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Here's a link to UT- Austin's Freshman class profile from last year that provides some good numbers relevant to the discussion at hand. Only 5% of the incoming class was African American and 22% Hispanic, with the large majority still White and Asian. And, the Freshman retention rate is 95%, so is UT really letting in a large number of unqualified minority applicants? It doesn't seem so.
That makes no difference. They shouldn't be admitting even ONE unqualified applicant on the basis of reverse racism. As an aside, I find it ironic that the state of Texas is being sued for its affirmative action practices. Considering how often we're accused of being ignorant right wing Republican hicks, it's oddly refreshing to be criticized for advocating a view in the opposite direction
the Oscar Meyer Turkey Bacon of Average White Women,
as Abigail Fisher is being called on social media, rest her argument on 5, yes FIVE (1 black and 4 hispanic) of the 47 applicants who got into UT in 2008 with worse credentials then she had. The five applicants she and her attorneys zeroed in on took spots from deserving students like Fisher, but they never said a word about the 42 other applicants, all white students by the way, which made her claims suspicious from the beginning.
She never said anything about the 168 black/latino applicants who had BETTER qualifications than she did, but were also denied admission into UT, which had a highly competitive admission class for 2008. (30,000 applicants for 6715 spots)
none of them attempted to sue UT over legacy admissions or any thing else, but her denial by UT had nothing to do with her white skin and red hair...it had nothing to do with her playing of the cello or her being in the math club or making the honor roll in high school..it had everything to do with her failing to make the top 10% of her class at Fort Bend Austin in Sugarland (#82 out of 674), which would have GUARANTEED her a spot at UT, A&M, UH or any state school in Texas.
this case really wasnt about Abigail Fisher anyway...she was just a pawn and a shrill being used by conservative activist Edward Blum and his donors to make Fisher the symbol of racial victimization in modern America...Blum led the charge to gut the voting rights act. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Blum_(litigant)
Fisher was never harmed by not being admitted into UT..she didnt have any physical or psychological damage done to her...she went on to graduate from Louisiana State University, and she could have still been a Texas Longhorn, but she felt it was beneath her to attend UTSA, UTEP, UT Arlington or any other UT campus for her freshman year.
as for the 10% rule, parents will have to take advantage of intra district transfer rules and circumvent the situation if their child is in a highly competitive academic environment...if that means moving your child from Austin or Clements(the most competitive high school in Fort Bend ISD) and dumping them into George Bush or Hightower for a year, then such is life.
meanwhile, our good friends on twitter went HAM on Abigail Fisher with the hashtag #Beckywiththebadgrades #AverageAbby and #ByeAbigail among many others.....funny stuff
100% agree. You can't use the poster child of entitlement to make a "reverse discrimination" case. The judges rightly sniffed that out and threw this case out on it's bum. And although the people who are whining about affirmative action may have still been in diapers when it was enacted, it is there for a reason. When your uncle owns the store, odds are he is going to hire and promote you over all others. This country is NOT colorblind, so since people need to be forced to do the right thing we need to make laws.
Schools are PURPOSELY not preparing minorities for entrance to the top colleges - by and large public funds get distributed to "white schools" in an imbalanced fashion. So if a minority survives the hurdles they have to work extra hard to get there - and often on their own. You can look at the quality of teaching in two public schools, one in a majority minority area and one in a majority white area - they are still disproportionate with the minority school being on the low end of the see-saw - despite getting money from the same pool of people, and having the same charter. Even the school lunches are better in the White public schools.
Another poster said something about minorities getting a "leg up" - well if you get kicked down all your life, and then are thrown out there to compete with people who were getting privileges and passed through because "they tried", I'm sure you wouldn't deny a leg up either. Affirmative action is the balancing act from the years of preferential treatment non-minorities were getting in pre-college years.
Lets not get into the horde of White Americans who took their support away from public schools because they can't stand minorities, sent their kids to private schools, and then want to cry foul when it's time to send their kid to college. That's like avoiding paying taxes, but now you want a refund. Sure, the private schools are educating kids better - because your putting your money into it in a way you wouldn't for the public school system. but then after neglecting the public system you want to whine about affirmative action in a PUBLIC university? Please. Just keep paying and send your kid to a private college like you've been doing.
Lets not act like this country is over racism. or pretend we live in a colorblind age. It aint so. We made SOME progress, but not enough to remove the protections and help from minorities (colorblind - but we still identify people as "minorities", Black, Latino, Asian? Suuuuure). More Black men were killed by police under a Black President, to "remind" Back people that they still aren't accepted. The living conditions for minorities have gotten exponentially worse. When the middle Class collapsed (and nobody noticed), White families became lower working class - Black families became poor. Any negativity still affects minorities 100 times more. Things have only gotten marginally better, not by far enough for the privileged, major class to start whining about protections against MINORITY discrimination. When every 10 job interviews you go to, 9 of them the decision to hire you is someone of another race, who is going to hire someone their color even if they are unqualified - then get back to me. Right now there needs to be balance until people start acting like grown ups.
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Location: Pine Grove,AL
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Quote:
Originally Posted by k350
So, despite the variety of equality laws in place, the court ruled that in fact, an institution can use race/ethnic factors to make a decision to admit someone into college or not if they did not meet the minimum requirements.
I am sure if this was reversed, meaning if it was whites getting accepted over minorities even though the whites did not meet the minimum requirements, the court would have not ruled in this way.
The court is basically stating it is ok to discriminate on the basis of race and national origin, as so long the institution can show it has "goals" it is trying to achieve, which by the way, the university does not have goals for whites or for males, just minorities and females, so whites and males will never get this special treatment from the university.
Automatic acceptance =/= minimum requirement.
Thats more of a limit than a minimum requirement if you are going to use that terminology
Further more, Race is a factor for admissions in favor of whites as well, even if it is indirectly like the question of " whether members of your family have attended UT".
This is the first generation of black students who could possibly answer yes to that question.
Also a question to Asian-Americans here, to build on my previous comment: I've been seeing a lot of Asian-American colleagues and or their kids (second generation), leaving the USA permanently and going to work, build their careers and start their families in Asia. Do you think the frustration with affirmative action has something to do with this? Obviously China, India, South Korea and Asia in general are brimming with economic and career opportunities much more than the US, if I recall correctly China's now the biggest world economy (already a lot bigger than the USA) based on spending power, so I used to think this was the reason. Also given the fast drop in birth rates all over Asia (not just in China), there are tons of great job openings in Asian countries for young Asian-Americans to take advantage of. But in past few years I've encountered massive number of bright young Asian-Americans and their parents who express a lot of frustration about the way affirmative action in the USA discriminates against them (it does, let's be honest about that), they feel like their achievements are minimized and they're even penalized for them. For ex. Asians need to get something like 400 points on the SAT over African-American and other applicants to get the same chances of admission, score many more points above on the med-school admissions and law schools admissions tests, then are still held to a higher standard for job apps. Asia is more simply meritocratic, ex. in China and Korea (based on my work colleagues who've been there), people are selected based more on just good academic performance instead of the "holistic" system in USA that's used to prop up affirmative action.
I ask this partly because I've been seeing more and more white Americans moving to Europe too, but for what seems like totally different reasons-- mainly anger about US health care and health insurance costs becoming impossible to manage or start businesses with (this is both before and following Obamacare and caused by both parties so it's a structural instead of political issue), student loan costs, that sort of thing. A bit surprising in a way since white Americans are also hit hard by affirmative action and lose opportunities in jobs, college admission and scholarships, whereas in Europe (at least outside Britain) affirmative action is strictly banned and the selection criteria, like in China, are much more meritocratic. Still, when I talk to white Americans moving to Europe, I almost never hear about affirmative action as an issue-- it's always about better health care (for much less cost) and job opportunities, free college in Germany and other countries.
To be honest I've seen the rate of Asian-Americans moving to Asia lately to be very, very high, even higher than the white Americans going to Europe, and it seems like I do hear anger about affirmative action come up a lot more. Is this your experience? Are Asian-Americans moving to Asia in large part because of disgust with affirmative in the USA? Or is it more similar to the reasons white Americans are moving to European countries?
Disgraceful decision. What it says is UT + other universities have the right to discriminate against whites for the sole purpose of decreasing their white (and Asian) enrollment. Absolutely disgusting.
Disgraceful decision. What it says is UT + other universities have the right to discriminate against whites for the sole purpose of decreasing their white (and Asian) enrollment. Absolutely disgusting.
You do realize that 42 of the 47 students that were admitted and had lower grades than her were white, right? And only 1 (one) of those 5 were black?
You do realize that 42 of the 47 students that were admitted and had lower grades than her were white, right? And only 1 (one) of those 5 were black?
No, of course you didn't know that.
#StayMadwithAbbyandHerBadGrades
It doesn't even matter. This goes so far beyond the initial plaintiff. Supreme court rulings set precedents in our common law system. Sets a very bad precedent. This should have been easily undone by the SC, but liberal activist judges played their part.
It doesn't even matter. This goes so far beyond the initial plaintiff. Supreme court rulings set precedents in our common law system. Sets a very bad precedent. This should have been easily undone by the SC, but liberal activist judges played their part.
Lol, of course those pesky facts don't matter with your agenda.
#StayMadwithAbbyandHerBadGrades
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