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Why Should Colleges Be Blind to Color and Nothing Else?
Creators.com ^ | Wednesday, April 23, 2014 | Jill Lawrence

Posted on 04/23/2014 4:19:48 PM PDT by kristinn

If you don't like affirmative action, the Supreme Court has a clear signal for you: Go for it.

When Michigan voters approved a ballot initiative to ban race as a consideration in admission to state schools, the high court said that they were simply exercising their privilege to bypass unresponsive public officials and make laws themselves.

So what's next? Will spindly, graceless people, still smarting over being picked last for every team underwrite ballot initiatives that ban consideration of the genetic gift of athletic talent? What about the genetic windfall of alumni parents? Will courts someday be asked to decide if voters have the right to ban legacy preferences?

Hardly. I have never understood why there isn't a huge outcry every year about legacy admissions or any of the tools colleges use to get what they need — be it athletes, musicians, tech nerds, classics fanatics, budding capitalists, future donors, students from all over the country and the world, rural and urban students, gay and straight students, and students of many colors.

Can you imagine an ad that says: "You needed that college acceptance, and you were the best-qualified, but they had to give it to a rich kid, because his father went there. Is that really fair?" I can't see it. But in 1990, there was an ad for North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms that said: "You needed that job, and you were the best-qualified, but they had to give it to a minority, because of a racial quota. Is that really fair?"

Only race provokes feelings of resentment and persecution so intense they inspire not just campaign ads but movements for laws, referendums and court rulings. Yet those are visceral reactions that ignore history.

African-American students are legacy students in their own way. Too often, their legacy is...

(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: affirmativeaction
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This is the debut column at Creators by veteran journalist Jill Lawrence.

Sad to see she doesn't realize that fixing racism with more racism just leads to more racism. There are other ways to help poor students get to college without employing race-based discrimination.

1 posted on 04/23/2014 4:19:48 PM PDT by kristinn
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To: kristinn

Scholarships should be strictly academic. When an attorney told me he went to college on a Golf scholarship, I ROTFALMAO.


2 posted on 04/23/2014 4:24:29 PM PDT by Sacajaweau
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To: Sacajaweau

My SIL went to college on a golf scholarship (he played on a 2-time state champion hs team). It was a great deal for him, got a biz degree, and now manages a country club.


3 posted on 04/23/2014 4:26:35 PM PDT by nascarnation (Toxic Baraq Syndrome: hopefully infecting a Dem candidate near you)
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To: kristinn
I don't think college should consider race, height, hair length, eye color, gender or ethnicity when choosing who to admit. There is no accomplishment in being 5'8" or having brown eyes.

However, talents (athletics, music, writing, mathematics, dance...) should be considered.

Jill Lawrence should find a new career.

4 posted on 04/23/2014 4:26:52 PM PDT by Senator_Blutarski
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To: kristinn

Colleges should look at nothing more than academic ability and ability to pay.

Private scholarships should be encouraged and if some of them want to give scholarships to blacks, so be it.


5 posted on 04/23/2014 4:27:35 PM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: Sacajaweau

Golf Scholarship? Oxymoron term!!
May be sports subsidy is a better description.

Another thing I do not like is many scholarships are based on financial need. So if you work harder and become affluent, your children will be discriminated! WTF?


6 posted on 04/23/2014 4:27:41 PM PDT by entropy12 (Democrats win WH for one reason...welfare checks, food stamps and 143 more giveaways)
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To: kristinn

And when blacks get into college because of the color of their skin and graduate with a major in African-American LGBTXYZ studies and then cant’ fine a job, that’s racism too.


7 posted on 04/23/2014 4:33:43 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("The best way to control opposition is to lead it ourselves." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin)
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To: kristinn

She doesn’t seem to grasp the notion that the decision was about public universities. As for private universities, they should be able to do what they want. Of course when they take public money, they open themselves up to government control.


8 posted on 04/23/2014 4:34:34 PM PDT by Hugin
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To: kristinn

I don’t know who Jill Lawrence is be she seems to be straining mightily at a gnat.


9 posted on 04/23/2014 4:43:32 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: kristinn
"Will spindly, graceless people, still smarting over being picked last for every team underwrite ballot initiatives that ban consideration of the genetic gift of athletic talent? What about the genetic windfall of alumni parents? Will courts someday be asked to decide if voters have the right to ban legacy preferences?"

I would wager that if banning athletic scholarships and banning preferences for the children of wealthy alumni were put on the ballot, they would both pass. Jill, what was your point again?
10 posted on 04/23/2014 4:45:12 PM PDT by Steve_Seattle
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To: kristinn

Jill Lawrence can stick her race card where the sun don’t shine.


11 posted on 04/23/2014 4:46:18 PM PDT by workerbee (The President of the United States is DOMESTIC ENEMY #1!)
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To: kristinn

The difference is that consideration by race is banned by the Constitution.


12 posted on 04/23/2014 4:54:47 PM PDT by kaehurowing (FIGHT BULLYING, UNINSTALL FIREFOX)
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To: kristinn

University admission should be decided on academic performance with only the absolutely top students admitted. There should be no set asides for race, creed, color, sex, or anything else. If you do not have the brainpower to do the work, you don’t belong in a university.


13 posted on 04/23/2014 4:54:49 PM PDT by Ronin (Dumb, dependent and Democrat is no way to go through life - Rep. L. Gohmert, Tex)
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To: Ronin

The affirmative action supporters do have one point, though for obvious reasons they don’t dwell on the topic. There’s always been affirmative action for the offspring of the wealthy and powerful.


14 posted on 04/23/2014 5:00:14 PM PDT by jjotto ("Ya could look it up!")
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To: kristinn

There is already proof that the graduation rate of minorities selected on academic performance is on par with others, including Asians — an overlooked minority because of their individual success rate.

She better think twice about allowing illegal aliens to attend State College. They’ll take up the slot of willing and able minority students.


15 posted on 04/23/2014 5:01:24 PM PDT by Usagi_yo
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To: kristinn

“New York University sociologist Patrick Sharkey, author of “Stuck in Place: Urban Neighborhoods and the End of Progress toward Racial Equality,” offered some astonishing statistics. For instance, on average, black families making $100,000 a year or more live in worse neighborhoods than white families making less than $30,000.”

If they come from a family too stupid to MOVE to a decent neighborhood, then they probably have a low IQ.


16 posted on 04/23/2014 5:04:47 PM PDT by Mr Rogers (I sooooo miss America!)
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To: kristinn
So ironic that liberals of every skin color praise Martin Luther King & place him on the same level of say Abraham Lincoln yet disagree with him on his most famous tenet.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin by the content of their character.

17 posted on 04/23/2014 5:05:29 PM PDT by TexasCajun
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To: kristinn

This dummny doesnt seem to realize or is too dishonest to admit what is so pernicious about race based preferences. Anyone of ANY race can be a scholar. Anyone of ANY race can have wealthy Parents or be a legacy alumni parent. Anyone of ANY race can be an athlete. Anyone of ANY race can be a musician scholar qualified for a musical scholarship.

You must be BORN with the right chromosomes to take advantage of racial preferences in affirmative action, which by definition excludes ALL citizens without them. To try to pretend this distinction is the same as any other is the height of dishonesty and obsfucation, and a direct violation of the 14th amendment.


18 posted on 04/23/2014 5:13:55 PM PDT by DMZFrank
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To: kristinn

Typical progressive bubble-head lacking all understanding!


19 posted on 04/23/2014 5:27:17 PM PDT by House Atreides
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To: kristinn

If Affirmative Discrimination, er excuse me, Action students achieved at the same rate as non-AA students, then idiots like Lawrence would have a point. The facts are students let in on AA do worse academically and drop out far more than students admitted on merit. All AA programs and practices do is let the unqualified occupy positions for which they are mostly incompetent. Imagine making the NBA or NFL artificially 75% white. The quality would suffer.


20 posted on 04/23/2014 5:58:34 PM PDT by driftless2
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