cmakaioz
Well-known member
- Joined
- Feb 8, 2012
- Messages
- 1,582
- Reaction score
- 451
- Location
- Oakland, CA
- Gender
- Male
- Political Leaning
- Other
College admissions are not based upon merit, but upon compliance (i.e. grades, ability to afford expenses related to higher education before and during college, etc.). Competitive-admissions / "selective" colleges routinely REJECT the MAJORITY OF QUALIFIED APPLICANTS, period. Furthermore, grade and test score applicants are not more vs. less qualified than each other; they are either qualified (based upon comparing their scores and grades to minimum requirements) or not. For example, if applicants must have a 2.5 GPA or higher to apply, it is NOT the case that a student with a GPA of 3.8 is more qualified than one with a 3.4. They are both simply qualified, period.
This would normally be the point where I being to explain that different groups of people (facing dramatically different obstacles) reaching the "same" standards is actually not a case of parallel achievement (those facing systemic obstacles have actually weathered and achieved MORE), but based upon your posts thus far I'm doubtful you're ready to hear that.
Much as with jobs, the only way to know for sure if someone is qualified on grounds of merit is to admit or hire them first, and then look at their performance over time. This is absolutely NOT how the vast majority of college admissions or hiring processes actually work. Instead, there's a big game of make-believe where applicants and employers/colleges all pretend that grades reliably indicate competence, that ability to pay for things is equivalent to being able to do things (and conversely that being unable to afford them means being unable to do them), etc.
This may be a shocker to you, but admissions processes are not now meritocratic, and (in the context of the United States, at the very least) they never have been. Have you ever stopped to consider the fact that BEFORE school integration, and BEFORE piecemeal, lukewarm efforts at systemic inclusion (like AA), the admissions system wasn't meritocratic either?
I never equated voluntary with "right." My point, rather, was that there is a huge difference between AA and anti discrimination law...a difference almost all of the opponents of AA (or rather, the opponents of what is falsely misunderstood to be AA) either don't know about or deliberately ignore.
If a court ordered it...it is a matter of anti discrimination law. Your ignorance is showing.
There is no such thing as reverse discrimination. It's a conservative fantasy used to soothe any lingering doubts about casually pretending away massive white and male privilege. As described above, if you are genuinely concerned with people not getting into college per se, then I'd refer you to the fact that selective colleges routinely turn away the majority of qualified applicants OF ALL "RACES" AND GENDERS. If you really want all willing and qualified students to go to college, you have much bigger fish to fry than the phantom of the Poor Little (Paranoid) Persecuted White Male.
Indeed, it ignores reality, though not in the way you are suggesting. Rather, the ignorance is on at least two fronts:
First, by framing AA as a "price" paid by white men...as if they are losing something they are presumptively entitled to. That's rather odd...I though the idea of admissions and hiring processes was that it was NOT known ahead of time who is going to be admitted or hired. Silly me.
You are once again showing ignorance. Institutions may not be required to hire or admit X number of ANYTHING until and unless they first are tried and LOSE in an anti discrimination lawsuit. You don't seem to fathom what that means. It means that if you encounter one of the spectacularly rare institutions bound by such a ruling, it is because that institution was found guilty of having committed racist and/or sexist discrimination in its practices.
AA is not anti discrimination law.
AA is not a quota system.
Quotas may only be required as the result of losing an anti discrimination lawsuit.
You're getting ahead of yourself. I care about many forms of inequality. My confidence in your ability to reason, and to differentiate between propaganda and facts, however, isn't particularly high at the moment. Show me a better side of yourself, and perhaps that might change, but you're not representing yourself or your stance especially well thus far.
In fairness, I've found that rightist libertarians in particular have especially strong ideological blindnesses when it comes to anything operating above the level of the individual, and since efforts at remedying systemic discrimination ALL operate at above the individual level, it's hardly surprising that you're having such difficulty recognizing what's actually going on. What is not excusable, however, is taking preposterous rhetoric against AA at face value, which is something you have clearly done.
ETA: It may surprise you to discover that I'm actually deeply critical of AA, but for radically different reasons. Basically, it's too timid, too easy to weasel out of, and those most frequently called upon to implement it are rarely held accountable for managing AA programs and policies effectively. At the very least, however, I insist upon having an accurate understanding of something before I criticize it...and sadly most opponents of AA aren't there yet (and may never be, at the current pace).
Last edited:
