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High Court Upholds Michigan Affirmative Action Ban

Well, no. They will be admitted on merit as well.

Which you will have no quantifiable way of knowing.

The SCOTUS ruling was to end the racial discrimination.

No, it was a ruling to end one form of a quantifiable type of discrimination. The ruling doesn't possess the means to end discrimination.

If highly qualified black kids get denied while lower qualified white kids get in then that is discrimination and they can sue the school if they want.

If the school picks a qualified white candidate over an equally qualified black candidate for racist reasons, there will be no way to prove it.

All the SCOTUS did was end institutionalized racial discrimination.

One type of institutionalized discrimination, nothing more.
 
Yes - your point about government is a true one. However, if we are going to have a society based on meritocracy, should we not at least try to foster merit in all aspects of college admissions regardless if those preferences come from government or alumni or those who run the place?

Your point about the purpose of athletes is undeniable. But those same school would still field football teams and basketball teams if they simply had to recruit among the admitted student body. Those of greater athletic ability but lesser academic ability would inevitably find their way to lesser schools where academically they would be a far better fit and they could play there. Is the purpose of elite schools to field a great football team or is it to educate the student body?

To answer your last question about the "elite schools", I think that depends on what these schools are looking to accomplish in the athletics world. If high level athletics is what makes them elite, then I'm all in support of their quest to find the best athletes who aren't necessarily the brightest. Now if we're talking the Ivies wanting to be competitive in hockey and they bring in some kid who can't spell cat but is a great goal scorer, then I think they have turned an "elite" environment upside down.

It's all hard to say, but I know I dislike government imposed regulations superceding private decisions, even in public colleges.
 
Let us hope that this is simply one step in getting rid OF ALL PREFERENCES in college admissions. And I do mean ALL. If we want to admit the most qualified based on HS GPA and some test scores like the SAT's - then lets use those and let in the best and deny admission to anybody else not making that standard of admission.

How many here would support that?
Well. THen get it put in the US Constitution like the voters in Michigan put it in theirs.

BTW:
The court did not address whether race preferences are permissible — which the court already upheld under the previous University of Michigan Grutter court ruling — but only whether states can restrict their use.

From The Detroit News: High court upholds Mich. affirmative action ban | The Detroit News
 
To answer your last question about the "elite schools", I think that depends on what these schools are looking to accomplish in the athletics world. If high level athletics is what makes them elite, then I'm all in support of their quest to find the best athletes who aren't necessarily the brightest. Now if we're talking the Ivies wanting to be competitive in hockey and they bring in some kid who can't spell cat but is a great goal scorer, then I think they have turned an "elite" environment upside down.

It's all hard to say, but I know I dislike government imposed regulations superceding private decisions, even in public colleges.

For me, if the principle is correct - it needs to be applied across the board and lets roundly call out and expose thin efforts to get around the principle. If the principle is that the fairest way to admit students is by academic merit - and academic merit is defined as HS GPA and SAT's - then lets hold to that and only that. If that is the principle lets hold to that.

I do not care if it is a public school or a private school. I do not care if the admission is based on race or money or athletics if it is a preference that gets around the agreed upon principle.

Right is right and wrong is wrong and it is not government involvement which changes that principle. It should apply across the board if we believe in that principle.
 
For me, if the principle is correct - it needs to be applied across the board and lets roundly call out and expose thin efforts to get around the principle. If the principle is that the fairest way to admit students is by academic merit - and academic merit is defined as HS GPA and SAT's - then lets hold to that and only that. If that is the principle lets hold to that.

I do not care if it is a public school or a private school. I do not care if the admission is based on race or money or athletics if it is a preference that gets around the agreed upon principle.

Right is right and wrong is wrong and it is not government involvement which changes that principle. It should apply across the board if we believe in that principle.

The only principle that I apply to colleges is they should admit who they want, without the government telling them who they should admit. It's the same principle I apply to business. Neither one of us is wrong - we just have different principles.
 
Looking forward to reading the opinions of the Supremes. From a glance it looks like they honored states rights. And people in that state no longer need to look at race as criteria. Good. We no longer live in the sixties. It's about time future students are chosen on their merits not the color of their skin.
 
Which you will have no quantifiable way of knowing.

That is what discovery is all about. The schools, who will be choosing students on merit should be able to produce records of their scoring system for admissions.

No, it was a ruling to end one form of a quantifiable type of discrimination. The ruling doesn't possess the means to end discrimination.

I used "institutionalized" as a qualifier for a reason. The discrimination you are talking about was always illegal, the discrimination the SCOTUS ended used to be legal.

If the school picks a qualified white candidate over an equally qualified black candidate for racist reasons, there will be no way to prove it.

Why not? And, anyway, until this ruling they would have discriminated against the white student in your scenario legally. It is a poor argument to say that ending LEGAL discrimination is bad because ILLEGAL discrimination is hard to prove.

One type of institutionalized discrimination, nothing more.

Well sure. Picking this kid over pretty much all other kids is discrimination, but it is MERIT based discrimination and he earned his admissions because he is awesome. Merit based discrimination is something anyone can earn so it is not unequal in its application.
 
Everyone should have equal opportunity. Even with this court ruling, everyone still does.
 
Students of all races can now know that they got in to Michigan schools on their merit.

That is, unless their family has given the school a lot of money. Or unless they go to the same country club as some of the admissions department staff. Or unless their parents paid to send them to a leadership summit every summer knowing it would make their college resume look good. Then they'd know they into that particular Michigan school because they have a privileged background. Which has always been the way a whole lot of people got into college.

I think affirmative action is a good idea, but it should be way more about family background and economics than race. That's the way the world works. You do better when you're rich. There is statistical proof of this being true. The least we can do in the land of opportunity is give people with impoverished backgrounds a fair shot against their fellow applicants who were expected to get into an ivy league school since they were born. All that said, I think Michigan is being very stupid, but I agree with the court's decision. They can be as stupid as they want to be. This is the state with a whole peninsula of people eating squirrel pie. What a shock that Harvard and Yale aren't there.
 
The only principle that I apply to colleges is they should admit who they want, without the government telling them who they should admit. It's the same principle I apply to business. Neither one of us is wrong - we just have different principles.

So to clarify - if the U of Michigan wants to admit minorities with decidedly lower HS GPA's and SAT's than other admittees - you support that idea since it is their choice?
 
So to clarify - if the U of Michigan wants to admit minorities with decidedly lower HS GPA's and SAT's than other admittees - you support that idea since it is their choice?

If they were admitting them to beef up their football prospects? Absolutely. If they were admitting them because they want to lower the average GPAs and SAT scores of the incoming class? Absolutely. It would be their choice - not mine.
 
Everyone should have equal opportunity. Even with this court ruling, everyone still does.

That's like saying that in a poker game where there are 2 players who start with 100 chips, 5 players who start with 50 chips, and 3 players who start with 5 chips, "everyone has an equal chance to win." You're confusing "equal chance" and "theoretical chance."
 
That's like saying that in a poker game where there are 2 players who start with 100 chips, 5 players who start with 50 chips, and 3 players who start with 5 chips, "everyone has an equal chance to win." You're confusing "equal chance" and "theoretical chance."

No, I'm not confusing anything, actually. Even Doctor King was looking for equal opportunity for everyone.

In your poker example, it isn't equal opportunity because the players aren't starting out with the same amount of money, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make?

Everyone in this country has the same opportunity to succeed. The difference is who acts on the opportunities, and how.
 
That is what discovery is all about. The schools, who will be choosing students on merit should be able to produce records of their scoring system for admissions.



I used "institutionalized" as a qualifier for a reason. The discrimination you are talking about was always illegal, the discrimination the SCOTUS ended used to be legal.



Why not? And, anyway, until this ruling they would have discriminated against the white student in your scenario legally. It is a poor argument to say that ending LEGAL discrimination is bad because ILLEGAL discrimination is hard to prove.



Well sure. Picking this kid over pretty much all other kids is discrimination, but it is MERIT based discrimination and he earned his admissions because he is awesome. Merit based discrimination is something anyone can earn so it is not unequal in its application.

Interesting. So let's say you have a majority-white university (and prefer to keep it that way, not that that's in their mission statement or anything). So they pick one white student over the black student and entirely for racist reasons, and both students are equally qualified. What is the mechanism by which you'd prove it?
 
No, I'm not confusing anything, actually. Even Doctor King was looking for equal opportunity for everyone.

In your poker example, it isn't equal opportunity because the players aren't starting out with the same amount of money, so I'm not sure what point you were trying to make?

Everyone in this country has the same opportunity to succeed. The difference is who acts on the opportunities, and how.

So the difference isn't whether or not you're born into a world of gangs and violence as opposed to country clubs and gated communities? That doesn't make a difference? I understand that people need to believe in free will and "pulling yourself up by your boot straps," but you can take that to a level of stupidity. Denying that being born into an impoverished family, in a far worse school system, with the need to work very young to support your family and without the expectation to succeed in academics -- denying that all that is going to make a huge difference in what kind of chance you have to succeed in school? That's taking it to a level of stupidity. That's why we have affirmative action. It's to give those people a fair shot, to make sure that if they can show they're capable of overcoming the tremendous adversity facing them, it will be rewarded.

So I find it ironic that a program intended to give more people a fair chance is deemed, by people such as yourself, a program that reduces the fairness of the system. I've got news for you, if you were born in Detroit's inner city and you have a single mother and three brothers and need food stamps to survive, life isn't going to be very fair for you. If you disagree, I urge you to go there for a week and tell me what you think.
 
So I find it ironic that a program intended to give more people a fair chance is deemed, by people such as yourself, a program that reduces the fairness of the system. I've got news for you, if you were born in Detroit's inner city and you have a single mother and three brothers and need food stamps to survive, life isn't going to be very fair for you. If you disagree, I urge you to go there for a week and tell me what you think.

How exactly is that unfair?
 
So the difference isn't whether or not you're born into a world of gangs and violence as opposed to country clubs and gates communities? That doesn't make a difference? I understand that people need to believe in free will and "pulling yourself up by your boot straps," but you can take that to a level of stupidity. Denying that being born into an impoverished family, in a far worse school system, with the need to work very young to support your family and without the expectation to succeed in academics -- denying that all that is going to make a huge difference in what kind of chance you have to succeed in school? That's taking it to a level of stupidity. That's why we have affirmative action. It's to give those people a fair shot, to make sure that if they can show they're capable of overcoming the tremendous adversity facing them, it will be rewarded.

So I find it ironic that a program intended to give more people a fair chance is deemed, by people such as yourself, a program that reduces the fairness of the system. I've got news for you, if you were born in Detroit's inner city and you have a single mother and three brothers and need food stamps to survive, life isn't going to be very fair for you. If you disagree, I urge you to go there for a week and tell me what you think.

We all have the same opportunity in this country. And there have been people born into inner cities who have succeeded to very high positions, and people born the children of the uber wealthy who failed miserably in life.

It's what you want to do with your life.

I also know quite a few people who were born into absolute poverty yet are wildly successful now, including one of our best friends who was beaten within an inch of his life by his crack whore mother's boyfriend, and who lived in a car for almost a year when he was a kid before being tossed in the NY foster home system. He is now a CFO of a very large tech company in MA. He worked his ass off to get out of poverty and his rancid beginnings.
 
I also want to add that in the late 1980s I was a customer service manager at a company in Newark, NJ. It was my first job out of college. I had 35+ people working for me - almost all of them black. Most were raised in Newark which rivals Detroit for ugliness. They all finished school, and many went to college. They all held full time jobs and were great members of society. Most of them were raised in the projects. None of them believed they couldn't do better with their lives.
 
Let us hope that this is simply one step in getting rid OF ALL PREFERENCES in college admissions. And I do mean ALL. If we want to admit the most qualified based on HS GPA and some test scores like the SAT's - then lets use those and let in the best and deny admission to anybody else not making that standard of admission.

How many here would support that?

I would. University should be exclusive and elitist, the highest benchmark of education and academia with the most diverse and rigorous of requirements. The best and brightest should be selected. For the rest, there's College (which should be different from University), Community College, and Trade School. And surely if you miss the intellectual marks to make University, there can be a way back in through either College or Community College.
 
I also know quite a few people who were born into absolute poverty yet are wildly successful now, including one of our best friends who was beaten within an inch of his life by his crack whore mother's boyfriend, and who lived in a car for almost a year when he was a kid before being tossed in the NY foster home system. He is now a CFO of a very large tech company in MA. He worked his ass off to get out of poverty and his rancid beginnings.

Again, you're confusing equal opportunity with theoretical opportunity. It's an anecdote from your life versus a hundred years of statistical evidence. I know a guy who won $200,000 from a scratch off ticket. I guess, by your logic, that proves that anybody can get rich in this country.
 
I would. University should be exclusive and elitist, the highest benchmark of education and academia with the most diverse and rigorous of requirements. The best and brightest should be selected. For the rest, there's College (which should be different from University), Community College, and Trade School. And surely if you miss the intellectual marks to make University, there can be a way back in through either College or Community College.

Why should a university be more elite and exclusive than college?
 
Again, you're confusing equal opportunity with theoretical opportunity. It's an anecdote from your life versus a hundred years of statistical evidence. I know a guy who won $200,000 from a scratch off ticket. I guess, by your logic, that proves that anybody can get rich in this country.

Everyone who buys 1 scratch off ticket has the same chance as everyone else who buys 1 ticket. Your 1 ticket equals 1 chance, same as everyone else's.
 
Let us hope that this is simply one step in getting rid OF ALL PREFERENCES in college admissions. And I do mean ALL. If we want to admit the most qualified based on HS GPA and some test scores like the SAT's - then lets use those and let in the best and deny admission to anybody else not making that standard of admission.

How many here would support that?
In general yes, overall no.
It wouldn't be advisable.
A University needs to stay afloat, so admissions need to consider the ability to pay. Which would/could also include considerations for large donors that help keep the University afloat.
 
In general yes, overall no.
It wouldn't be advisable.
A University needs to stay afloat, so admissions need to consider the ability to pay. Which would/could also include considerations for large donors that help keep the University afloat.

So one standard for the common plebeians and a different standard for the rich aristocracy. Sorry - that is no principle I can subscribe to.
 
Yes - all those things help support bigtime athletic programs. And at the same time there seems little doubt that some college athletes would never get into those schools on purely academics. Is that not a form of preference?

Affirmative action was never about athletics, it was about race.
 
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