Posted on 04/06/2005 4:57:43 PM PDT by CHARLITE
In the wake of the Supreme Court's recent decision to uphold university admissions preferences, affirmative action remains a deeply divisive issue. But recent research shows that college admissions preferences do not offer even the practical benefits claimed by their supporters. Because preferences do not help minority students, policymakers and administrators of all political persuasions should oppose their use.
Affirmative action defenders frequently and correctly tout the importance of college to the goal of improving life prospects. But preferences at selective schools have not increased college access. They cannot do so because most minority students leave high school without the minimum qualifications to attend any four-year school. Only outreach and better high school preparation can reduce overall racial disparities in American colleges.
Nor do preferences increase the wages of students who attend more selective schools as a result of affirmative action. When equally prepared students are compared, recent research shows that those who attend less selective institutions make just as much money as do their counterparts from more selective schools.
Affirmative action produces no concrete benefits to minority groups, but it does produce several significant harms. First, a phenomenon called the"ratchet effect" means that preferences at a handful of top schools, including state flagship institutions, can worsen racial disparities in academic preparation at all other American colleges and universities, including those that do not use admissions preferences. This effect results in painfully large gaps in academic preparation between minority students and others on campuses around the country.
Recent sociological research demonstrates that preferences hurt campus race relationships. Worse, they harm minority student performance by activating fears of confirming negative group stereotypes, lowering grades, and reducing college completion rates among preferred students.
Research shows that skills, not credentials, can narrow socioeconomic gaps between white and minority families. Policymakers should end the harmful practice of racial preferences in college admissions. Instead, they should work to close the critical skills gap by implementing school choice reforms and setting higher academic expectations for students of all backgrounds.
He says: While the ABA and AALS congratulate themselves based on increasing the numbers of black lawyers, they neglect the carnage caused to people's lives who enter law school with a good-faith belief that the law school they are attending thinks they will succeed, while in fact admissions officers and law school administrators know that it is likely they will never become lawyers. Anywhere from one semester to three-plus years of these students' lives are wasted in a futile effort to become attorneys, while they could have been succeeding in some other field. The ABA won't accredit a law school that doesn't ADMIT what they consider to be enough black law students, but doesn't seem to mind that at many of these schools, most of the black students admitted won't become lawyers. It's a fraud, a travesty, and something that makes me very angry.
Read the rest at Ayres and Brooks on Affirmative Action in Law Schools
Thanks very much for the excellent reference, and your response. The entire policy makes me angry also. There is no logic whatsoever to race-based preferences. You could say that it holds out false hope for those admitted under those criteria, and therefore it is cruel to the students who can not keep up, while denying the opportunity to others who are clearly qualified.
This is not 1956. Schools are no longer segregated, Blacks have the same opportunities to gain a good Public School education as anyone else, why is affirmative action still needed to get them jobs and spots in schools?If they dont take advantage of the opportunity to get a good education , who's fault is that? I realise that some schools in the ghetto's are staffed by inferior teachers, Mostly teachers who needed affirmative action themselves,But again thats no excuse to continue the practice.
For the life of me, I still can't figure out why the Bush administration steadfastly defended AA. He was opposed to it as a candidate but then realized that it is a "vital state interest." He doesn't realize that affirmative action is killing academia.
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