Dave Huber sends word of yet another study, this time in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly, arguing that
ignoring race in elite college admissions would result in sharp declines in the numbers of African Americans and Hispanics accepted with little gain for white students.
I have ceased being surprised at the seemingly unending ability of social scientists (the authors are sociologists at Princeton) to be surprised — or at least to have to demonstrate — that if you stop subsidizing something you get less of it. If you lower admissions requirements for an identifiable group of people, more of them will be admitted; if you judge them by the same standards applied to all other applicants, fewer of them will be.
Nor is it surprising that if the group at issue is quite small, lowering or raising the standards will have a proportionately greater impact on its members than on the remaining universe of applicants. Sure enough, the authors emphasize the following:
Compared to the fall of 1996, the number of underrepresented minority students admitted to the University of California-Berkeley Boalt Hall Law School for the fall of 1997 dropped 66 percent from 162 to 55…. African-American applicants were particularly affected as their admission numbers declined by 81 percent from 75 to 14, but acceptances of Hispanics also fell by 50 percent….
Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 percentage points.
The implication is that since not many whites would benefit from eliminating preferences for minorities there is no good reason to get rid of them.
There are a number of problems with this argument, one of which is, to their credit, recognized by the authors: whites aren’t the only victims of discriminatory preferences to minorities. In short, the authors recognize that
when one group loses ground, another has to gain — in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent.
But the fact that preferences to “underrepresented minorities” discriminates heavily against Asians is not the only argument against these preferences. By the authors’ own admission, .5% of all white applicants are rejected directly because of racial preferences given to “underrepresented minorities.” How many people is that? The summary of their article doesn’t say, and the full text is available only for a $26.00 fee, so I’m not sure, but I doubt it. But as it happens I have examined this very question at one school here. Allow me to quote at length from that post.
The following is from a “Q&A re University of Michigan Admissions Policies” on a Michigan web site with its legal materials:
Q: Does the University’s consideration of race hurt a white student’s chances of getting into the University?
A: No. The numbers of minority applicants are extremely small compared to the numbers of white students who apply to the University. The Law School, for example has for the last 10 years had an average offer rate of 29 percent for Caucasian applicants, and 26 percent for African American applicants. Out of the fall 2002 entering class of 352, only 21 are African American. Similarly, of the approximately 24,000 applications received each year for admissions to the College of Literature, Science & the Arts, only about 1,800 come from underrepresented minorities. It is not mathematically possible that the small numbers of minority students who apply and are admitted are “displacing” a significant number of white students under any scenario.
What Michigan is actually saying here is that there is no discrimination because there’s not much of it, and what there is affects only some individuals, not their groups. Another thing that must be said about the above quote is that it is disingenuous, at best. To emphasize what a piddling amount of preference is actually involved, Michigan mentions that there are “only 21” African Americans in the entering 2002 law school class of 352. But what of the preferentially admitted Hispanics and Native Americans? As we shall see, including those preferred admissions makes a significant difference.
In order to determine how much actual discrimination is involved at Michigan, let’s look at some revealing numbers that Michigan itself provided in court about the 2000 class at its law school. How many applicants does Michigan itself say were admitted, and rejected, because of their race that year? (I picked that year because I found the numbers without having to look very hard.)
The following is from page 28 of Judge Bernard Friedman’s district court opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, the law school case. It discusses data on the effect of preferences presented by Dr. Stephen Raudenbush, the University of Michigan’s expert witness.
In Dr. Raudenbush’s view, a “race-blind” admissions system would have a “very dramatic,” negative effect on minority admissions but only a slight effect on non-minority admissions, due to the vastly greater number of non-minority applicants. In the year 2000, 35% of underrepresented minority applicants and 40% of non-minority applicants were admitted. See Exhibit 187. Dr. Raudenbush predicted that if race were not considered, then only 10% of underrepresented minority applicants and 44% of non-minority applicants would be admitted. If correct, this would mean that in the year 2000 only 46 underrepresented minority applicants would have been admitted (instead of 170 who actually were admitted), of whom only 16 would enroll (instead of 58 who actually enrolled). Under this scenario, underrepresented minority students would have constituted 4% of the entering class in 2000, instead of 14.5% as actually occurred. See Exhibit 189.
Bear with me because, unlike Jessie, I dropped out of math before arithmetic got hard and so don’t do numbers very well. Feel free to let me know if there are stupid errors in what follows. But here’s what I take out of the above. Keep in mind that these are the numbers presented by Michigan’s own expert, not by the plaintiffs.
- 170 “underrepresented minorities” were preferentially offered admission.
- 58 of them enrolled, making up 14.5% of the total entering class of 400 students.
- Under “race-blind” admissions, 46 minorities would have been offered admission and 16 of them, 4% of the entering class, would have enrolled.
Thus, according to Michigan, 124 white, Asian, or unpreferred minority applicants were rejected because of their race or ethnicity that year. The 2000 entering class of 400 students contained 42 students, or a bit over 10% of the class, who in Michigan’s estimation would not have been there if their race or ethnicity had not been taken into account.
Now, given the large number of white, Asian, and non-preferred minority (not simply “white,” as Michigan’s statement has it) applicants and the relatively small number of preferred minority applicants, it may well be true that any non-preferred individual’s chances of admissions were not dramatically affected by Michigan’s preferences to preferred minorities. But does that mean that those 124 applicants who were rejected because of their race were not victims of discrimination? Would they have been victims if there had been 150 of them? 200? 250?
In short, do these numbers add up to a significant amount of discrimination?
In the final analysis, however, the objection to racial preferences does not rest on the number of whites, or Asians, who are injured. It rests on the principle that discrimination on the basis of race is wrong. The authors seem not to have encountered this principle in their research. The “conclusion” to the abstract they provide of their article states in full:
Elite colleges and universities extend preferences to many types of students, yet affirmative action is the one most surrounded by controversy.
Well, true. Just as it was true that not so long ago the University of Alabama extended preferences to many types of students — athletes, legacies, state residents, students with good grades, etc. — but for some reason it was only its racially discriminatory admission policies that generated controversy.
UPDATE
InsideHigherEd.com quotes a curious and confusing comment by the authors that I should have quoted but didn’t:
“We’re trying to put these admission preferences in context so people understand that lots of students, including those with SAT scores above 1500, are getting a boost,” said [Princeton Sociology Professor] Espenshade. “The most important conclusion is the negative impact on African American and Hispanic students if affirmative action practices were eliminated.”
I’m not at all sure what Espenshade means when he says that “lots of students, including those with SAT scores above 1500, are getting a boost” from preferences. No one doubts that lots of students “get a boost” from racial preferences — his study demonstrates that by pointing out how many preferred students would not be admitted without the preferences they receive — but the number of minority students who receive racial preferences who also score over 1500 on the SAT is quite small, a fact that in other contexts (namely, the number of whites injured) the authors seem to think important.
InsideHigherEd also quotes Roger Clegg, who, astutely as usual, asserts that the study is “irrelevant” to the strongest arguments against racial preference:
He said that there is an assumption behind the study that people don’t want Asian enrollments to go up, and that affirmative action is somehow stronger if white students aren’t hurt by it.
The problem with affirmative action, he said, is that it is discrimination, regardless of who benefits. “It’s always useful to put the shoe on the other foot,” he said. “Suppose Ole Miss had argued that the fact that it discriminated against blacks wasn’t such a big deal because most of them would be turned down anyway. No one would find that argument very persuasive.”
He also questioned whether the displaced minority students would really be hurt. Students who are less qualified are less likely to succeed, he said, and may be more likely to succeed a notch down the college prestige rankings. “It is not the end of the world if a black student ends up going to the University of Virginia instead of Princeton, or to Virginia Tech instead of U.Va.,” he said.
Roger may have put his foot in it with that last comment, however, since Virginia Techies would argue that the Hokies (yes, the Hokies) are a step up from the Cavaliers of UVa.
Roger, you may want to stay out of Blacksburg for a while, but you’ll always be welcome in Charlottesville.
So, since it’s only a “few” (124 apparently being a few)unpreferreds at this one school not being admitted, then it’s all OK. Of course, that’s 124 at one school, for one year. So for all the schools, that’s many, many more, and for all the years, that’s many, many more.
I’m amazed that so often defenders of AA now openly talk about how acceptance rates drop for (preferred) minorities. I think that alone does harm to the minorities at schools where AA is still used–if professors are going around saying “if we didn’t have AA only a quarter or a third of the African Americans we have now would be admitted!” I’d want them to shut their mouths if I was a black person sitting in class, ESPECIALLY if I was part of that group that hadn’t benefitted from whitey’s generosity with others’ futures.
Also, I’m beginning to wonder if the focus on whites not being harmed *that* much, that it’s more Asians, isn’t a sort of ploy (not that I doubt the numbers by these researchers to reassure whites, a community that is more of a threat than Asians (in terms of numbers). “See, it’s basically only those yellow people who would get in (or at least in CA), so keep sending in donations and don’t vote against our scheme.”
There was a Texas study (that also involved Princetonians) that said whites don’t suffer that much because they’re a big group; it’s more Asians who suffer because they’re a small (and successful) group. Both groups benefit with the elimination of AA, but the rate goes up more for Asians. (And of course they use the rate instead of numbers of rejected whites because .5 certainly seems nicer than the many who lost out at just one school for just one year).
It seems pretty nasty to me that they seem to be making a calculation that it’s OK to drastically harm Asians because they aren’t politically powerful enough to defend themselves. Some minorities are more equal than others.
Oh yeah, and that 124 for Michigan was just for the Law school, so it’s only part of one school for one year.
John…
In order to explain the inherant unfairness of racial preferences to these ridiculous “sociologists”, I would love to see, if for just a short time, someone come into their nice offices and announce that due to a desire to have more “diversity” on the Princeton faculty, they are fired, and replaced by a preferred minority. Since it’s only two people, they of course wouldn’t mind, don’t you think?
Any bets on how many days it would take them to file suit, and explain it with some silly non-sequitur argument about how this isn’t the kind of AA they were talking about.
The proponents of preferences never, underline never, want it to be applied to them or their families, always to others. Doing that would be one rather quick way of killing the beast, other, of course, than a simple vote on the subject.
A student who is denied admission due to preferences who, based on merit alone, would have been admitted, suffers a 100% disadvantage. Not a .5% disadvantage when compared to group admission percentages.
Our Constitution is built on individual rights, not group rights. Purporting to be fair to groups is not a substitute for being fair to every individual.
These discriminatory policies don’t fall evenly upon all members of a group. They fall 100% upon the shoulders of actual individuals, in a victim-exchange program which seeks not to remove racial discrimination, but to create victims with more politically correct demographics.
It is laughable to believe that discrimination can be minimized by marginalizing the ‘preferentially-bumped’ as a small number compared to those who were not ‘preferentially-bumped’.
“The proponents of preferences never, underline never, want it to be applied to them or their families, always to others. Doing that would be one rather quick way of killing the beast, other, of course, than a simple vote on the subject.”
AMEN!! If you look at where (most) of the highly vocal AA supporters live and where they send their kids to school, it is (almost) always the LEAST diverse areas, in terms of both race and class. And they have connections so their kids aren’t hurt in AA. I truly respect AA supporters who live a *diverse* life and at least try to not be hypocrites, but there aren’t seem to be many. The hypocrites should be called out.
The Princeton idea is great–at each level, Assistant, Associate, and Full, find the white professors who are publishing the least, say that for the good of the school and to promote “cultural competency” they will lose their jobs. My, the screaming would not end.
Eddy nailed my reaction. The group that is impacted is not whites, nor Asians, but students who, without a system of preferences, would have marginally passed the admissions criteria. This group is guaranteed of rejection, while higher-performing students are unaffected.
L, I don’t think the report is even trying to hide that it’s goal is to assure whites that the victims of affirmative action will be some other race. Sadly it might not be a bad short-term tactic, but that doesn’t excuse its ugliness.
How Nineties you all are, still with the race thing. My alma mater features the “Queer [not an error] Resorces Center” in its recruitment ads and has just adoped a “Diversity” policy to hire, grant tenure to and promote professors based on their “diversity” skills. Their interviews with the press about the town where the college is located feature its welcome atmosphere for homosexuals. That is real “niche” marketing.
The students recently kicked the military out of campus job fairs because of their treatment of gays.
So long as we still have “black” colleges, I guess it is legally OK. Of course, my job interviews may take a little different tack if I still report that degree on my resume (I am legally married). Also, legacy admissions will be problematical for me.
So, all in all, racial problems on campus seem pretty tame to me.
L June writes:
>>>AMEN!! If you look at where (most) of the highly vocal AA supporters live and where they send their kids to school, it is (almost) always the LEAST diverse areas, in terms of both race and class. And they have connections so their kids aren’t hurt in AA. I truly respect AA supporters who live a *diverse* life and at least try to not be hypocrites, but there aren’t seem to be many. The hypocrites should be called out.”
Well, I will give you some slack, because you qualified your statement with “most” and “almost.”
I’m probably the most ardent proponent of Affirmative Action here. I don’t fit the description you paint whatsoever. Moreover, it doesn’t fit the description of the vast majority of people I communicate with who also support AA. Now, I understand that you respect those who practice what they preach about “diversity.” I’m curious however, about what standards you apply to those who are on YOUR side of the argument. Would the residential demographics of the anti-affirmative action posters here have any sway as far as your opinion of THEM, or do you reserve that judgement only for those on MY side of the debate?
–Cobra
Why does the affirmative action debate always seem to revolve around race, even though the largest group benefiting from AA is women (and especially white women)?
If we were to eliminate all forms of affirmative action based on fixed attributes such as race and gender, genuine headway would be made toward a true meritocracy. The pro-AA attack on standardized tests boils down to the diversity crowd’s inability to manipulate the outcome.
As I’ve said before, California Gov. Ronald Reagan was told by his aides that if he were to eliminate affirmative action at the top California public universities, Asians would be the majority group. His response? “So what? They’ve earned it.”
Amen.
I’m not concerned that I may lose a university slot or job to a woman or minority, so long as it was a fair competition and everyone was evaluated using the same criteria.
Cicero writes:
>>>Why does the affirmative action debate always seem to revolve around race, even though the largest group benefiting from AA is women (and especially white women)?”
It depends on who’s framing the debate. I’ve often raised that same point here, but in my honest opinion, it would be far more difficult to sell ending Affirmative Action if the opponents emphasized white women. It’s a far more effective tactic to scapegoat African Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans as “getting something they don’t deserve”, than to focus on cutting policies that may affect the immediate family members of the targetted audience.
–Cobra
Cobra,
With regard to AA supporters, I am specifically talking about (white) professors who talk about the need for it. Professors who testify in support of bussing yet send their kids to private school, professors who say for kids to learn there must be a certain number of specific minorities in the classes, yet when it comes to their own children they don’t apply those same standards–they live in white areas and send their kids to white private schools. My point was that they are hypocrites, and I suspect very strongly that if a study was done of such professors the majority would be exactly like I described.
“I’m curious however, about what standards you apply to those who are on YOUR side of the argument. Would the residential demographics of the anti-affirmative action posters here have any sway as far as your opinion of THEM, or do you reserve that judgement only for those on MY side of the debate?”
As my point clearly was that they (very pro-AA profs) are hypocrites for saying diversity is critical yet not applying that same standards to themselves, not that they aren’t being *diverse*, no, I wouldn’t care what the residential demographics of anti-AA people are. They don’t say “diversity for thee but not for me”.
On the political right those I consider hypocrites are those who talk about moral values yet repeatedly get divorced, or have secret gay trysts while publicly putting forth different views. Or do drugs or gambles while saying others shouldn’t. Therefore, I wouldn’t consider a left-wing person who doesn’t make big speeches about moral values a hypocrite if he (or she) did drugs, got divorced, etc.
As for me, I went to a very diverse high school because my fairly conservative parents didn’t see race as a big deal, and most of my friends then were Asian. And the authors of studies who tell whites that AA is OK because it’s not them being harmed (too much) are nauseating, as are whites who agree with them.
As for women not getting the attention, I suspect that’s because specifically in college admissions if anything AA is against them (us) because women are overrepresented (and there have been numerous news reports on colleges giving *help* to male applicants). In some fields like math and engineering I’m guessing there are some programs, but not in law admissions, medical school admissions, etc.
Cobra writes:
>>I’ve often raised that same point here, but in my honest opinion, it would be far more difficult to sell ending Affirmative Action if the opponents emphasized white women.
I’ve heard Jesse Jackson make the same point about white women and AA. It doesn’t make me feel any better that a less-qualified person is hired in the name of “diversity”, even though she may be my wife, sister or mother. The powers that be have substituted one wrong (preferential treatment) for another (discrimination, Jim Crow).
Please tell me how this decreases the bitterness/resentment between the races and genders…
Distilled, “Discrimination isn’t so bad, because it just happens to people with whom I have no sympathy. ”
Good thing the discriminators aren’t bigots.
Haven’t been commenting here for a while because I really think I’ve just about said all I have to say, and it’s just becoming repetitive.
I did, however, discuss on my weblog today, why I ceased to be a leftist and a feminist. You can click below if you care to read it.
Thanks, John, for continuing to publish a great weblog.
Cicero writes:
>>>I’ve heard Jesse Jackson make the same point about white women and AA. It doesn’t make me feel any better that a less-qualified person is hired in the name of “diversity”, even though she may be my wife, sister or mother. The powers that be have substituted one wrong (preferential treatment) for another (discrimination, Jim Crow).
Please tell me how this decreases the bitterness/resentment between the races and genders…”
You see, one of the fallacies that I often point out about the anti-affirmative action movement is this very issue. Stopping the government from considering race is exactly what is advertised. It does not stop people from considering race, and all the bias, prejudice and animus that existed before, will continue. Take California for example. There hasn’t been Affirmative Action there for nearly NINE years. You’re not going to suggest that there is no longer “bitterness/resentment between the races and genders” in California 2005, are you?
Second, you are a unique individual if you would trade in a higher level of economic status for your wife (and theoretically your OWN) for some blind allegience to “meritocracy”, which never existed in America in the first place. By that same token, would you tell your wife not to accept ANY position if you believed she was “less qualified” than her competition for ANY reason, ie. references, nepotism, cronyism, fraternalism, etc INSTEAD of RACE OR GENDER?
There are a variety of conservative schemes out there with the goal of reshaping American back into the “traditional social hiearchy” that existed in the past. I’m highly suspicious of almost all of them.
–Cobra
Cobra,
Maybe I’m the odd man out, but I think that all the factors you’ve mentioned (nepotism, cronyism, fraternalism, etc.)are as repugnant as using race or gender in hiring decisions.
In fact, all of these factors contribute to the sorry state of businesses and other organizations in the U.S. There must be a better way to hire people (or grant them college admission.) It’s too bad that the well-connected social hogs among us can’t see past their own self interest in order to improve these mechanisms.
Cobra,
Take California for example. There hasn’t been Affirmative Action there for nearly NINE years.
Well, not strictly true. There hasn’t been in the public sector. Not everyone actually works for the government, or attends a state university.
Cicero, I am not so sure that “nepotism” is always a bad thing. I’m not so much thinking about the boss’s incompetent son getting the plum job where someone else much more competent is right at hand; I’m thinking more of very small enterprises, often family-run and -owned, where a close-knit, tiny group of people are all (literally and figuratively) invested in making the thing work. I really don’t think there’s anything wrong with a “family business,” any more than there’s anything wrong with a father-mother-daughter piano trio.
I wonder why anyone buys into Cobra logic, namely that until we get rid of all of the
Richard writes:
>>>I wonder why anyone buys into Cobra logic, namely that until we get rid of all of the
cobra – Could you send me a list of the ” pro-white think tank groups and foundations” so I can apply for grants they’ll presumably give me because I’m (arguably) white?
That sounds like what the Founders did when they wrote the Constitution. The credit I extend to them is the fact that they designed it so their racial mistakes could be amended generations later. That also sounds like the majority strategy for the better part of American History…a history that these anti-affirmative action initiative founders don’t like to talk about.
I’m afraid the above is too opaque for me, or maybe just above my head. What history is it exactly “these anti-affirmative action initiative founders” (and who are they?) refuse to discuss? Many mistakes have indeed been made — slavery, segregation, and racial discrimination, for starters — and many have tried to correct them. Many have also opposed the corrections. That’s life.
I mean the State of California must CERTAINLY be a “discrimination free zone” now that Ward Connerly and his minions have won the day, and banned the use of race, ethnicity and gender consideration, right?
Wrong. There are too many scofflaws who continue to practice racial discrimination.
Cobra, just speaking for myself, this “selective outrage” is based on two things: (a) when government discriminates, or openly sanctions discrimination, it does so in my name, and (b) ending official programs of discrimination is much easier to accomplish than is stopping, or even catching, all individual acts of discrimination (nor would I be willing to make the sacrifices to liberty required for a crime-free society).
First of all, I believe there is “selective outrage” at work here.
I don
Cobra Wrote:
You see, one of the fallacies that I often point out about the anti-affirmative action movement is this very issue. Stopping the government from considering race is exactly what is advertised. It does not stop people from considering race, and all the bias, prejudice and animus that existed before, will continue. Take California for example. There hasn’t been Affirmative Action there for nearly NINE years. You’re not going to suggest that there is no longer “bitterness/resentment between the races and genders” in California 2005, are you?
===============
You are quite mistaken. 209 took years to work it’s way through the courts, a hand picked liberal judge just sat on it for several years.
Now that it’s been upheld another judge has stated that it requires his approval for the CA State constitution to be upheld.
And even then, 209 only applies to a few aspects of CA state matters. Federal requirements for racism and sexism apply to all businesses in CA same as before, as well as anywhere federal funding is involved, which includes many aspects of the University system. Your buddy Clinton jumped in after 209 was passed and told the CA University system that they could not stop discriminating or they would lose federal funding.
And just about every city in the State has started that they will not be following 209. San Francisco certainly has not. There are in fact several lawsuites current attempting to force various state agencies to follow the law, as they are not so inclined.
You vastly overstate the scope and effects of 209 Cobra. Why is this?
As for “bitterness/resentment between the races and genders”, there are lots like you in CA, and they don’t follow laws they don’t like, much as I expect you don’t. I cannot believe that if you have *any* say in hiring that race is not the only think you would take into account. People who look like me need not apply. This you see as right and proper.
Rich
John writes:
>>>Could you send me a list of the ” pro-white think tank groups and foundations” so I can apply for grants they’ll presumably give me because I’m (arguably) white?”
Now, one thing I will say about these groups is, you don’t actually have to be “white” to get these grants. Apparently, you just have to promote philosophies and ojectives most advantageous to them. Take old Ward Connerly’s backers:
“In its first two years of operation, ACRI received twelve grants totaling $925,000 from two of the largest and most reactionary foundations in the country: the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee and the John M. Olin Foundation of New York.8
Bradley is the largest, richest, and most politically influential of the conservative foundations. It is a major funder of most of the neo-conservative organizations, think tanks, legal offices, publications and authors that Connerly extols as seeking to complete the Reagan Revolution – really, a counter-revolution against all the economic and social gains won through the labor struggles of the Thirties and the social movements of the Sixties and Seventies.9
Bradley supplied $600,000, including $100,000
Well, Cobra, discrimination certainly is irrefutable with you, isn’t it?
Cobra,
And would foundations of the left be willing to sponsor me in terms of grants if I write articles denouncing their favorite bogaboos ( i.e. denouncing Connerly and his ilk )? The race preferentialist friends of yours in San Francisco and people of the ilk of Birgenau are still trying to devise ways and means of getting around the ban created by Prop. 209. Oh sure, Washington, Jefferson etc. made plenty of mistakes alright, schools are probably not worthy of being named after them, but that does not prevent us from trying to correct their mistakes since we have the capability and the will to do that. Oh yes, it is easier to pass laws banning race preferences like Prop. 209 rather than catch every racist doing their covert discriminatory acts in employment, housing etc. But laws are just that , they are a statement of society as to what it will not tolerate or not abide with. Laws cannot catch every indiscretion, transgression, misdemeanor or felony that the citizens of a democracy will commit. But they are a signpost along the road reminding us that that is what keeps us from descending to the level of unthinking and unfeeling beasts. Similary, you can’t catch every perpetrator of discriminatory acts in the same manner as you cannot catch all the people who sell fenced goods or sell dope and ampethamines right?
oor felonr felon
Cobra, though it might seem unpleasant, “convenience” has to be one consideration as we can’t hope to correct every injustice. Now while you ascribe to different manifestations of discrimination “varying sense[s] of urgency,” I do not, nor do I follow how in your analogy the child of poor Vietnamese immigrants possesses an oasis while an American-born, middle-class black child does not; my goal is to stop as much discrimination as possible with the available resources and tools. Ending affirmative action programs, essentially signed confessions, would be more productive in that regard than would investigating and prosecuting individual, covert acts of discrimination. This doesn’t mean we don’t do any of the latter, but that we should first pick the low-hanging fruit.
Cobra Writes:
>>>You vastly overstate the scope and effects of 209 Cobra. Why is this?”
Hardly. Why don’t you take a gander at the MCRI website and see how “vastly overstated” their similiar initiative is?
http://www.michigancivilrights.org/mission.htm
===========
Why? It has nothing whatsoever to do with the lies you’ve told about there being no AA in CA.
I take it you concede the point as you’re trying to re-direct the conversation elsewhere.
AA is alive and well in CA Cobra.
Rich
Now, one thing I will say about these groups is, you don’t actually have to be “white” to get these grants. Apparently, you just have to promote philosophies and ojectives most advantageous to them.
Oh, now I see. When you referred to “pro-white think tank groups and
foundations” all you really meant was that they are conservative, since they really don’t care what color their conservatism comes in.
By this “logic,” of course, you must regard liberal think tanks and foundations as “anti-white.”
What a sad, narrow, race-bound world you live in.
“That sounds like what the Founders did when they wrote the Constitution.”
That’s not at all what it sounds like to anyone familiar with the Founders. There was a wide spectrum of political views about slavery in the 18th century, from radical abolitionists to unrepentant slave-owners. The Constitution represents the compromise that was reached (an imperfect compromise that many later regreted, for example John Adams) that was viewed as imperative to independence from England. It was this unresolved conflict that eventually resulted in the Civil War.
This misunderstanding stems from viewing white people as monolithic, discounting the vast diversity of whites: ethnic, religious, social, linguistic, regional, etc. Whites are not all the same, don’t all think alike, don’t all agree and never have.
John writes:
>>>Oh, now I see. When you referred to “pro-white think tank groups and
foundations” all you really meant was that they are conservative, since they really don’t care what color their conservatism comes in.
By this “logic,” of course, you must regard liberal think tanks and foundations as “anti-white.”
Not really. One doesn’t have to be white to be “pro-white” You just have to support practices and structures that annoint white males ABOVE all others. A look at the Foundations posted reinforces my belief.
The fact that you don’t dispute the monetary support these Foundations give to people like Connerly (and by extention, Jennifer Gratz), and your depiction of their insidious activities regarding race as simply “conservative” leads me to believe you know EXACTLY what the story is John.
>>>What a sad, narrow, race-bound world you live in.”
If people like Connerly and Gratz get their way, America’s gonna get a whole lot more SAD, NARROW and RACE-BOUND.
Nels writes:
>>>I do not, nor do I follow how in your analogy the child of poor Vietnamese immigrants possesses an oasis while an American-born, middle-class black child does not; my goal is to stop as much discrimination as possible with the available resources and tools.”
I don’t presume to speak for Asian Americans. I speak for myself. However, it’s interesting to look at what many Asian American business leaders had to say about Affirmative Action, particularly the UM case.
http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/idaa/veng.html
>>>Ending affirmative action programs, essentially signed confessions, would be more productive in that regard than would investigating and prosecuting individual, covert acts of discrimination. This doesn’t mean we don’t do any of the latter, but that we should first pick the low-hanging fruit.”
In a balanced, neutral, sunny-day America, I would say Amen. In the America I live in, I see a movement from the Right gaining momentum in an apparent attempt to preclude doing any of the “latter”, or at least making it as difficult as possible to pursue. I take offense to that movement. Nels, at least you have a realistic view of the existance of institutionalized discrimination against underrepresented minorities. I give you far more credit than I do Janice Rogers Brown, who was ramrodded through Congress this week. A look at her dissent on Aguilar vs. Avis Rent a Car tells you all you need to know about her committment to “fighting discrimination.”
Notherbob writes
>>>Whites are not all the same, don’t all think alike, don’t all agree and never have.”
Never suggested they did. Look at politics in America.
–Cobra
Cobra wrote:
Not really. One doesn’t have to be white to be “pro-white” You just have to support practices and structures that annoint white males ABOVE all others.
————
First, you confuse racism for racism and sexism, most likely because you suffer from both.
Second, this is exactly what you do WRT blacks, is there some problem with this sort of thing?
Third, what do you mean by “annoint”? Does not this require oil of some sort? The significance os this escapes me.
Rich
.05 Percent is a lot of poeple out of thousands. It is still discrimination against whites if it is just one person. Minorities should earn their way. If that was the case, why couldn’t they still let that small percentage in and keep out that little amount of blacks or hispanics who didn’t earn their way. Oh yeah and researchers get more money when they say what the goverment wants them to say.
Rich:
Main Entry: anoint
Pronunciation: &-‘noint
Function: transitive verb
Etymology: Middle English, from Middle French enoint, past participle of enoindre, from Latin inunguere, from in- + unguere to smear
Cobra wrote:
b : to choose by or as if by divine election; also : to designate as if by a ritual anointment
– anoint
[…] addressed that issue briefly in recent posts, here and here, responding to a new study that purports to find that the percentage of white applicants […]
[…] written too many times to cite on how affirmative action results in massive discrimination against Asian-Americans, much more so in fact than against […]