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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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To: Senator_Blutarski

I think Lawrence is thinking about her own ahem qualifications. Undoubtedly, many fine thinkers and writers are discriminated against and incompetent dopes like Lawrence are hired because she’s a female liberal who champions all the p.c. causes. Morons like Lawrence cannot grasp the fact at most minority students are poor students. Many could not pass high school courses in average white schools. Few belong in elite colleges or universities. Maybe one or two percent at best are qualified to enter elite institutions of learning.


21 posted on 04/23/2014 6:03:05 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: kristinn

The best thing in the world for blacks is for blacks to gain entrance based on their accomplishments...academic, arts, athletics, etc.

If you want to elevate a people you find and promote their best.


22 posted on 04/23/2014 6:06:54 PM PDT by xzins ( Retired Army Chaplain and Proud of It! Those who truly support our troops pray for victory!)
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To: jjotto

The only thing is the children of the wealthy and powerful usually do a lot better in school than aa students. The wealthy and powerful usually got that way by being smarter than other people. They usually pass that intelligence to their children. You might have a better chance of getting admitted if your parents are wealthy, but you still have to do the work when you get there.


23 posted on 04/23/2014 6:10:49 PM PDT by driftless2
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To: Sacajaweau
When an attorney told me he went to college on a Golf scholarship, I ROTFALMAO.

Really? Why? Golf is one of the (if not the) highest revenue producing sports activities in the US. If you haven't seriously played, you'll have to take my word for it; golf is a beautiful metaphor for life.
I will never hesitate hire a golfer into my professional team - the game, like life, teaches you humility with brutal reality.

24 posted on 04/23/2014 6:22:13 PM PDT by Damifino (The true measure of a man is found in what he would do if he knew no one would ever find out.)
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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?


That analogy would make sense if we were talking about giving advantages to exceptional scholars, and excluding the mediocre. But affirmative action is about giving a leg up to the less qualified, not the more qualified. AA is like giving basketball scholarships to short clumsy people because they couldn’t otherwise succeed.


25 posted on 04/23/2014 6:32:16 PM PDT by Atlas Sneezed (Lose to Cruz - 2016!)
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To: kristinn
dragged down by, neighborhoods with poor people, inadequate schools, high crime, pollution and few transportation options or basic amenities, Democrat mayors, leftist city councils and above all, leftist journalists and editors that only propagandize for more of the same.
26 posted on 04/23/2014 7:10:03 PM PDT by gusopol3
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To: DMZFrank

Their counter to that is “white privilege” - right, wrong, or indifferent the white man has had it better than all the others, especially the blacks and therefore it’s OK to artificially “tilt the field” in their favor (no matter who is harmed in the process).

Complete poppycock that is disingenuous on the face of it and serves only to advance radical egalitarianism - encouraging the least common denominator among us instead of the highest.

I swear Mike Judge was writing a documentary on modern leftists when he wrote “Idiocracy”.


27 posted on 04/23/2014 7:19:42 PM PDT by rockrr (Everything is different now...)
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To: jjotto

Not in any University I would run. But, that’s just me. Since I will never run a university, it’s a moot point.


28 posted on 04/23/2014 7:37:16 PM PDT by Ronin (Dumb, dependent and Democrat is no way to go through life - Rep. L. Gohmert, Tex)
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To: kristinn
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.

Yup. There are: for example at public universities have a uniform policy of accepting students who graduated high school within the state in the top tenth, quarter, third, or some other fraction of their high school class. This give a leg up to students from disproportionately poor highs schools. Or simply give favorable consideration to students whose family of origin is poor. Or to first-generation college students (no ancestors who attained a college degree).

29 posted on 04/23/2014 7:51:42 PM PDT by The_Reader_David (And when they behead your own people in the wars which are to come, then you will know...)
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To: Sacajaweau

Everything nowadays is blamed on racism.


30 posted on 04/23/2014 8:08:06 PM PDT by ully2
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To: kristinn

If she continues to write this kind of race-baiting drivel, she’ll not be there very long!


31 posted on 04/23/2014 8:38:06 PM PDT by Taxman
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To: Ronin

It does a young person no favor to admit him to a school where most of the other students are smarter. The wash-out rate for the less able AA admits is very high.

Was it Berkeley that stopped admitting the less able and they found there was no drop in the number of AAs graduating.


32 posted on 04/23/2014 8:44:16 PM PDT by ladyjane
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To: kristinn
Why Should Colleges Be Blind to Color and Nothing Else?

Gee, and here I thought the goal was to be a color-blind nation, having acknowledged the original sin of racism.
If racism is bad, then how is reverse-racism also not bad?
And does reverse-racism have no expiration date?
The importance of the liberals nurturing racism is that it keeps the citizens divided along racial lines and undermines the Union (along with the left's other divisive efforts in gender, age, economics, sexual orientation, etc.)

33 posted on 04/24/2014 3:56:00 AM PDT by Amagi (Lenin: "Socialized Medicine is the Keystone to the Arch of the Socialist State.")
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To: kaehurowing

Nailed it.


34 posted on 04/24/2014 4:07:37 AM PDT by Yardstick
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