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I can see affirmative action working to benefit an institution if the people using it would actually do some investigation rather than seeing certain groups as "disadvantaged" etc
I used to recruit kids to play for a D-1 College when I was a coach while I was a graduate student. And here is how affirmative action should work. Lets suppose I have one more slot for a tennis player. I have two choices-one is a rich kid. He has his own tennis court on his property and a membership to a nearby, top of the line, indoor facility. he has private coach, who takes him to all the big events-Kalamazoo, the Orange Bowl, and some of the ITF events held in the USA. He is ranked in the top 40 in the country.
The second candidate comes from a middle class family. He plays #1 on a very good public school team. That team has a top coach who works with this boy during the season. He also attends clinics at a local public tennis facility. He attends local tournaments but his family cannot afford to send him to the big national events. However, he has played a couple of the USTA sectional events in his state and has a national ranking of 89 or so
Now, if I went purely on rankings, the first kid should get the slot. But I have watched both boys play. I realize that the first kid has maxed out his talent. He has had every advantage-private lessons for years, a coach who travels with him, 24-7 access to indoor courts when the weather is nasty, and since he can afford to enter all the big national events, his ranking is as good as it can possibly be. Now the other boy has far less of those ranking accentuating advantages. Since he cannot play most of the most prestigious tournaments (where the most ranking points are available) his ranking suffers. Plus, only having his father, rather than a trained professional coach, advising him at tournaments, has probably hurt his achievements too. I figure that since my institution has top coaches and facilities, if this boy were to play for me, his athletic talent would -in a year or two-propel him past the other kid-who really has no room to improve. SO I choose the second boy.
Now that is how affirmative action should work.
The problem is, what you said has nothing to do with affirmative action. It was just a calculation regarding the expected end ranking for these two players. If the rich kid had all these things at his disposition but somehow didn't want to take advantage of everything (say, he preferred to be academically busy at school for the time being) and then you concluded he was the one with the biggest chance at a higher ranking, you'd have selected him. So your selection has nothing to do with race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic status. That's not what affirmative action is. You made a technical decision, not an affirmative action one.