Prop 2

[novapsyche]

Race Preferences Vote Splits Michigan

For the University of Michigan, the proposition would require broader changes than the Supreme Court did; it ruled in Ms. Gratz’s case and a companion case that while the consideration of race as part of the law school’s admissions policy was constitutional, a formula giving extra points to minority undergraduate applicants was not.

The president of the university, Mary Sue Coleman, an opponent of the proposition, said its reach could extend into K to 12 education.

“It would make it illegal to have our program targeting girls in junior high school, and having them come to campus to learn about science and engineering,” Ms. Coleman said. “I’m a woman scientist, and I know how fragile our gains are.”

[...] [One United Michigan] members said Proposition 2 would hamper employers’ efforts to diversify their work forces. They said it would also force some local governments to eliminate outreach and set-aside programs for minority contractors and would diminish the already-meager representation of black and Hispanic students at the flagship university here.

“It would be like slamming a door on progress,” Ms. Coleman said. “I will do everything that’s legal to help us attract minority students. But it’s already having a chilling effect.”

[...] Ms. Peterson and others at the [University of Michigan] emphasized that because there were so many white applicants and so few blacks, an end to affirmative action would not substantially increase white students’ odds of admission. In their book, “The Shape of the River,” Derek C. Bok and William G. Bowen estimated that if selective universities had race-blind admissions, the probability of white students’ admission would rise only slightly — to 26.5 percent from 25 percent — while black students’ admissions would decline by half. (emphasis mine)

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The Law and Race in the United States: An Outline for Understanding

Comments

Re: unfair advantages?

[novapsyche.livejournal.com]

He, not she. And if you want to believe that things that happened not just 100 years ago--maybe just a few decades--do not influence how things not only stand today but actually operate, then again I say that you have a blind eye turned to reality.

Fair housing laws came into existence only in the '50s and '60s. In fact, it has been shown that

The federal government played a significant role in perpetuating segregated housing. The predecessor to the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) established the practice of “red-lining” in the 1930s. This was a practice in which housing values were rated on the basis of, among other things, the age and condition of the properties and the ethnicity of the residents of the neighborhood. Properties in racially mixed or all-black neighborhoods were assigned the lowest rating and were ineligible for loans. On maps, a red line was drawn around the perimeters of these areas. In addition to redlining for government insured loans, locations for federally financed public housing developments were selected on the basis of the racial composition of neighborhoods. Developments were located in all-black or all-white areas.

When suburbanization occurred on an unprecedented scale in the years following World War II, African-Americans were excluded as a result of a combination of private
discrimination as well as the policies of the Veterans Administration and FHA, federal agencies whose underwriting guidelines, until 1950, required restrictive covenants on properties with government insured mortgages. As a consequence, African-Americans were locked out of one of the most significant wealth-producing programs in American history. White families that were able to take advantage of the federal government’s policies encouraging and assisting home ownership in the 1940s and 50s benefited from decades of property appreciation, which researchers estimate at billions of dollars (Oliver and Shapiro, 1995). During the same period, African-American veterans and others who desired, and were able, to afford homes were confined by discriminatory practices to central-city communities that tended to deteriorate and lose value (Oliver and Shapiro, 1995). The federal government’s discriminatory policies prevented minority homeowners from accumulating wealth through home ownership and it deprived their children and grandchildren of a valuable asset they would have inherited.

Brown v. Board of Education was also only ruled in the '50s. To say that these practices do not continue to affect the substantive reality of today is to not understand the effect of history.

Re: unfair advantages?

[brendand.livejournal.com]

He. My apologies.

Why are you commenting to me about someone else's comment? *I* never said *I* didn't care about what happened in the past. Perhaps I flippantly said "100 years" when the point I was making is that it was in the past, and before I was born.

My point is simply this: "I'm saying that the playing field will NEVER be level if you keep slanting it in favor of one side." as he said previously.