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Students’ Protests May Play Role in Supreme Court Case on Race in Admissions

JANFU

JANFU

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/02/u...n-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

The case to be argued next week was brought by Abigail Fisher, a white woman who was denied admission to the University of Texas at Austin, and who says the university’s consideration of race violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The Supreme Court has forbidden the use of quotas, fixed percentages and other efforts to mirror the racial composition of the general population in admissions decisions. But it has allowed schools to take account of race as one factor among many in an effort to achieve a “critical mass” of minority students.
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Thoughts are?
 
I would hope societal decisions by skin color get tossed once and for all, and we can finally get past race as a human being's qualifier.
 
This woman needs to prove that her race was the only thing keeping her out of the school.
 
It's time to get past race and focus on qualifications. Race should be irrelevant by now.
 
Race being a positive factor for anything should be considered unconstitutional. It's discrimination to put a racial preference in place which by definition disadvantages others. I don't care if some private institution wants to set its mission to be an all "x" race school, but that shouldn't be allowed for any public institution or any institution getting federal money.

Just because the "intent" may be positive with wanting to give preference to minority students that come from races that have been historically disadvantaged or less educated doesn't make it right or any less discrimination. It's also morally wrong to deny a student of equal merit compared to another with race being a factor in the decision. I wonder how many people would feel fine with a public school saying they give preference to white or Asian students with the goal of harboring a "safe" campus citing minority crime statistics as their reasoning. Their "intent" may be safety but that's not right or appropriate, and neither is this.

I certainly hope the SCOTUS makes the right decision and ends a person's race as being a factor in public college admissions. That's inequality and discrimination based on race and shouldn't be considered constitutional on public campuses.
 
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Canada has the right idea here. As I understand it your census doesn't track race but self-identified "culture". 33% of Canadians consider themselves Canadian, 18% English, 17% French, 13% Scottish, etc. (I am just approximating on these percentages but they should be close). Until we, in the US, get over this idea of tracking everything by race (a pseudo-science idea to begin with) we will have racial problem. I would contend that they are worse now then 50 years ago.

Perhaps in 1965 Affirmative Action made sense but not today. The "Black" today is likely to be a native born Ibo who enjoyed privilege over Fulanis in Nigeria while the "White" guy may be a persecuted Romanian Jehovah Witness. The qualified Malaysian or Pakistani gets lumped in with highly qualified Chinese Americans and falls shorts in the "Asian American" race, whatever that is. What in the world is "Hispanic"? Is my Mexican friend Wolfgang Reinhold Hispanic like my largely Swiss Chilean cousins?

We are created new classes of people who will be filling our courts with complaints for years to come. If we had decided to track by nationality or religion instead of race we would find all sorts of disparities. Lutherans make more than Baptists and Muslims but less than Congregationalists. German Americans make more than Greek Americans but less than Russian Americans. Discriminatory!!!???
 
reinoe said:
This woman needs to prove that her race was the only thing keeping her out of the school.
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Guilty before proven innocent? Sounds like a violation of civil rights.
 
I wrote about this ages ago.

'Affirmative Action' just not cricket. - Free Talk - Chinadaily Forum

It is American cultural hegemony that is to blame for for the spread of Affirmative Action. I am glad to see conservatives and moderates in the US fighting to end Affirmative Action. I think that it is fantastic that the US Supreme Court upheld Michigans ban on Affirmative Action on college admissions.

I fully agree with top anti-affirmative action advocate - Jennifer Gratz, that a colourblind government is what is needed in western society. Gratz said this after the US Supreme Court upheld the ban on Affirmative Action - “Much progress has been made over the past 15 years in challenging discriminatory policies based on race preferences and moving toward colorblind government,” “Today’s ruling preserves this foundation and is a clear signal that states are moving in the right direction when they do away with policies that treat people differently based on race, gender, ethnicity or skin color,"

Gratz was the plaintiff in a 2003 case where the court struck down a points based admission process at U-M that gave African Americans points for being black.

Another anti-Affirmative Action heroine is Abigal Fisher. Abigal tried to sue the University of Texas, claiming that she was rejected from UT because of her race.. Which is.. Anglo-Scot? Im not so sure that I fully agree with Abigal Fisher but until a colourblind approach is adopted to things such as college admission there will always be people like Abigal that feel cheated. Affirmative Action breeds resentment.
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edit- HA! Oh my God Im funny.
 
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spangledbanner said:
I wrote about this ages ago.

'Affirmative Action' just not cricket. - Free Talk - Chinadaily Forum
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Always liked some of Malcolm X's stuff. He has this amazing paragraph in his "Ballot or the Bullet" speech, ranked as one of the 100 best US speeches.
Right now, in this country, if you and I, 22 million African-Americans -- that's what we are -- Africans who are in America. You're nothing but Africans. Nothing but Africans. In fact, you'd get farther calling yourself African instead of Negro. Africans don't catch hell. You're the only one catching hell. They don't have to pass civil-rights bills for Africans. An African can go anywhere he wants right now. All you've got to do is tie your head up. That's right, go anywhere you want. Just stop being a Negro. Change your name to Hoogagagooba. That'll show you how silly the white man is. You're dealing with a silly man. A friend of mine who's very dark put a turban on his head and went into a restaurant in Atlanta before they called themselves desegregated. He went into a white restaurant, he sat down, they served him, and he said, "What would happen if a Negro came in here? And there he's sitting, black as night, but because he had his head wrapped up the waitress looked back at him and says, "Why, there wouldn't no nigger dare come in here."
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Malcolm X: The Ballot or the Bullet

Very believable story to me, having lived in that period (1963). Sure seems to be saying that it is cultural bias, not racism. And therefore it would not be solved racially, but culturally. Of course, Malcolm X's mother was Grenadan and there is still a disconnect between the Caribbean Blacks and Afro-Americans. Different culture. I suspect that Malcolm X would smile at the idea that the first black President was half-Kenyan, half-white and therefore not really an African-American in the common definition.
 
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