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Oct 21, 2003 Proponents of Affirmative Action have painted themselves into a corner from which they may not be able to extricate themselves. The trap works like this (in standard group-think): First, you claim that, because you've been treated badly by the social majority, you're entitled to some form of recompense. Understanding that the majority is not likely to simply give you cash, you have to devise a method by which you can improve your lot in life in other ways. (If your "solution" has the side benefit of "punishing" members of that majority, all the better.) It's first necessary to convince a majority of the powers-that-be that your "downtroddeness" merits recompense in some manner so that they'll be more inclined to go along with what you propose. It's fairly well established that education is the key to financial success so that's a logical place to start. (The "solution" can later be applied to the workplace too, but there's plenty of time for that.) One of the ways you convince the powers-that-be that an inequity exists is to point to the inner- city schools (which are, in their majority, populated by minority students.) Since it's been established as a matter of law for over 35 years now that a school district cannot discriminate in funding for schools--even in the inner cities--it becomes necessary to CLAIM that minority students are disadvantaged because of a long history of PAST discrimination. (Note that it's not necessary to explain just HOW 1920's discrimination causes a 2003 student to fail. One only has to make the claim.) Since inner-city kids have a tendancy not to be able to qualify for college admissions (in general) on the basis of grades or SAT scores, you must claim that the reason is that aforesaid discrimination--whether real or imagined--has somehow stunted you intellectually. Since minority students' inability to qualify for college by merit, some "solution" must be found so that the golden fleece of "diversity" can be attained in our university system. Since universities tend to be home to large populations of liberals (the reasons will be addressed at another time), universities tend to become partners with minority interest groups seeking redress for past discrimination. The solution that was found turned out to be something called "Affirmative Action." Translated, the term was originally intended to mean active recruitment of qualified minority students (or employees). It quickly degenerated to mean preferential treatment of minorities in admissions based on the false premise that minority students' lack of success academically-- particularly in inner-city schools--was a function of past discrimination and NOT the fault of the students or their teachers. Therefore, to insure equality of outcome--a "goal" that is addressed NO WHERE in our founding documents or even in subsequent constitutional law--the decision was made to grant minority students preferential consideration in admissions--often at the expense of better-qualified non-minority students. This is particularly true in situations where there is a finite number of admissions permitted into many schools and selection must be made based on some objective criteria. In the case of minority students, however, the decision was made to discard these objective criteria and grant "points" towards admissions based on ethnicity rather than merit. This is how the trap works: If you are a minority graduate of a prestigious university, and achieved admissions by merit alone, your degree will be forever diminished in value by potential employers because the assumption will necessarily be made that you arrived at that university as an "affirmative-action admission" and were likely helped along towards your degree by professors who race-normed tests in grading-- even if neither of these things were ever true. Therefore, as a member of a selected minority, your successful earning of a degree will forever be assumed to be unearned and the result of racial preferences. What's worse, you'll NEVER be able to escape that stigma. ------------ About the author: David A. Jared is a semi-retired oil & gas middle- manager who, as soon as he can get his daughter out of college, intends to be a FULLY-retired oil & gas middle-manager. Email: JaredLand@sbcglobal.net |
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