (I was referred to this past post, which I hadn't read before.)

[akaiyume.livejournal.com]

I agree.

[kittenkissies.livejournal.com]

...how is your new pantyhose...
oh!
Uh,
Yeah!
I agree with you!

[gwendally.livejournal.com]

I agree. People will almost always hire people just like them. You need to have an impetus to reach out to the unknown. The value in having diversity in the workplace (or the school) is so immense, so valuable, but hardly anyone ever talks about how much stronger we are for having different points of view.

I heard Rumsfield last night saying that their plans for Iraq couldn't be criticized because no one knows the future. It was really clear to me that they don't have ANYONE on their team with simple analytical/predictive skills. (Give Democracy to Shiites and they'll probably immediately vote to form a Theocracy, for example.) The lack of diversity of opinion creates a stunningly weak organism.

[dionysus1999.livejournal.com]

You'll get no arguements from me.

[mjwise.livejournal.com]

I don't hate you, and AA is probably still needed. But the only form of AA banned by MCRI is preference-granting AA, and only preferences based on gender, race, and ethnicity in public institutions. (and notably not SES (socioeconomic status)).

It doesn't surprise me the gubernatorial candidates (Granholm AND DeVos) have come out swinging against MCRI, because the preferential, institutional racism-embracing AA is the sort of thing politicians generally root for - they get to say they're striving for equality when in reality they just get a freebie shortcut to claim to boost college and public employment diversity while ignoring the systemic problems in public school funding and operations. The State Legislature in Ohio made a profession out of avoiding actually dealing with school inequality to the point where they were all almost summarily imprisoned for contempt of court because of there utter unwillingness to actually fix the problems. (In that particular case rural schools were horribly underfunded in Ohio for decades and the quality of public education in many rural districts was shameful and unjust.)

Trying to apply a band-aid like preferential race-based AA at the college admission or public employment level to ameliorate crappy schools is insulting to everyone involved and breeds cynicism. This (http://www.cir-usa.org/cases/michigan_lsa_charts.html) is not just. Neither is this (http://www.cir-usa.org/cases/michigan_charts_intl.html). Such practice has no place in a society that claims to embrace equality.

As someone who has no direct stake in this race (I still vote absentee in Ohio, and I will certainly move out of state probably within the next 9 months) I am going to go out on a limb and predict MCRI is going to pass comfortably, say, 56-44. Polling on ballot issues involving civil rights issues where the "yes" side fears appearing hateful suffers from serious underestimate bias (see the ease at which gay marriage bans have passed in every state they've been put on a ballot compared to what some polls predicted).