Posted on 04/15/2022 9:54:51 AM PDT by karpov
The Supreme Court has agreed to hear two cases that challenge the legality of racial preferences in college admissions, one involving Harvard and the other the University of North Carolina. It might rule that preferences for particular racial groups violate the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and/or the 14th Amendment. Such a decision would be applauded by many Americans who believe that racial preferences are neither legal nor good policy.
If the Court strikes down racial preferences, should colleges and universities turn instead to preferences for students who come from poor families and distressed circumstances?
Going back decades, a number of writers have argued in favor of socio-economic preferences—that top colleges and universities ought to give additional consideration to applicants who are good students despite their troubled circumstances. One of those writers is Kenin Spivak, who made a passionate case for that approach in this Minding the Campus essay.
By using socioeconomic preferences, Spivak argues, our colleges can boost upward mobility and equality of opportunity. This policy “enriches our universities with diverse perspectives, benefits disadvantaged students of all races and ethnicities, and enhances our competitiveness. In short, it’s the right thing to do.”
That sounds very persuasive—but so did the arguments for racial preferences when they were first advanced in the 1970s. Advocates tend to overlook possible downsides to their favored policies. While I don’t think socioeconomic preferences would be as damaging as racial preferences have been, I foresee some drawbacks and also doubt that they would be nearly as beneficial as supporters like Spivak claim.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
This makes sense to me. A smart kid from a poor family should get the same educational opportunities as a rich kid.
Equality of opportunity has always been the conservative way.
No. Rewarding people for failure breeds more failure. They should be rewarded for success.
How about a preference for people who put in the work and demonztrate ability.
Merit based is the answer. Let the smart kids excell. The only thing holding them back are liberal social policies.
Stupid people don't get smarter in college.
No. Qualifying for a University education should be solely based on merit, ie, demonstrated academic achievement. If any preference is allowed, it should only be a preference to educate US citizens in US universities. No admission from countries that are adversarial with us like China, Islamic countries.
No, we should replace it with objective measurable criteria like test results. They’ve proven to be highly predictive of academic success. And if you’re worried about discrimination, make sure the people scoring the tests don’t know who the test subject was. Oh, that’s right, they never did!
Equality of opportunity has always been the conservative way.
Get rid of racial, ethnic, sexual and all the other admission preferences and the poor kid is competing on a level field for admission: Get the best grades, get in to college.
What needs balancing for the poor kid is the outrageous cost of attending college. That can be fixed and I personally think that the schools should subsidize the poorer kids. And I think they do to some extent.
Giving a preference to someone just because their skin is red or black or brown is just wrong. It has to end. I think the Supremes will do so.
Basing preferences on ability and excellence with a weighting of socioeconomic status seems reasonable to me. I have seen many rich kids dragged across the finish line to good grades and test scores by involved parents, tutors, and prep classes.
Given a poor kid and a rich kid with similar results it is a good bet the poor kid did more with less.
“Stupid people don’t get smarter in college.”
Maybe good point. Maybe better to implement the preferences in schooling prior to college.
Affirmative-action is politically correct discrimination.
How about no discrimination against anybody for their skin color or socioeconomic status or anything else?
“I have seen many rich kids dragged across the finish line to good grades and test scores by involved parents, tutors, and prep classes.”
Take out the word “rich” and please rethink your position? It should be based on scores alone. Why should we be penalizing marriage and involved parents in order to reward single moms?
Also, why the hatred of the “rich”? Is it envy? Covetousness? As long as they are not bribing their way in, why should they be penalized?
“Maybe better to implement the preferences in schooling prior to college.”
Who decides what preferences?
Also, please recognize for every preference, there is somebody being penalized. Who should be penalized? Those married? Christians, heterosexuals? the “Rich”?
“A smart kid from a poor family should get the same educational opportunities as a rich kid.”
That is not what they are saying. A poor child with a lower score than a “rich” kid will be admitted, not the rich kid.
Also, what is your definition of “rich”? For most people it is someone who has more money and/or income than them?
It won’t happen if there is slight smell merit in it
I was too busy paying attention to my classes and working at Farrell's to get caught up in the fervor of test prep that many of my fellow students were doing. They got all excited about taking the PSAT. I never even purchased a prep book. I encountered the SAT cold.
When I took an interest in attending UCSD, they wanted an SAT. Fine. I signed up. The test was in late November. A morning and afternoon session at Patrick Henry High School. I zipped off to 7-Eleven and grabbed a quart of eggnog for lunch. In December, I took a drive up to the campus, acquired an application for Revelle at the registrars office. I filled it out and wrote them a check. A few weeks later, an acceptance letter arrived. I had applied to start in January 1974. It took a little juggling to deal with the overlap of the Fall semester at Southwestern College and Winter quarter at Revelle. The campuses are 30 miles apart.
The admissions process yielded a pretty competitive body of students. Many of us had pre-med aspirations. There was a huge incentive to remain on the dean's list...reduced car insurance rates. Important since my age ranged from 17 to 19 during my time at UCSD.
There were clearly some failures in the admissions process. Some of the students were overwhelmed with the cut-throat level of academic competitiveness. It was more than just mastering the material. It was competing to be the best of the best.
Merit be razist
It’s better than affirmative action, but still has issues.
Regardless, this is a Supreme Court that just added a member who sole “qualification” aside from being a red diaper doper baby is she’s black and racist
.
“Who decides what preferences”
We all do as voters. How much of our taxes go to helping out the less fortunate? Taxpayers are already being “penalized” but are willing to have some of their money go to help those less fortunate.
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